Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

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iceiceice
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Re: Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

Post by iceiceice »

What exactly is the issue? Anything that is taken out that you like, you can put back into the UMC content, right?

The core content is only supposed to support mainline campaigns, + some extras from the artist forum that it is thought will find a place I guess.

Are you saying you want the mainline campaign maintainers to use different sprites from what they do currently? Or is it just that you want the download size for your add-on to be smaller.
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Adamant14
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Re: Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

Post by Adamant14 »

bumbadadabum wrote:There are actually a lot of new animations as well in 1.11 (and 1.12). It seems like you're completely forgetting about those. I'm fairly sure there has been an increase in animations in 1.11.
Yes there are some new animations, but there were are also some mounted units which have very good sprites and very good animations replaced by non animated sprites.
And in my opinion ( I am not an artist ), those new non-animate sprites don't look better than the old ones.
I personally like the old ones much more than the new ones -and that not only because the old ones are fully animated.
I really don't think it is a good idea to replace good animated sprites by non animated sprites.
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Pentarctagon
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Re: Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

Post by Pentarctagon »

iceiceice wrote:What exactly is the issue? Anything that is taken out that you like, you can put back into the UMC content, right?

The core content is only supposed to support mainline campaigns, + some extras from the artist forum that it is thought will find a place I guess.

Are you saying you want the mainline campaign maintainers to use different sprites from what they do currently? Or is it just that you want the download size for your add-on to be smaller.
He's complaining about older animated units getting replaced by newer non-animated ones.
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Adamant14
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Re: Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

Post by Adamant14 »

And about not replacing in a special case, just because the special case is not pixel art.

I still haven't completely understood why it must be pixel art.
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iceiceice
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Re: Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

Post by iceiceice »

Pentarctagon wrote: He's complaining about older animated units getting replaced by newer non-animated ones.
Yes but for which campaigns and what purposes. AFAIK none of those dragon sprites are in any mainline campaigns, so its pretty silly to argue about which ones get to be in trunk...
Last edited by iceiceice on November 26th, 2013, 8:11 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Dugi
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Re: Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

Post by Dugi »

AFAIK none of those dragon sprites are in any mainlines campaigns so its pretty silly to argue about which ones get to be in trunk...
That was just an example. Liberty's Rogue Mages used to be animated in 1.8, but they aren't animated in 1.10. Horseman's advancements and Cavalryman and his advancements are animated in 1.10, but in 1.11.7, the most probable future of wesnoth, they aren't. This affects many mainline campaigns. This problem is not to be belittled.
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Adamant14
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Re: Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

Post by Adamant14 »

iceiceice wrote:Yes but for which campaigns and what purposes. AFAIK none of those dragon sprites are in any mainlines campaigns so its pretty silly to argue about which ones get to be in trunk...
They are not, but maybe they should be. There is at least one mainline campaign with a dragon.

And what about the elvish scout and his advancements.
In my eyes the new sprites are not better than the old (and animated) ones.
Last edited by Adamant14 on November 26th, 2013, 8:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

Post by Paulomat4 »

I believe the rogue mage are currently getting animated...
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Re: Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

Post by Velensk »

I'm pretty sure the intent is to animate all sprites however they just haven't finished all the animations for everything as the game runs on volunteer work. The mere fact that there is a new baseframe shows that somebody is working on it. I think there's even a thread about that in the developer art contributions section of the forum.
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Re: Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

Post by Dugi »

Paulomat4 wrote:I believe the rogue mage are currently getting animated...
There were some endeavours, but it never got too far. I remember that long ago somebody posted he was going to animate them, but no newer news of that and still nothing committed.
Velensk wrote:The mere fact that there is a new baseframe shows that somebody is working on it.
It may seem so, but in reality, I have never heard of anybody working on the new dragon sprite that lingers with no animation for about two years. The new horsemen/cavalrymen are there for months and no signs of animating progress.
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Telchin
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Re: Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

Post by Telchin »

I for one like the new dragon sprites as they actually look like dragons (as opposed to a red wywern and a skeletal hunchbacked lizard :P ). The old spectre wasn't animated (AFAIK), so replacing it with a non-animated sprite is OK. The new Sea serpent looks better, though I was bemused that it looks more like an anglerfish than a snake. Not sure if the change to the cavalry and giant scorpion were necessary (the look the same to me), but I'm not an artist.
Speaking of not being an artist, I can't draw a decent sprite let alone animate it. (Big thanks to homunculus for making an animated Giant clam sprite for my UMC.) Therefore I don't mind if a sprite is not animated as long as the basic sprite looks good (as that one is visible for most of the time). Or maybe it just shows that I study law so I just tend to agree with whoever makes the rules (Jetrel in this case). :)
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Re: Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

Post by aquileia »

Paulomat4 wrote:I believe the rogue mage are currently getting animated...
A little bit off topic, but if this is the case I hope they work on the new, not yet committed ones:
http://forum.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php? ... 8&start=15
And I really hope these get committed before the freeze for 1.12 - Jetrel had already approved but probably waited for some tweaks to be done. As they include a standing animation for the shadow lord, this would even bring in a new animation the current sprite lacks!

As to the replacement of old sprites, my opinion is rather divided: I love the new baseframes for the monster lines, but dislike the mounted units losing their animations. Their previous state was mostly impressive, so the replacements IMHO aren't a sufficient improvement to warrant the loss. I mean, some years ago, sprites were declined for this very reason.
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Dugi
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Re: Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

Post by Dugi »

aquileia wrote:A little bit off topic, but if this is the case I hope they work on the new, not yet committed ones
Blarumyrran (the guy who drew these sprites) wrote:Anyway, I think they're done by me, other than shadows & standinganim (magic bubbles/smoke from the Magical swords of level2&3; I won't be doing any other animations).
What makes you think so? They only talked about some corrections and changes to the baseframe and committing them, the only cases where they mentioned the animations were please, animate it -> I will make some sort of floating bubbles as standing animation, but not any other animations -> not even those were made.

That topic also led me to this quote:
Jetrel wrote:Please do animate these - I'd LOVE to have these replace the in-game unit.
This clearly states that it was common in the past that only animated sprites made it into the game.
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Crow_T
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Re: Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

Post by Crow_T »

helmick2003 wrote: The resources posted by Crow_T look like a decent list of programs, do you know if any of them provide a decent "beginner's tutorial?"
The "create" link above, as well as Zerovirus' art thread, contain some nice non-software specific guidelines, but they don't really go too deep. I find doing some frankens really helps to get a feel for spriting.

Gimp is a good, stable spriting program- it lacks some sprite specific tools, but with some setup it can be quite powerful. Maybe I'll make a tutorial on my blog, I'll PM you if I do :D

Graphicsgale looks like a strong contender for animating, in an early test I discovered it has great rotate/scaling algorithms (for Wesnoth the free version is plenty btw).

The powers that be may want to consider the possibility of video tutorials to help spread the techniques of the art contributers, both sprite and portrait.

Obviously this is FOSS and it depends on the users to get things done, but the more tutorials and info available the better. Educated users become contributers.
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Re: Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

Post by Jetrel »

Dugi, you've responded with a bunch of unsubstantiated opinions dressed up as facts, as well as some actual facts that aren't correct (the number of unanimated units has systematically been reduced over time, the only recent exceptions being the horsemen, and the dragon). You don't know what you're talking about, and you don't win by telling me I'm wrong. I'm the only person with a vote on this - you're supposed to be trying to persuade me.

Speaking as pretty much the guy who has personally invested several unpaid man-years into doing the majority of the animations we have (for basically everything other than what sleepwalker got paid to do - really, even to this day, the animations on something like 70% of our units were personally done by me), this second-guessing of things I'm saying is just ... discouraging. It makes me tired and makes me feel like people don't care. I'd really appreciate it if you were willing to give me the benefit of the doubt.

Please don't get the wrong idea. I'm called the art director not because I boss other people around and make decisions for them. I was for the longest time, the only person who was making all the sprite art, so they made me art director because by singlehandedly making everything, I was coincidentally making all the decisions anyways. I am the general because I am also the entire army.
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