A compiled theory of dimensional dynamics.

[Carpaccio]

Hello folks. Once again my endless curiosity has landed me in a thinking state. Fortunately it has something to do with spriting thus it may be of interest to you. This little theory is to identify the difference between sprites and textures in terms of usability, and the fairness of credit and customs.

-=IF YOU DON'T WANT TO HEAR MY OPINIONS GO STRAIGHT TO SECTION "Puppies"=-

First off, I would like to state that I absolutely detest when accomplished sprite rippers switch over to ripping textures. In my personal opinion, textures are nearly completely useless to people who have no means of using them properly, as is the case with most people. Not only that, other than modding there is no real purpose for them. Without fully rendered figures and fully rendered backgrounds, there is no prospect of comic-making when it comes to textures. Overall, I would much prefer it if everyone here stuck to sprites as it IS titled "The SPRITERS Resource."

Secondly, I would like to state that I love customs and enjoy those which are fully done properly. This is not saying I like every custom that comes out of the woodwork. Only finely-crafted and properly made customs satisfy me. Star Fox characters poorly edited from Mega Man components do not please me. Now a certain spriters Animal Crossing villagers sprites so far have greatly interested me and I immensely wish they would continue that series. It all depends on quality.

Thirdly, I want to establish that I do not hate 3-D games. I thinkt hey're fabulous, but they do piss me off sometimes in the fact that they have nearly no rippable and usable content. I mean sure, there may be some user-interface sprites or some images froma character select screen, or maybe a calculator. Honestly though, who the hell is going to use those in your comic. I certainly wouldn't, unless the comic is meant to be exactly like a video game.

-=Puppies=-

Finally, the little theory.
My theory is that though textures are indeed interesting to rip, they lack most usability to most designers of comics and fan games unless they are already accomplished 3-D artists and have the means to fully render the characters or object relating to the textures. Thus, the purpose for ripping this is usually nonexistant and unless otherwise stated should be kept only to personal projects or if kindly fulfilling a plea for help. In the latter case, it would be easier to simply dispense the methods on which to rip the textures indicated by the requester and only actually do ripping if the person is completely inept at the process. My simple idea is that The Spriters Resource should be catering only to SPRITERS, as that is the NAME of the place and the founding idea. There's much greater prospect in ripping sprites and much more likelihood that they are going to be used.

Now for my little rant on credit.
Credit is nice, credit is good, credit is very pleasant, but it's also mind blowingly obnoxious at times. I understand that ripping sprites is rather difficult at times, and one wishes to be compensated. but the matter of the fact is, you're not going to get any no matter what you do. Spriting is a project of kindness and the generosity that should be abundant in this world. Simply put, the art of spriting is meant to be for the people and not for yourself. It's all right if you put a little tag saying who ripped them, but to demand attention and notification is obnoxious. Unless the sprites are fully custom and therefore warrant someone's attention if used, then you shouldn't be bothering to irritate the person who happens to partake in your work. Face it, unless they're custom, you have no power over them and no claim to them. They were created by the game's sprite artist, you are merely presenting them in a useable manner. Asking for the person to give credit is like working in a soup kitchen and telling the bums to tell their friends about you specifically. It's just plain obnoxious.

And my last point, customs.
If you're going to make customs sprites, put some friggin' effort into it. I'm sick of seeing stupid little Mega Man edits that are thought to be OH SO ORIGINAL or Sonic recolors that are EVER SO EPIC! EDITS are NOT customs. If I see one more anime character who's just an edit of zero from the MEga MAn Zero series I'm liable to directly yell at the person purveying it.
In short, customs are meant to be just that, custom. If you're going to make a sprite, actually make it yourself and don't steal other people's effort.

And thus ends my rant.

And a small question here...Is Mr.Game and Watch in Melee and Brawl a textured model or just 2-D sprites in a 3-D world?

[Wes]

I'm pretty sure G&W is just a really really thin 3-D model. I know that his "texture" is just one black pixel mapped to his entire model.

[Vipershark]

G&W is a model made out of spheres and cylinders with a "flatten" effect on it.
Through homebrew and codes, it's possible to get other characters to have this effect.

I'm pretty sure that you can see an unflattened (although highly deformed) G&W on one of the many brawl moveswap videos on youtube.

[TomGuycott]

By your logic, I could go and say "This is the Spriter's Resource, not the Sprite-Comic-Maker's Resource". That arguement is a tad weak. The main reason I started to come here is that I like pretty pictures and things that make me feel nostalgic, but I digress.

Here's the thing about textures, from my perspective anyway: they ARE a potential resource for a spriter. Sure, only those with 3D modeling programs can put the textures to their intended use, but it's not like those 3D programs are impossible to come across. Sure, they're expensive, but so is any computer program of that nature.

One thing that I think the textures are very good for are reference. Think about the majority of older 3D games... the polygons made everything look so choppy, and often hard to make out. However, the textures, despite not being wrapped around a model, give anyone with half the foresight on how to piece the textures together to make one solid character can use that clearer image as a reference for, say, a custom sprite for a character who had no 2D sprite appearance.

I guess my point for the textures arguement is this: why should you care? It's not like anyone is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to find a way to use the textures. It's not like you're paying taxes for every texture that's submitted. If somebody has an interest in pursuing these textures for their own enjoyment and for the sake of letting other people enjoy them, why not let them? In reality, the textures are the closest thing to a sprite you can find in a 3D game.

As for your other ranting, overly obnoxious credit tags do get on my nerves, and crappy edits from sources that have been tapped bone dry by uncreative leeches day in and day out should be burned to the ground, and that should be every boys' and girls' daily mantra. Do it now!

[Cobalt Blue]

texture rips are as useful as sprite rips for one single reason: reference materials.

not every single sprite in this place is used as "fan game fodder", neither every texture is. a personal experience send me thru every single texture rip from the RE2 section, finding how awesome they do look outside the game, helping me understand better how to handle them on my own modeling learning.