Misc Frames/Sprites

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Lizard
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Re: Misc Frames/Sprites

Post by Lizard »

Federalist marshal wrote:
AI wrote:Lizard liked committing them into EoS as soon as you finished them, so you may be able to find something in the saurian directory.
Thanks for the saurian directory; it helped me find some of the files, but unfortunately not all of them. I've attached what I managed to find along with what I do have.
Sorry, I didn't add the skirmisher frames, because i just use [base_unit] to modify the advancements. I don't know how to change the animation, I'll just wait until it gets Mainline.
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Jetrel
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Re: Misc Frames/Sprites

Post by Jetrel »

Nice - I'll try and get these committed+processed+whatever sometime later today or tomorrow.
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Jetrel
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Re: Misc Frames/Sprites

Post by Jetrel »

Augur frames processed, but not yet committed because SVN's SSH is misbehaving.

:cry: I basically had to almost totally redo the images you sent me, because their alpha-channels were just batty, the image colors were changed and TC was broken (also, because some of the motion wasn't fluid enough).

From now on, I have to ask that you in particular either: 1] use a program like Pixen or MS Paint that doesn't allow you to do anything more than a binary alpha channel, or 2] do this right. If you don't do this, I'm going to have to start rejecting your submissions. I appreciate actual help, but these are eating more time cleaning up than I'd spend doing them from scratch.


As for making the motion fluid enough, I say this time and time again, but kinematics dictates that any motion in one part of the body will cause each and every other part of a person's body to move. They're subtle motions, but they have to be done in order for a sprite animation to look right. Yes, this means as crazy of an idea as "if you move your arm, you foot will move". Balance works that way. The rest of the body has to move to keep a figure's balance, and to keep the internal structure of a figure and it's clothes from being stretched past breaking. Move every part of the body, and consider separately for every part of the body where it should move to keep the character balanced.

The different parts of the body are like kids on a teeter-totter - if any one of them moves, the balance changes, and the others will have to adjust. You can use the mental picture of a teeter totter to visualize how the body would have to move - if a heavy part (think of a fat kid) moves a little, then small parts (think of a skinny kid) will have to move a lot to compensate. Getting this balance stuff right is not easy to do, so I'm understanding about this part - but from now on, take the advice I just gave on it to heart.

:| I do have to lay down an ultimatum, though - I can't afford to keep repeating the same things to you over and over again. I've told you in no uncertain terms how to fix this issue of muddled colors and alpha channels. Don't apologize, just fix the problem for any future work. If you don't know how, re-read my posts, or go learn what an alpha channel is. I'm not going to keep repeating myself, and if you submit stuff with these problems in the future, I'm simply going to ignore it.
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Federalist marshal
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Re: Misc Frames/Sprites

Post by Federalist marshal »

Jetryl wrote::| I do have to lay down an ultimatum, though - I can't afford to keep repeating the same things to you over and over again. I've told you in no uncertain terms how to fix this issue of muddled colors and alpha channels. Don't apologize, just fix the problem for any future work. If you don't know how, re-read my posts, or go learn what an alpha channel is. I'm not going to keep repeating myself, and if you submit stuff with these problems in the future, I'm simply going to ignore it.
Two things I'd like to specifically ask, then: 1. In what ways can I check my work to see if they have something wrong? I usually do check but apparently I'm still missing a lot of stuff, and 2. Is my usage of GIMP in any way to blame, and if it does how could I alleviate it or switch to a different program?

Besides that I think all your previous posts should be more than enough to help.
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Re: Misc Frames/Sprites

Post by jdsampayo »

For the GIMP, please verify if your eraser tool has checked the "hard edge" option, otherwise, each time you use it, it will not erase the pixel at all, it will increase the alpha level of the pixel you clicked and a little more the pixels surrounding it.

Another recommendation is, save the colors used in the base sprite to use them in your animations, I usually pick one color and paint one pixel in the corner, then pick another color and paint it in the corner, and the same with all colors to create a particular palette, and then, in your animations, use these colors and only these, unless you know exactly what you are doing try to attach to the original palette.

Use multiple views at the same time, I usually have one in 800% or 400% to edit, one in 200% to see details, and another in 100% to see the final sprite, the three views fit in a 1024x768 screen :eng:

And last but not least, do all your work with the pencil tool, pixel per pixel.

cheers.
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Jetrel
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Re: Misc Frames/Sprites

Post by Jetrel »

:eng: Everything that jdsampayo said is good advice, especially:
For the GIMP, please verify if your eraser tool has checked the "hard edge" option, otherwise, each time you use it, it will not erase the pixel at all, it will increase the alpha level of the pixel you clicked and a little more the pixels surrounding it.
Turn hard edge on!
And last but not least, do all your work with the pencil tool, pixel per pixel.
Yes! Don't ever touch the brush tool for pixel art.
Use multiple views at the same time, I usually have one in 800% or 400% to edit, one in 200% to see details, and another in 100% to see the final sprite, the three views fit in a 1024x768 screen.
This is actually pretty good advice.


Also, make sure you have "interpolation" in the options set to "none", rather than "cubic" or "linear". This means that whenever you stretch or resize stuff, it doesn't get blurry.
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thespaceinvader
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Re: Misc Frames/Sprites

Post by thespaceinvader »

For the last, is there a way to set that up in GIMP - i've never found the appropriate option. I don't mind zooming in and out constantly, but being able to have it done automatically like that would be fab...
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doofus-01
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Re: Misc Frames/Sprites

Post by doofus-01 »

Go to Dialogues -> Images, then click the button for new image at the bottom of the box that pops up.
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thespaceinvader
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Re: Misc Frames/Sprites

Post by thespaceinvader »

Thanks =)

I hope i can actually remember that next time i'm spriting...
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Federalist marshal
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Re: Misc Frames/Sprites

Post by Federalist marshal »

Ok, I've made an in-between frame for the dwarvish guardsman, but I will check to make sure if I skipped anything before posting it.

I have turned on hard-edge, left the paintbrush tool unused, set interpolation to none, as well as changing the position of every limb of the gurardsman.

I did a little bit of cut-and-paste in this particular sprite, and I remember there being something about cutting and pasting that detracts from the cleanliness of the sprite. I don't remember exactly what this is, however. Can someone remind me?
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Jetrel
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Re: Misc Frames/Sprites

Post by Jetrel »

Federalist marshal wrote:I did a little bit of cut-and-paste in this particular sprite, and I remember there being something about cutting and pasting that detracts from the cleanliness of the sprite. I don't remember exactly what this is, however. Can someone remind me?
Cutting and pasting is fine, just:
1] Don't 'stretch' parts of the sprite unless you can guarantee that the pixels don't get blurred by interpolation.
2] Don't cut and past partly transparent stuff.
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Jetrel
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Re: Misc Frames/Sprites

Post by Jetrel »

All of the saurian frames from this, except the skirmisher frames, have been processed. Those await the ever-receding tomorrow.
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Federalist marshal
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Re: Misc Frames/Sprites

Post by Federalist marshal »

Ok, here's what I have for the frame. If anything is wrong with it this time I'd like to fix it myself.
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guard-attack-1.png
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Jetrel
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Re: Misc Frames/Sprites

Post by Jetrel »

Federalist marshal wrote:Ok, here's what I have for the frame. If anything is wrong with it this time I'd like to fix it myself.
The colors seem to be correct, but - once again, your alpha channel has random holes in it. There's a spot near his right (seen to our left) knee where it's randomly about halfways transparent for no good reason.

I don't want you to just correct this in this particular sprite - it's far more important that you figure out in your process where this is coming from, and fix it there. Figure out what is causing this in the first place. (I might be able to give advice if you can tell me what program you are using to do this.)


Also - don't make shadows blurred anymore. We're changing shadows back to the old standard of black, at 60% opacity. This item wasn't obvious, so it's no fault of yours if you didn't know it. I need to update that tutorial.
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Re: Misc Frames/Sprites

Post by Thrawn »

just a tip that *may* help...but when working on sprites, have a solid background layer, and be working on a transparent one over it.

That way you can change the BG color to something bright and annoying, and see any holes you may have missed due to the gridded background...
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