How Sprites Are Made

[dwkjohn]

Ok. I am wanting to learn more about sprite art. i have read that for Golden Sun, they "used rendering and shrinkage from a larger image, hence the variation and blending of colors." I am not sure if this is true. also, i would like any good tips when making sprites and also what the best program to use is. please explain why that program is useful if you suggest one. my main problem is getting the sprite into golden sun style. i can make what i want the sprite to look like, its just not GS-ish enough. i appreciate all help and tips. Thanx! :)

[Kain]

Paint.net is great for sprite work, allowing you to be able to zoom in and it lets you see which pixels you are working with by making a guided screen that shows all the pixels you can work with.

[Salanewt]

Lol, I have actually been using Paint for the past year or so, occasionally using Gimp when I need transparency. But yes, Paint.net is excellent for spriting.

i have read that for Golden Sun, they "used rendering and shrinkage from a larger image, hence the variation and blending of colors." I am not sure if this is true.

This may or may not be true, but doing it that way works well too; provided you can model. It also takes less time to make individual frames, because you can just slightly modify and rotate the model to create several frames. While I have not done this myself, I believe Atrius has made a few sheets this way - and they look really good.

What I do is a bit different though; I copy sprites that already exist, and I modify them until they look like what I want... The editor is a great tool for copying sprites. If you have a hand at spriting this way, I suggest that you play around with location sprites until you have a feel for Golden Sun's style. When you think you are up to it, then some PC/NPC sprites would be fun to try out too.

[Atrius (He/Him)]

In my opinion, rendering 3D models produces the best results.

[spoiler=Large Image]

[/spoiler]

It's the same technique I used to make Kari too:



I used Maya, but there's a free 3D modeling program called Blender.  They're pretty complex to use though.

[Hoopa]

Oh! So that's how you do it! Thanks Atrius! I think you just showed me the last piece of the puzzle I needed to make sprites in 3d.

[Griever]

So that is the trick .... Nicely done btw.

Also john, only world sprites? or are you gonna learn to make battle ones too?

[Rolina]

Actually, that brings up a good question - Atrius, how detailed would you have to be to pull off battle sprites with that program of yours?  I can see that the overworld sprites don't need it, but battle sprites are a bit different in that regard.

[RTGreece21]

There's a lot of ways to do sprites isn't there? I bring my zoom in Photoshop to 600, create myself a palette usually based off my favourite colours or palettes used by my favourite games, and then I just start doodleing. I keep a 50% transparent white layer inbetween layers [I do each frame on a different layer] so I can tell how the character is moving.
and, even though his head moves too much [one of my very first sprites], were both made using Photoshop.

[zman9000]

Ah Blender... its like the computer artists duck tape. it can do almost every thing you need, and has more uses then you can count.
For the sprites... eh... that's most likely the best way to make them... and in fact for the character sprites, I would say you should make them in blender.
As for me, and the rest of the sprites, I think i'll stick to paint.net (at least until i learn blender)
(After looking at the sprites for characters I'm sure they used some 3d program to make the sprites.)

I do have one question. The GS sprites all have an interesting lighting kinda glare on them, (making me think a 3d program) I'm wondering if there is a easy way fake this with a program like paint.net... those subtle differences in color never look right when i try to do it....

[Atrius (He/Him)]

Actually, that brings up a good question - Atrius, how detailed would you have to be to pull off battle sprites with that program of yours?  I can see that the overworld sprites don't need it, but battle sprites are a bit different in that regard.

I haven't tried making any yet, but they are a bit more detailed.  You can get a an idea by examining some sprites from the game.



Additionally, with overworld sprites you can get away with making the character out of disconnected shapes, and just moving those shapes around to animate them.  With battle sprites you're probably going to need to actually rig the model properly to animate it.

[dwkjohn]

Also john, only world sprites? or are you gonna learn to make battle ones too?

sorry for the late reply. just got out of a school festival I had to work at. any way. thanx for the suggestions. I'm starting with world sprites. heck Atrius hasn't even tried battle sprites. my last attempt at battle sprites sucked. :/

I used Maya, but there's a free 3D modeling program called Blender.  They're pretty complex to use though.

I have had blender for a while actually but gave up trying to use it. I guess ill start tinkering with it. is it hard to make a basic sprite like the one u did in maya?

this is my most recent attempt at a sprite. :/

the big one is the original I made. the other is me trying to match gs style.

[Rolina]

Actually, that brings up a good question - Atrius, how detailed would you have to be to pull off battle sprites with that program of yours?  I can see that the overworld sprites don't need it, but battle sprites are a bit different in that regard.

I haven't tried making any yet, but they are a bit more detailed.  You can get a an idea by examining some sprites from the game.



Additionally, with overworld sprites you can get away with making the character out of disconnected shapes, and just moving those shapes around to animate them.  With battle sprites you're probably going to need to actually rig the model properly to animate it.

Aye.  Not only that, but given how several hack ideas are looking, it may need to be done on a per-weapon basis, since we may be taking a page from DD and have different poses based on what weapon type is equipped, so it'd be done in a weapon-in-hand manner... Plus an unarmed sprite.  I'd love to see an example if you or someone else can put something together.

[Misery]

A model is very easy to animate once it has been rigged properly (which basically means to set up a skeleton for the model), especially when GS really doesn't have much animation to speak of - most of the time you'd practically just be posing the characters. So doing different versions for the different weapons doesn't seem like an issue, building the models and rigging them is the bigger part of it.

Looking at the battle sprites, it seems like you could still get away with relatively simple models...
I could try using this method to put together a GS-style spritesheet for proof of concept, since I'm about to start modeling a character for animation anyway, and it has to be finished two weeks from now.

Atrius: are the sprites you did simply resized renders, or have you been doing some post editing? Also, what method did you use to confine them to the GS palette?

[Aile~♥]

I've seen that it's actually surprisingly difficult to make a good idle animation, especially if the character has a cape or robe. And as for attack animations, you have to always make sure to account for every limb. If you forget to animate the left arm simply because they aren't attacking with it, it's not gonna look properly dynamic, and you'll basically have yourself some derpmation. (derp + animation = derpmation) Head positioning is surprisingly important as well in attempting to make attack animations.

[Misery]

Well duh.

...ok, perhaps "very easy" wasn't the best way to put it. But assuming you know the basics of animation, animating the character after you have already rigged it isn't as much work as the rest of the process.

[Aile~♥]

Only reason I'm saying all this is because I've seen a good few Brawl animations with all these problems. And in idle animations and victory poses it's been a recurring problem for characters' feet to be sliding when they bend their knees or move their upper leg.

[Rolina]

Except we're just chaining together snapshots, so with a bit of fudging, that's not an issue.

[Atrius (He/Him)]

If you rig the legs with inverse kinematics it solves that issue too.

Atrius: are the sprites you did simply resized renders, or have you been doing some post editing? Also, what method did you use to confine them to the GS palette?

Actually that's the only editing I do.  I render them at 32x32 then use photoshop just to set the palette to indexed mode with a file containing GS's sprite palette.

[Rolina]

Cool, so theoretically you could do that with just any character?  Do you keep the model on hand afterwards?  I'd love to see Kari's base model...

[Misery]

Atrius: are the sprites you did simply resized renders, or have you been doing some post editing? Also, what method did you use to confine them to the GS palette?

Actually that's the only editing I do.  I render them at 32x32 then use photoshop just to set the palette to indexed mode with a file containing GS's sprite palette.

Oh, well I guess that's what I would've done as well. I wasn't sure if you had photoshop though... Anyway, I would be grateful if you could share the palette file so I don't have to make a new one.