PM's General Spriting topic

[TomGuycott]

It has some sort of potential, but it's clearly in need of some cleaning up. In your colored animation, part of the lantern part has big chunks of pixels missing between certain frames.

[DioShiba]

The animations are great and all, but you need to put more focus on how readable the sprite is at the moment and save them for a later time.

Because I can't tell which antenna is which, improving on the shading at the ends of them might be a start.

[PRIMAL MORON]

The animations are great and all, but you need to put more focus on how readable the sprite is at the moment and save them for a later time.

Because I can't tell which antenna is which, improving on the shading at the ends of them might be a start.

Valid points, I'll hop to it.
So far, I'm at looking these 4 fixes:
1- fix the broken antennae so it is consistent
2- improve the shading on the lights
3- increase readability
4- put off animations until truly ready.

Basically, you're all looking at larger sprites from what I can tell, with more detail, and more accuracy, all easy fixes.

With one slight drawback,
Some of the animations didn't quite meet the save button on my original base set, so when I make this change... You'll be looking at a few less animations, some will be discontinued, and in all honesty, probably aren't needed anyways.

Since this project is still up in the air for requirements on my part, I'm going to try to cut back and improve what I have, maybe redo those animations at a later date.

Most of these changes are honestly easy for me and can be altered easily and quickly, but altering isn't my issue here, it's time that i'm spending on the sets all at once, all 99+ of them,

So for now,

I'm going to break these sheets down even further into individual animation sets, starting with the most basic, the idle stance...

I'll replace those sheets up on page 1 with a set that will be filled one by one, until this is gotten right.

That should make more people feel like this isn't a rush project, and give more time to focus on quality.

Hope that sums up everything so far in general.

That's all for now.

[Garamonde]

Now this is the right way to go. Listening to everyone's advice and making your sprites awesome.

I'm really glad you decided to turn around for the better, I'd hate to see a member leave when they could have really good potential!

And I'm alright, I don't get offended easily. I would love to see how you'd make that Jetters sprite though sometime.

[Tailikku]

Those are some very good sprites my friend.

[PRIMAL MORON]

Special update:
New character announced up front, and Chinchou remastered for idle.


That's all for now.

[Zadaben]

His arms look odd when they swing up by his body, I would add a border to them. Looking good, though!

[Gors]

unless you placed the pixels in that piece, this isn't pixelart and rather vector/flash etc.

[MarvelFan]

unless you placed the pixels in that piece, this isn't pixelart and rather vector/flash etc.

I guess it's pixelart, maybe not hand-made tough, but pixelart yes.

Pixel art is a form of digital art, created through the use of raster graphics software, where images are edited on the pixel level.

[Previous]

unless you placed the pixels in that piece, this isn't pixelart and rather vector/flash etc.

I guess it's pixelart, maybe not hand-made tough, but pixelart yes.

Pixel art is a form of digital art, created through the use of raster graphics software, where images are edited on the pixel level.

Not that I would want that kind of discussion again.
Anyways, since the forum description says 'sprites and pixel art' and 'sprites' do not neccesarily have to be pixel art, depending on the definition you are using...


Anyways the lamps shouldn't have blue outlines but yellor/orange ones. And I agree with SirZ about the usage of inlines.

[PRIMAL MORON]

unless you placed the pixels in that piece, this isn't pixelart and rather vector/flash etc.

I guess it's pixelart, maybe not hand-made tough, but pixelart yes.

Pixel art is a form of digital art, created through the use of raster graphics software, where images are edited on the pixel level.

Actually, you're both wrong... to an extent...

But you're also both half right, too.

It's a sprite, edited using the pre-rendered CGI (it is vector and and is legit as a sprite) methods, that were then edited afterwards with effects on the pixel level.

Bigger point though, who cares? Let's talk about the quality of the work at hand and how to make it better, not criticize it based on how it was made or what the definition of it is.

Anyways, everyone seems fine with it, so there shouldn't be any problems.

I didn't even originally have this topic here, machobot moved it for me because I was going at this originally for a group project in question. (i was doing a solo act in projects, that was my mistake.)

Back on topic, please:

I'm going to be doing some heavy editing to Onix to upscale to proportional size with Chinchou. so pay attention to that Onix sprite every so often.

Edit: Sorry, just saw your comment, Previous.
I'll add the yellow outlines asap,
and oddly enough
I was thinking about the inline set oddly enough, so sure, I'll be happy to include it.

*Add yellow outlines to lights
*Add outlines to inner parts

Got it.

Thank you for your input,

That's all for now.

Update 2:

Chinchou now has the requested features of update 1 on this topic,
If I got something wrong by any chance, don't hesitate to let me know.

also, be warned because Onix will be huge when i finish.

[MarvelFan]

Holy...
That Onix is a big deal!

[Cobalt Blue]

i am a firm believer that straightaway sideview is the worst if not a terrible choice for a sprite. not only you cut your character's features in half, losing a huge deal of readbility, but you lose the chance to give your character a huge dose of personality by allowing the player to see its face, and a good portion of his body for maximum efficiency. thats why figthing games sport a 3/4 view of your character for most of they stances, just like many other sidescrollers around.

also checking on the original artwork, this character's desing suggests that both legs are tied to the character's bottom. wich means that in order for the character to perform hat stance you gave it right now, it would need to move his entire body rather than just leaving a feet behind, wich would in the end result in turning his back agaisnt the viewer.

[Chris2Balls [:B]]

I notice that most of the animations are transformations or rotations. Unfortunately, not everything can be done this way.
For instance, the bulbs on Chinchou's antennae flatten and squash as they move up.
Onix's body parts don't change when they rotate, and the fact they don't have an outline as well as that destroys the sense of volume. The animation itself seems to move to much for an idle animation, and I see Onix as a contained but powerful Pokémon.

This is why pixel art is sometimes a more practical way of creating sprites.

[Cobalt Blue]

the whole point of skeletal animations is to save up memory since they are generated by the game's engine rather than being individual frames put together. thats why you can have games like robot wars and the latests pokemon having thousands and thousands of smooth animations for each single character without afecting the game's performance, since in reality the sprites are created by the coordinated movement and rotation of deveral individual elements.

its a rather efficient way to creating multiple animations with little effort(besides the obiusly coding to get each sequence performed)