how do i do this

damagister · Post by **damagister** » December 29th, 2006, 4:05 am

i want to help out with the art and make my own campaigns.what do i need for those two things?and where can i get them?

commanderkeen · Post by **commanderkeen** » December 29th, 2006, 4:11 am

This should help

damagister · Post by **damagister** » December 29th, 2006, 4:14 am

thanks man

damagister · Post by **damagister** » December 29th, 2006, 4:36 am

i cant seem to get gimp to work it seems incredibly complicated is it possible just to use paint somehow?

commanderkeen · Post by **commanderkeen** » December 29th, 2006, 4:43 am

You don't have to use GIMP, I don't, because it's incredibly complicated. Try JDraw if you like. You don't have to use any special application. MSPaint will do, if its all you have. I'm not a big fan of the GIMP, but I only have an old version, so it may be better now...

Those programs on the list are what the art devs use. They are experienced at them. You can use anything, from MSPaint to The GIMP. Just use what you know best or what gets the job done.

Jew unit · Post by **Jew unit** » December 29th, 2006, 5:17 am

commanderkeen wrote:You don't have to use GIMP, I don't, because it's incredibly complicated. Try JDraw if you like. You don't have to use any special application. MSPaint will do, if its all you have. I'm not a big fan of the GIMP, but I only have an old version, so it may be better now...

Those programs on the list are what the art devs use. They are experienced at them. You can use anything, from MSPaint to The GIMP. Just use what you know best or what gets the job done.

yea ... but you cant do transpancy on ms paint (or if you can you'd be my hero if you told me how) and sprites without tranparancy dont work. and yea GIMP would be a lot nicer if it was easy to use :-/

Post by **irrevenant** » December 29th, 2006, 5:23 am

commanderkeen wrote:MSPaint will do, if its all you have.

Unfortunately, that's not really true. MS Paint has poor (read "no") support for images with partial transparency. That's a must for unit graphics and terrains in Wesnoth.

Portraits or story art you could theoretically do in MS Paint, but it's about 90% easier with the tools the GIMP brings to the table, such as layers, anti-aliasing, transparency (again) and custom selection tools.

The GIMP (or for that matter, Photoshop) are scary, but the learning curve is well worth it.

There's a Free online book called Grokking the GIMP. It's for an older version but it should still tell you what you need to know.

OTOH, if you really don't want to use GIMP I understand there are other tools that fall closer to MS Paint in complexity, but have transparency (and possibly other features).

Can anybody recommend some, please?

commanderkeen · Post by **commanderkeen** » December 29th, 2006, 5:31 am

I use Jdraw, It's in the list of programs, but it needs java runtime. Its like paint with transparency, but it is a bit slow to run...

I find Corel Photo-Paint a good tool for portraits, although I use version 3 and version 10 is out... Plus, it isn't free

Whatever you use, get Xnview. It doesn't do transparency, it's just a batch converter sorta thing. Since JDraw has no fancy functions, I use XnView for the posh FX.

Post by **Blarumyrran** » December 29th, 2006, 11:19 am

Jew unit wrote:yea ... but you cant do transpancy on ms paint (or if you can you'd be my hero if you told me how) and sprites without tranparancy dont work. and yea GIMP would be a lot nicer if it was easy to use :-/

yep, tell that to Neorice

my avatar doesnt have transparency(apart from shadow), that doesnt make it ugly, does it?

i must agree that Adobe Photoshop UI is a LOT better than Gimp's. too bad its not free.

Post by **irrevenant** » December 29th, 2006, 12:46 pm

Syntax_Error wrote:
Jew unit wrote:yea ... but you cant do transpancy on ms paint (or if you can you'd be my hero if you told me how) and sprites without tranparancy dont work. and yea GIMP would be a lot nicer if it was easy to use :-/
yep, tell that to Neorice

Neorice does most of his sprites in MS Paint but then he has to use other software to add the transparency anyway.

And Neorice is a freak (in a good way).

Syntax_Error wrote:my avatar doesnt have transparency(apart from shadow), that doesnt make it ugly, does it?

Not at all. But you can't just say "apart from shadow". The transparent shadow is a requirement for the sprite to be usable in game, and you can't create that transparent shadow in MS Paint.

Syntax_Error wrote:i must agree that Adobe Photoshop UI is a LOT better than Gimp's. too bad its not free.

It's certainly a lot more intuitive to Windows users, but that doesn't necessarily make it better.

Dragon Master · Post by **Dragon Master** » December 29th, 2006, 2:29 pm

perhaps someone should write a guide in the create section on how to intuitively use GIMP. I'm up for it if it's necessary.

damagister · Post by **damagister** » December 29th, 2006, 5:21 pm

that would really help

appleide · Post by **appleide** » December 30th, 2006, 5:05 am

Pixen is good, for Mac OS X, however.
http://www.opensword.org/Pixen/