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Gors · (This post was last modified: 08-04-2010, 10:48 PM by Gors.)

I realised there isn't any thread that actually helps building sprite sheets, so I thought I could throw some tips on

HOW TO MAKE A GOOD SPRITE SHEET
by Gorsal

So, you just finished grabbing all the sprites from something. Great, isn't it? Now, how are you going to place them in the sheet?

First of all, make sure there is enough content on the sheet. Even if you did a great job, we won't accept a single '?' block for submission. If your sheet is too small, try adding more relevant content so it'll be worthy to be posted at tSR's main site!

If your sheet does have enough content, then continue reading!

A good way of doing it is putting different animation sprites in different lines. This way, you'll avoid making the sheet confusing.

[Image: achilles.gif]

courtesy of Kevin Huff

Look how the different actions are placed in different lines: the first line shows all the frames for walking; the second one, for shooting, etc. This gives the sheet a cleaner look. This is valid for any sprite, be it ripped or custom.

Labelling all the actions also helps organizing things a lot:

[Image: richterbelmont.gif]

courtesy of Lord Zymeth

If your sprite sheet contains several pieces, you can include them so others can build their own poses. Make groups of similar-looking pieces and place them in a way that it doesnt make the sheet messy. Take a look at this, for example:

[Image: umihara_hero.PNG]

Notice that all the arm pieces, bait pieces and hook pieces are organized in small groups. Also notice how I placed them; the frames are put in animation order, so it's easier to localize the frame you're looking for. Consider organizing pieces like making a small sheet inside another sheet.

PS-sheets with a lot of small pieces tend to be harder to use, so don't forget to make a small example of use, like I did.

If the character you ripped changes color palettes in-game, be sure to grab at least ONE pose with the different palette.

[Image: mario.PNG]

courtesy of Tonberry2k

Check this sheet's bottom-right corner. There are a bunch of Marios with different color palettes (including the original). By including the different color palettes, then the user can easily recolor any pose with any color he likes.

One thing that you might have noticed by now is that all the sprite sheets I showed here don't use white as the background color. Use a unsaturated color (dull colors, like gray) as background color for your sheets. This way, the white details will be kept intact, improving readability. Do not choose very bright colors or else it'll make your sheet eye-burning.

Put the sprites in equally-sized boxes, IF YOU WANT. Sprites inside boxes are extremely helpful when animating, and it'll be very convenient for the animator. But it takes A LOT OF TIME (sometimes more than the time you spent ripping) and requires you to have some animating program to do, so beware.

Example of sheet with boxes:

[Image: marinaspritesheet1en9.png]

courtesy of Gorsal

I also added box width and height to make it better to animate. Keep in mind that this process is easier when you box them while ripping/spriting; boxing the sprites after finishing the rip is painfully tedious, and I don't reccomend it.

Keep the sprites' pixel ratio at 1x, which is their native size. Don't unecessarily zoom the sprite, making it bigger than normal. This means, instead of doing this:

[Image: leveluptext.png]

courtesy of Steven

do this.

[Image: levelupq.png]

courtesy of Neslug

And finally, DO NOT MAKE HUGE-ASS CREDIT TAGS. The star of the sprite sheet are the sprites, so why making an extremely LARGE tag? So avoid doing things like this:

[Image: attachment.php?aid=345]

courtesy of Monty Oum

Also, try to eliminate the most of the blank spaces possible. They just increse the file size and it makes your sheet to look like shit.

So, that is all. I hope this helped you how to make a good sheet. Thanks for reading!

"Wait, Gorsal! Can you give me some more examples of WHAT NOT TO DO WHEN MAKING A SHEET?"
Sure! Take a look at them, and try to find out why they're bad. This way, you'll understand why I made this thread.