Utility: Sprite Editing Tutorial

[Burnsaber]

Well, glad to hear I could be of assistance. Remember to give yourself some credit too, thought.

Those sprites look pretty good. Can't wait to play the actual nation.

I remember talking with someone about a LA oceania on IrC. IIRC the idea was about the nation revolving on volcanic themes. As Atlantis is pushed into the cold north, Oceania flees into the volcanic islands in south. That's an easy thematic way to go to blood slaves (The volcano gods are not pleased! Throw in the sacrifices!). You could search for some hawaijian/philippines/indonesian myths and work them in with some oceania twists.

[DaveCG]

Originally Posted by Burnsaber

Well, glad to hear I could be of assistance. Remember to give yourself some credit too, thought.

Those sprites look pretty good. Can't wait to play the actual nation.

I remember talking with someone about a LA oceania on IrC. IIRC the idea was about the nation revolving on volcanic themes. As Atlantis is pushed into the cold north, Oceania flees into the volcanic islands in south. That's an easy thematic way to go to blood slaves (The volcano gods are not pleased! Throw in the sacrifices!). You could search for some hawaijian/philippines/indonesian myths and work them in with some oceania twists.

That's pretty badass, adding extra flavour and all, hmmm. Anyway, like I said chances are after I've made the final units and had them looked over I'll start up my own thead and stop hogging yours

[DaveCG]

Well, looks like this is it, the last sprites for now anyway, crits as are always welcome and after I finish off the last 30% or so of the .dm file I'll put my thread up, like I said before thanks for all the help guys, looking forward to your input when the nation needs balance and all that jazz.

A is the sorceress unit, just a nice happy recolour for her nothing major yet.

B is the black spider unit, a scout with a blowpipe, I think I need to lighten him up alittle, he's kinda dark...well they're all 'dark' but you know what I mean.

C is the assassin, I was thinking about making him a multihero, like the spider he's too dark I think.

D is the afro hero, sporting a gi and the number 2 headband, along with a bad mofo afro and jazz, I really liked how this one turned out, the only downside is I got lazy with the attack sprite, once I'm more confident I'll be coming back to this one.

E is the white elephant I was on about, I still haven't heard back off juzzi but once I do I'll add it in, chances are he's going to be a summon of somekind.

Anyway, thanks in advance for any and all crit/comment/etc guys!

[Aezeal]

Well I'm gonna post the changes I've made from a few sprites too. I've started with A and B, the original pictures I've got no chance I'll ever be able to draw in my live.

Then I resized and touched the results up a bit (mostly working on the edges, which I forgot when I started but it's really important since a line for greyish/blackish of even 1 pixel around your sprite will annoy in the end) and gave the sprite the magenta shadow. I usually work on 400% size.

starting with the shooting orc:
after touching up I got to C. For the attack sprite I just added a fiery blast to the barrel. I did this with a brush of white, then yellow and then red in the middle.
And I added blood to the blade , first a layer with darkish red also with a brush so it get's automatically different sorts of red and then in the middle of that a brighter red.

A while later I did the flamer (E/F) first I removed the bladethingie and for E I added the gastanks to his back. I did that by selecting all the black, then reverse the selection so I just had the orc and I stored it somehwere. Then I just made a gas tank (it moves behind his back) a sort of long cilinder with a high sized pencil (sharp edges, not flowing out in different colors like the brush tool) and I added the light reflection to it with a brush and lighter red (very light) then I gave it a cap on top (greyish line) and a brownish line to the weapon (the gas goes through it)

For the attack sprite I just added flames basicly, same as the barrel in the other sprite but I started with a red, brushing it out in the general shape then yellowish inside it and whitish near the barrel. The brush will create a whole range of different colors which on the edges will be nearly black, in game that will look like a black line around the flame and is not good. You usually need to remove most of that (paint over with pure black) and just leave a few variations of color on the edges (all of which should be pretty bright red or it will resemble the dreaded black line.)

For G and H (shaman) I remove the chopper again and soemwhere in the process when I noticed I needed more room I scaled the canvass to 128x128. I'm not really sure what I did next but I think I drew a straight line and colored it with a think brown (the lighter color on the left) then I brushed over the right side with a darker brown. I drew the crossbeam by hand with same process, first light brown, then dark. Took me a while to get the angle and sizes right. Then I painted the skull, it's not perfect but on in game size it's decent I think.

For the attack sprite I just copied the fiery barrel from an older sprite and put it in the right place.

Ow and tehre are spaceversion with helmets of some of these too.. same process I'll tell about in the next sprite.

B resizing to I, touching up borders , adding shadow etc.

The attack sprite was a hell of a job, cutting the orc out, copying his weapon trying to rotate it in several posistion which always looked awfull. In the end I think I just turned it 90 degrees (so no deformation or rough edges and positioned the arm around it (I copied the distal part of his other arm, turned that around abit and then used some of those colors to touch up the edges) After that I added the blood in the way as described before (brushing with dark red, then adding a bit of brighter red on the edge.)

For K (orc crafter (the one building ships and tanks) I took the light color the axe has and used that to draw the upper side of the hammerhead. THen I changed the color slightly and drew the other side, I brushed the upper side a little bit with this color too so it's not to uniform in color. Then a very dark color for the part he hits with. I think this worked out very nicely and even the dimensions and proportions worked out right for me in the first try

L was just adding blood again

M (orc rager) got a jumppack on his back (he has flying) Under his arm I created the pack first with grey no real science involved and then the fire red brush, orange brush and a touch of yellow in the middle. Ow and becuase he's a rager he got a bit more blood on the axes to start with.

Personally I like N (rager attack sprite) a lot, I just copied and flipped the other arm and touched it up a bit. I think this one as rager attack sprite is nice compared to the regular attack sprite.. much more fierce as it should be. The attachment of the arm to the body was probelmatic. I put the layer with the new arm behind the rest of the orc and just added dots of color (copy form other arm) where needed.

O-R are spaceform (forest form) sprites of the ones before (crafter doesn't get one since that sprite is only for a commander and they get spaceships in space) basicly adding a helmet.

Selected a greenish color, and put a dot that fitted over the head as a new layer above it. Then I palyed with transparancy untill I thought it was right (face somewhat shining through but helmet still visible) after that I added the whitish reflection by brushing with white on the upperleft part and pressing firm on the most white part so it would become nice and white.

That leaves the orcish war drum S-W. I first created the drummer, removing the heads of his weapons and adding a brown ball, which I gave a lil shine with a lighter brown on top.

Then i created the drums. the result can be debated (I know it's far form perfect) but for something I created from nearly nothing with my art skills I'm satisfied. I drew an oval of the light brown, put the red head (copy, not original) in there then I extended the black thingies that come out of it and added the darker points of brown with a brush. THen I drew the oval again (actually I did this before filling it) and drew it as a line with another color the edge) and drew it again for the backside, just a lil lower and more to the right. I filled the back oval (layer behind the other with the darker brown you mostly see on the side of the drum and then use that color to fill all the space on the side) then I used a very dark brown to draw the lines on the side which connect to the (grey) nails on the front. I created the speakers about the same way and then just added the box with the switches and lights. THen I put a flipped copy of the drummer behind it. The drummers in the attack sprite have blood on the weapons and there are a few versions (first loose one drummer 2nd shape to drum + 1 durmmer then loose the other durmer and the immobile drum remains.)




PM due to quality loss when saving the pics look a bit less nice than they really are (it really shows when I look at them on 400% size)

[DaveCG]

Wow aezeal that's pretty cool what you managed to do with thoses two source images! I really like the flame effect on F, looks like your dom3000will have to start gettin' orky! I also really like M and N, very cool.

[Aezeal]

Well Dom 3K is already orcy.. orcs are probably one of the most finished races in there and have been for a while. You are very welcome to try the mod though, I can always use feedback and I'm pretty sure that once you are playing you will have fun and be surprised by what I've added in the mod. If you do use the new larger galaxy map which uses the new mod commands to give space provinces a spacy look.

Anyway I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks my sprites are decent. My mod has some fierce opponents but since this thread was about sprites n stuff I thought I'd show how I did my things. Most other races are just single sprites though not a string of sprites all derived from each other. Orcs just worked out well for me this way.

[DaveCG]

I must admit I tried you mod awhile ago, 0.71 I think? I really liked the idea, it's just as soon as I attacked somewhere and it went to green fields with spaceships I was kinda.."ah..." but you've got the battlefield commands sorted out now right? I'll have to give it another go, I'm a huge 4x nerd, one of the reasons I love dom3 so much, it's like a 4x game...but...argh, can't put my finger on it, I love it either way though, but yeah, like I said I'll be sure to try it out again.

[Aezeal]

yeah the battlefield commands are sorted out.. I hear a few space provs are still forest (I edited certain terrain types which should have been all forests but I guess I missed one.. it will be fixed once I know which ones I missed) but in general it's better now. Lots of small things have improved and more will be improved (created about 15 new sites last 2 days for example) workign on Machaka in space too.

If you have feedback I'd love to hear it in the dom 3 K thread though.

[BandarLover]

So I also thought I would try my hand at sprite making for my sad little barbarian mod and decided to start with the nation flag. I had been using Foodstamp's Haida Gwai flag, which is nice, but a killer whale doesn't seem to do a roving band of plain dwelling barbarians justice. I will attempt to post the image of the flag I made now. I've never tried this before and I don't expect to get it my first try

OK so that didn't work at all :P

Maybe I'll figure it out sometime...

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by BandarLover

So I also thought I would try my hand at sprite making for my sad little barbarian mod and decided to start with the nation flag. I had been using Foodstamp's Haida Gwai flag, which is nice, but a killer whale doesn't seem to do a roving band of plain dwelling barbarians justice. I will attempt to post the image of the flag I made now. I've never tried this before and I don't expect to get it my first try

OK so that didn't work at all :P

Maybe I'll figure it out sometime...

You have the image right?

You need to host the image in the interwebs so that you can show it on these forums.

I use http://xs.to , but there are many others.

Once you have succesfully uploaded your preview pick, find the "direct" link (the one that leads to completely empty page,expect for your image).

Then put that link between IMG-tags. You can quote a post with a image to see how the exact code is done.