Sprite/General Graphics Making

[clockworkroutine]

Involves: Transparencies-the Clear plastic pieces of paper your math teacher uses to display their equations on the board.  OR you can grab Clear dividers, the ones that you use to seperate and organize binders.

And color Markers.

Technique:
1. Draw your character on that transparency any size you want, just doing outlines of your character.  throw on some gear and what not, its really up to you how detailed you want it to be but keep in mind the next processes.

2. Fill in the character with shadows and color.

3. Go into IDraw or MS paint or Ultimate Paint or whatever.  Place your finished character up to the computer screen.   Zoom in till the character fits the size of 24x32 quadrant.

4. Now color in your character on your computer with your mouse.  Now its not going to be very great, so just touch it up when your done.  

Note: The sprite looks more accurate the larger you draw it on the transparency and the closer you zoom in on the screen.

Voila, you have one part to a sprite.  Now do that again for all the other directions.  

Of course the same technique can be used to create whatever graphic needed.  

I'd love to see what other people have done so if you could submit.

[ZeroKirbyX]

This is a bit too extensive to make charsets, they're small enough you can just do em on the computer. Monsters and bg's/chipsets is what this would be best for.

[InsaneJP]

You should just check out the tutorial i posted a long time ago i left a template there and everything

[DragonBlaze]

The problem I see with this idea is proportions. In most rpg maker sprites, the head is around 1/3 of the size of the whole body. Normally, heads should be 1/7 the size on a real person. Most anime or cartoon people would be around 1/5 (I'd think)

So if you try to draw a realistic person, or even an anime person, then transfer it to the computer, the sprite will look all messed up because the proportions would be all off.

[Darkfox]

Though hand drawing a monster on paper to computer is perfectly doable to make a charset in such a fashion... well it is unneccesary. The least needed is just MSPaint and a lot of patience.

Not even most gaming companies would do it the way you propose, it requires some accurate high quality scanner and etc.

Edit: And aligning them is more a pain in the butt. With a digitally drawn sprite it is a lot easier to align your sprites.

[clockworkroutine]

Originally posted by InsaneJP
You should just check out the tutorial i posted a long time ago i left a template there and everything

you know...I've seen the tutorial, for me all that stuff is kind of a given,   I'm sure its helpful for others...This community needs to broaden its artwork beyond the standards of RTP graphics.

I wouldn't write this technique off so quickly even if you like the technical symetry of what is already out there, you can definately use your results as a really good foundation to work on when your out of ideas or the steady clicking of the mouse isn't just cutting the cheese anymore.  

"The problem I see with this idea is proportions. In most rpg maker sprites, the head is around 1/3 of the size of the whole body. Normally, heads should be 1/7 the size on a real person. Most anime or cartoon people would be around 1/5 (I'd think)

So if you try to draw a realistic person, or even an anime person, then transfer it to the computer, the sprite will look all messed up because the proportions would be all off."-Dragon Blaze

I disagree, I believe you do get an exact ratio between your drawn body parts and your pixilated one.  You are in fact just copying exactly what you drew, proportions would stay the same.  

No doubt I think I know what you mean about it looking messed up, like the colors or the eyes would be mushed up against eachother.  I just say if you don't like you can go back to it and touch it up making it look correct.

I think you will find that as you deduce your drawing to pixels, you can use 1 pixel of color for say a varying array of colors in an eye, and another pixel for that nose.  And so on, you will find that you will have to do that, thus a good representation of what you drew is transferred

And out of this technique you may find other templates as well.  I find it hard to scratch out the movements of a character on the computer, and find myself standing up walking towards my mirror frame by frame.  And I find it easier to jot down my mom or my sister walking around on paper.

I guess my ambition for this technique, is to see individual styles come out and flourish this scene that lacks in creativity, and to see more and more original spritesets, rather than ripped or "modified" (color change, or a single strand of hair shifted) spritesets.  For people to call a game entirely of their own doing.

Besides, My aesthetics are different from others, I like the sloppiness of what comes out when you try this technique.  What I find appealing to the eye, probably stems from my background in markmaking and the drawing medium.

[Rowan]

Cant you just draw it regularly and scan it in with a scanner? You can resize if neccessary.

[clockworkroutine]

tried it but you get funny weird shades that come up,
it's an interesting look though.

[Darkfox]

Mmmmmh. You said cutting cheese, you realise that refers to flatulence right? XD

I get where your coming from but people would require some accurate scanner, maybe photoshop, etc. For a game they will make no money off of. Plus animation and so forth require some precision. And I'm not saying "use RTP" or "use ripped resources" or even editing them. I'm saying there are easier ways.

Drawing facesets is fine, drawing monsters is fine. drawing backgrounds is fine. They are rather cool. But drawing charsets...? That is extensive. Just because an image is drawn digitally doesn't mean the person's own style does not show through as it is the person's hand controlling the motion of the mouse thus hand drawn when it comes to scrap sprites.

[Ben]

For 2k3 sprites, Scanning a drawing, and doing this "Steal the stuff from your math teacher" method, is ridiculous. You are going to come up with so many irregularities.

As a professional artist, I can safely say, this is RETARDED.
(Just my opinion)


HERES WHAT YOU DO:

Get a Naked character Template.

Learn to pixel draw some Clothes on it.

Read JPs tutorial, and absorb.


This method would be so confusing and dissapointing for somebody getting into spriting, that it should be dipped in acid. The method that is.

[clockworkroutine]

to begin with the process isn't all that difficult
i could sum it up in a paragraph
i only elaborated in the beginning
so that people could get the idea in their heads
the process is rediculously simple

take something thats clear enough so that you can draw and then trace it on the computer screen. you could grab ceran wrap! and if you can get your screen bright enough you can even use thin paper.

stop telling me this is rediculous,
Any logical person could figure out JP's method.  The method was simply disecting a character basically into its simplest regions, and coloring it in like a color book.

I totally got your point Darkfox, I even changed the title of that because of that.  
I guess this is where I'm coming from:  Doing it for the love of programming and art.

So I say now, if you enjoy investing the time to produce something unique, try this method out

[DragonBlaze]

This is a rather unique way of doing it. Gemini, even though you may be a profesional artist, it doesn't give your the right to call this metheod retarted. You should know that every person has their own way and style of doing things. And even though this is something you wouldnt' do, it may work great for someone else.

[Spike21]

this acually seems pretty cool, I want to try it out.

[Moosetroop11]

Clockwork, could you post a charset that you've made using that method? I'd like to see how they turn out.

[Darkfox]

Yeah, examples would be nice. Oh and here is some proof that handrawing monsters does have good results.

The full original image was drawn for me by Carmen, I just converted it to a monster sprite with a few tools. I discourage stealing. Just using it as an example. Hand drawing graphics are perfectly doable. I'm pretty certain game designers hand draw most of their backgrounds and graphics like faces and etc then convert to a digital format.