Erik, Regarding the black sprites - I had a similar problem in my Might & Magic Tribute demo. A number of users reported that the NPCs etc. were all completely black. The NPCs in my game are simply 2D masked sprites set to face the camera.
For an example screenshot of the problem see this post:
http://www.mmt.34sp.com/mmtforums/index.php?showtopic=464
I looked into it and I seemed to get the problem to go away by disabling the light I was using to add a bit of shading to the terrain & models. I don't know why this worked though. Are you using any lights in your game? (not had a chance to look at it yet)
I never raised this as a bug because I figured it was probably something I was doing wrong. Perhaps it is worth raising after all?
For an example screenshot of the problem see this post:
http://www.mmt.34sp.com/mmtforums/index.php?showtopic=464
I looked into it and I seemed to get the problem to go away by disabling the light I was using to add a bit of shading to the terrain & models. I don't know why this worked though. Are you using any lights in your game? (not had a chance to look at it yet)
I never raised this as a bug because I figured it was probably something I was doing wrong. Perhaps it is worth raising after all?