Combined Guidelines

[Rainbow Dash]

"This perticular sub-forum is for you to place your edits and customs. They won't be uploaded, but this place is for you to recieve comments, and what-not. I figured people would want a specific place to place sprites. So here it is.

Feel free to go mad and post stuff.
Few basic rules:

a) Do not post other people's customs.

This will be treated as copyright infringement and you will be warned as such.

b) Use the other forum for Sprite Rips.

c) No "basic 5 second photoshop recolours".
As in... this type of thing:

Please. No. Just.. no. Put some effort into it. And I swear.. if I see a Blue Zero...
Acceptable "Recolours" on the other hand.. are what I like to call "Enhancing detail". These are accpetable... altough I'm going to have to use a Non-Megaman example for this: (this also includes basic sprite editing example ;p )

Altough if you are going to post stuff like that.. try to include the entire sheet of what you're enhancing, XP
Upping the shading of a sheet (eg the following: is also deemed "appropriate".. again, try and include the entire sheet.

d) This Custom Sprites subforum is not limited to Megaman and Megaman edits. Be creative! If you need to use bases, find another set of characters to use as an base/edit!
As someone once said:

Originally Posted by KevinCartosa

They aren't bad, but I'm still going to barf if I see another Megaman 7 base.

e) As stated above - people prefer sheets/animations. But... depending on how much work you put into a single frame... i'm not going to mind posting of singular frames. Just make sure some effort is put into it damnit!

f) Specifically state whether the sheet is public domain or not. Public Domain generally means someone is allowed to use your edit/custom freely without credit.
If you want people to use your sheet, but want credit, state so.
If you don't want people to use your sheet at all.. state so.

g) Don't hi-jack other peoples threads. If you've got a sprite to show, make your own thread!
(Note, showing people constructive "change this" Sprites etc, or helping out a person isn't considered Hi-jacking. Thats considered being helpful. )

Ok? Sorted? Fine. Just don't ask for your custom to be put up on Sprites INC." - ACE_Spark

[Rainbow Dash]

"It's come to my attention that a lot of users don't really know how to "C+C" sprites. They post, but in all honesty, its content is about the same as if they didn't post. "Wow! Those rock!," "Awesome, you're a god!!!," "Cool sprites!," etc. While these are nice to hear, they're pretty useless for spriting, and really just boost egos. :P So, I'd like to post something in the Sprite rules explaining what C+C is, and how you "should" give it.

C+C means, "Constructive Criticism." Of course, some people might say it stands for something else, but it's usually all the same in terms of the meaning. Basically, when you C+C something, you want to do 2 things:

1) Point out the positives of the sprite. What you liked and why, what the spriter did well, etc.

2) Point out the negatives of the sprite. What you didn't like and why, how they could improve, etc.

Now will you get penalized for just pointing out negatives or positives? No, but you can usually find something for either positive or negative. There's no such thing as a perfect sprite. If you still can't think of anything they could improve on, just say WHY you like the sprite.

There's a difference between, pointing out what could be better, and flaming. If you're pointing out what could be better, you focus on the sprite and you say what could make it better, rather then just saying "this could be improved." Flaming would be like, "OMG, you fail at life!" Anytime you say something about the spriter that makes them seem incompetent, then it's flaming. Don't insult people when you C+C, it makes you look like an ass. In the same regard, while it isn't flaming, telling a user that something is "clichéd," "unoriginal," or even just saying "try again," doesn't at all say how to improve.

The bottom line is: When you C+C something, you're looking for what could be improved on, not what's bad.

While these aren't rules and won't really be enforced anyhow, it isn't a bad thing to keep in mind when you're posting something about a sprite.


...Style and bittage clashing.

Now, there's some big differences between those two things. Bittage clashing would be something were you take something from a sprite with 12 or so colors and give it to a sprite with 16. (Or even more.) That should be avoided. (An even more dramatic example would be something with 4 colors paired up with something that has twice as much.)

You can get away with it though, as long as you convert the object by modifying the shading and colors. (Assuming the size is alright and proportional.) That way, you have the line art for a base, and can just modify the object to what you need.


Style clashing you can get away with more. In fact, Capcom does it all the time. Why, some of the effects from later MMBN series games are just scaled down versions of SF3 effects or are taken directly from other Megaman games. (The SF3 effects did have some color count modifications.) You can probably get away with barrowing parts from other games, as long as they share the same amount of colors. (Or to put it technically, the same bittage.)

I've seen examples of people taking a MMZ styled sprite, and putting a MMBN styled tail on the end. That's fine, because it doesn't look out of place. It doesn't HAVE to be changed, but it might look better if it was.

Frankly, you need to use a lot of your own judgment in what does and what doesn't look good together. Just try to remember that things can be recycled if used well enough, and not all styles are compatible with another, despite some similarities. I'm not asking you use what I say as an absolute rule, but try to keep in mind that it's only "clashing" if the concepts in a sprite clash with one another.


I've read Toxic Seahorse's rants on the ratings, and I agree to some extent. high ratings are given out like candy. but Zan said it best:

Quote:I've said this before, but it's technically impossible to rate sprites. It's a bad practice to begin with. Ratings are given dependant on the poster's own skill level and mood.


If you give a 10 to a sprite that I personally think lacks certain fundamental traits, then I don't see how it can be a 10. However, if you don't see any flaws in the same sprite, you have every right to give it a 10. That's why ratings are essentially useless anyhow: They don't tell what's good about the sprite and what's bad. Unless you type up a nice critique, it's pretty pointless to "rate" a sprite.

Same thing for "PWN ratings." Except those are worse. :P You don't have anything to compare those things to. (at least with sprite ratings, the rater compares the rating to their own skills.) So you have a PWN rating of 70... what exactly does that mean? If I say you should lower your rating to 10 because I don't like your work, then what?

Giving out ratings just don't really cut it when it comes to improving skills, but they do improve or bruise egos. :P Try not to be concerned with ratings because then you make start comparing your skills with other people and not with yourself. You should strive to out do yourself, not the guy that gave you a 5 or something.

But, this is just what I think. I'd like to see what other people think, so feel free to post whatever you've got on your mind relating to the topic. :P" - Blackbeltdude

[Quickman]

There's gonna be a whole lotta double-posting, but I can't fit all my tutorials into one post. And for easy reference, I'm copy/pasting my tutorials here. Anywho...

Here's Gauntlet's Sprite-Making Tutorial. I'm only covering animation.

This topic's gonna be pretty huge, so I'm gonna post each program tutorial as a seperate post. I'm starting with Animation Shop for this one:

Originally Posted by Quickman's Quick Animation Shop Tutorial

Alrighty, so you wanna make a sprite animation. First, you'll need an animation program. I recommend Animation Shop 3. You can download a free trial version from Jasc's website.

For this tutorial, I'm using the Quickman Wily Wars sheet as my example. I'm gonna be making the Intro Pose:


Section One: Getting Your Frames Ready.

Open Animation Shop, and Open the sheet.
Select the set of frames you wanna use with the Crop tool.
Example

Once you've selected them, click the Crop button. Save that file As a seperate file. Trust me, you'll prolly need it later on if you hafta do this from scratch again, kinda like this tutorial.

Step 2:

Now comes the tedious and frustrating part. Again, using the Crop tool, seperate your frames, one by one.

To keep the animation from jumping around, make sure your frames are of equal size.

Save each frame As a seperate file. Then, Edit-Undo your way back to your frameset.

Repeat those steps for each frame.

Section Two: Organizing your Animation

Open all your frames and set 'em up in some order you can use:
Example

I've circled the First Frame, 'cause that's the frame you'll be putting your other frames into.

Step 2:

A: Select your Second Frame and Edit-Copy.
B: Select your first frame.


Do NOT Paste! Doing so will just paste your copied frame into a new window. Instead, do the following:

Edit:
Paste... After Current Frame
or
Shift+Ctrl+L

Select your third frame, and Edit-Copy (or Ctrl+C).
Select the Frame One window again and Paste After Current Frame.

Repeat for the remaining frames.

NOTE: To lessen the confusion, I close the Copied Frame after I paste it, that way I can keep track of my frames better.

Once you're done with the tedious Pasting, Frame One should look sorta like this:
Example

Section Three: Fine-Tuning Your Animation

View your Animation:



You'll notice that it moves super-fast. That can be fixed by editing the Frame Properties.

Go to "Animation" in the toolbar.
Select "Frame Properties"


A dialogue box will pop up.



Edit the Display Time to your liking, and view your Animation. This may take a few tries 'fore your animation plays at the speed you want.

Step 2:

Once you got your frame duration figured out, go to Animation Properties (under Frame Properties.), and the following will display:



Click the "Looping" tab as indicated. The following will display:



If it's not already selected (which it usually is), select the "Play animation indefinetly."

Now, save your Animation.


Your finished animation should look something like my example:


NOTE: I know my example has a chunk missing from his hand. I don't really care, it's just an example. ^^;

[Quickman]

Now for a tutorial with a program I've never used before... GIF Construction Set Professional! After fiddling with it for a few minutes, I managed to figure it out enough to make a tutorial. And afterwards, I realized that my screen captures turned out like crap...

Anywho...

Originally Posted by Quickman's Quick GIF Construction Tutorial

Bear with me here, I just used this program for the first time.

Anywho, GIF Construction Set Professional is a strange program, considering that I'm not used to working with it. It lacks alotta the features that Animation Shop has, so all of your frames hafta be made outside of this program.

The cool thing about this program, though, is it's not quite as tedious as Animation Shop. Pretty much, this program does all the compiling work for you. I wish I knew that ahead of time 'cause I ended up taking the weird round-about way.

Anywho, for this tutorial, I'm using the Rush 16-bit sprites. I wanna make Rush run, so I cropped out my sequence of frames:


In another program, I cropped each frame I wanted to use and saved 'em seperately. I opened 'em up in GIF Construction to show you all the frames:
Example

Once I figured out how the program works (It's VERY different than what I'm used to using...), I found the Animation Wizard option:
Example

Activating the Wizard, I followed it's instructions by hunting down my frames and "Adding" 'em to the Wizard. The screen I took turned out like crap, so I'll explain what I did, using my crappy screen as a guide:
Wizard Screen

Don't worry, your screen will have the option tabs; it's just my screen capture didn't capture correctly... ^^;

Anywho, once I hunted down my frames in the middle window, I clicked on one of 'em. Hitting the "ADD" tab (The highlighted blank space in my screen shot. Sorry 'bout it.), the Wizard added the frame. I repeated the process which each frame.

Once all my frames are in the right (third) window, I cliked the "BUILD" button (It'd be the very last button in the Wizard if it showed up in my screen capture.). The Wizard closed and my animation was displayed:
Example

Then, I Viewed the Animation by clicking the View option:
Example.
View Animation screen.

Since the Wizard displayed the animation at a speed I was happy with, I saved the animation.


This program's pretty self-explanatory. It took me less time to make a gif with GIF Construction than it did with Animation Shop. I prefer Animation Shop, though, 'cause I can fine-tune my gifs alot more than with this program. This program's alright for beginners who're just starting in animation, though. It's also pretty darn cheap.

[Quickman]

UnFreez tutorial:

Originally Posted by Quickman's Quick UnFreez Tutorial

Unfreez is a simple-to-use teeny lil gif animation program that Wiryami told me about just now. It's also a free program, you can download it at the publisher's site. It's pretty darn easy to use.

For this really quick tutorial, I grabbed Wily's Rantin'-and-ravin' sheet to make a really, really quick-and-cheap example. Due to the way Wily's sprites were laid out, and due to the fact that right now, the only image-editing program I have at my disposal is "Microsoft Office Picture Manager," I didn't really give a darn about his jumpy frames. I think he jumps like that in the game anyway.

Anywho, I opened up UnFreez to see what I was working with:


Following what it said, I opened up my folder of frames and Dragged and Dropped each one into UnFreez:
Example

Then, I clicked the "Make Animated Gif" button:


I saved it and viola! Wily!


That was one quick gif program...

Animagic tutorial:

Originally Posted by Quickman's Quick Animagic Tutorial

Ah, Animagic... Suggested to me by Gauntlet. It's friggin' frustrating 'cause this program's so touchy about the pallete. I really, really would NOT suggest animating sprites with less than three colours. I wanted to strangle Bass a moment ago, him and his 3-colour Neo-Geo pallete.

Anywho... for this frustrating demonstration, I decided to use Shadowman's SAR sheet. I figured eh, why not have him throw that Shadow Blade? So, I cropped out the sequence I was gonna use:


Making seperate frames in another program, I opened up Animagic to see what I was working with. Instead of "File... Open," I took this approach so I could get all my frames out there quicker:
File:
Insert Frames...

I selected all my frames at once by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking on the frames I wanted. Once they were opened, I previewed my animation:
Example

My frames weren't centered hardly at all, so I hadta mess around with the Frame Shift option:
Frame Shift screen.
You may wanna fiddle around with this til you get your frames the way you want 'em. I can't really tell you how, that's something you're gonna hafta find out.

Once my frames were centered, I played my animation again, deciding if it moved fast enough or not. Since the frames moved too slow and made the animation appear choppy, I opened up the Frame Rate option, which is the button with all the lil frames in it. (I forgot to highlight it.)
Frame Rate screen.

I hadta adjust and play, adjust and play my animation a few times 'fore I was happy with the frame rate.

NOTE: Any rate lower than 100 makes the frames move super-fast. And I mean super-fast. Unless you want a big blur, then don't drop your frame rate lower than 100.

Finally, after all that and about 4 previous tries just to figure out the pallete's touchy, I saved my animation:


Outta all the programs so far, this one's the one I hate. It's pallete's touchy, it's controls are really weird and don't allow for alotta customizing, and overall... I just don't like it. The other three I've demonstrated are much better.

[Quickman]

Photoshop Elements tutorial:

Originally Posted by Quickman's Quick Photoshop Elements Tutorial

This one was suggested to me by Forte Wily, so I figured I'd try it out.

Anywho, this one's Adobe Photoshop Elements. It's a friggin' expensive program, but Adobe has a Try-Out version on their site. It's your basic photo-edit program, like the kind that come with most digital cameras and scanners. There's nothing really all that special about it, but you can make .GIFs with it.

Actually, all the Adobe art programs have a GIF animator in 'em. You just gotta know where to look (usually in the "Save for the Web" option in the File menu.).

Alrighty, for this tutorial, I decided to use your favourite Eskimo and most certainly mine... Iceman! I figured I'd just have him speak, since his Battle & Chase intro mugsheet is pretty small. Yeah, I'm lazy.


I opened up Photoshop Elements and got to work cutting and pasting his frames into seperate windows:
Example

Then, I selected each frame one by one and copy-pasted 'em into the first frame so that they're seperate layers:
Select and Copy
All layers in first frame.

After that, and remembering to keep the frist frame window active, I went to the File menu and selected the "Save for the Web..." option. The following was displayed:
Save For Web screen.
Since I wanted it to be an animated GIF, I selected "Animated" as highlighted.

It took several previewing tries 'fore I knew that my frames were centred. After I made sure that they were centred (after a series of "Cancel" Save for Web... Adjust frame... "Open" Save for Web... preview... etc.) I tweaked the Frame Rate to my liking:
Frame Rate screen.

Then, I saved my GIF.
Example

And viola! Iceman speaks!


This program was relatively simple to use, and I could crop my frames within the program, eliminating the extra work as with previous programs. This one works similar to Animation Shop, but it takes kinda the round-about way.

The GIMP tutorial:

Originally Posted by Quickman's Quick The GIMP tutorial

Today, I'm using The GIMP, suggested to me by Ringo. He says that it's an Animation Shop clone, which I agree with him to a certain extent. The GIMP works pretty much the same as Animation Shop, it just looks different. Though, the rules are pretty much the same, 'cept each frame is a Layer.

For this example, I hadta work backwards 'cause my example is already animated. Anywho, I'm using my avie as my example, and I compiled a sequence sheet of it.

Do NOT use this sheet in ANY game! ASK ME FOR PERMISSION, FIRST!

Sorry 'bout the crazy warning, but I worked hard on these sprites and they're for another project I'm working on. Anywho...


As usual, with other programs... crop your sheet into seperate frames. By now, this should be pretty routine. You can prolly crop 'em in GIMP, as it works pretty much the same as Animation Shop.

Open up The GIMP and open your file:
GIMP screen layout.
Open your File.

Your file will open in a new window, and its layers (if it has any) will be displayed in the Layer Pallete Window. Since mine was already compiled and animated, each frame was shown as a Visible Layer:
Example

For each frame, Copy it and Paste it Into the first frame as a new Layer. This is a tedious process and I won't go into detail about it since it was already explained in the Animation Shop tutorial. The GIMP is an AS clone, so it works very much in the same way.

Once you're done, all your frames will prolly be visible in your First farme (where you pasted everything.). You can toggle the layers and make specific ones visible. This is helpful in centering your frames, as you can see the next frame underneath it.
Example

Like Animation Shop and other such programs, you can customize each frame to display for a certain length of time. These properties would be under Animation, or even in the Layer Pallete window, as the frame durations are listed beside each Layer. I didn't really go into detail about this, as I already did in the Animation Shop tutorial.

Whenever you wanna save your animation... go save it as an Animation, as prompted by the program:
Save prompt.

If you're not happy with the animation, you can always reopen it in The GIMP and fiddle around with it some more. That's the great thing about this program and Animation Shop; it's more than just a GIF maker. You can do alot more with those two programs than with the other ones.

Anywho, that's pretty much all I can say about this program. I already covered almost all of its basics in the Animation Shop tutorial. This program works pretty much in the same way. Like I said, it's an Animation Shop clone.

And it's a free, legal program.

[Quickman]

Wanna make backgrounds transparent? Here's how!

Originally Posted by Quickman's Quick Transperency Tutorial

Using PaintShop Pro as my example, I'm gonna show you how to make a background transparent. Most programs have a GIF Optimizer or a Save For Web option, and the process of making transparency is pretty much the same for 'em all.

For this example, I'm using Official Art of Treble.


I opened up Treble in PaintShop Pro and selected the Magic Wand tool.
PaintShop Pro 9 screen.


Clicking on the background, I selected the area I want to be made transparent.
Example

Since the selection also nabbed the blended pixels around Treble, I messed with the Tolerance some.
Example

NOTE: You'll hafta mess around with this til you get the selection the way you want it.

Since Treble has multiple areas that need to be selected at one time, hold down "Shift" to select each area you want transparent.
Example

Now, once the background's selected, go to File--> Export--> GIF Optimizer.
Example

Select the option you want, and click "Okay."
Example

The "Save File" dialogue box will pop up, prompting you to save the pic. The GIF format will already be selected.
Example

Save the pic, and you're done!

NOTE: If you're saving JPEGs as GIFs, the colour pallete will be reduced to the standard 256. However, the pallete won't be reduced if you save as a transparent PNG.

Keep in mind, however, that some versions of certain browsers (Internet Explorer) do not support transparent PNGs. I'd make a tutorial, but my browser doesn't support transparent PNGs, so that'd be kinda pointless.

Annnd... here's how to make a sprite comic:

Originally Posted by Quickman's How to Put Sprites in a Comic Panel

Someone asked for some members to compile a sprite comic for them as they "have no spriting expirience." Welp, here's my example and I'm gonna show you how I did it:



For this panel, I opened all the pics I'm gonna need and cropped as necesary. Example One, Example Two.

I selected Heatman and copy/pasted him as a Transparent Layer into my background. Example

Since I want Heatman to be sitting in a chair, I copy/pasted as a Transparent Layer (this is important, folks) the chair that I had cut out before. Example. Since the chair back was blurry, I Sharpened it a bit. Example I move the chair back to where it was and now Heatman's sitting in the chair. Example.

I select Wily and Invert the selection as I did with Heatman. Example. I then paste him into the panel. Example. Now, Wily's a bit too huge, he's facing the wrong way and he's overlapping the desk that I want in front of him. So, I get Wily outta there and cut out the desk. Example. Then, I Mirror and Resize Wily and paste him into the panel. Example Then, I paste the desk I had previously cut out back into the picture. Example

Now, to add text. Using the Elipse tool, I select a preset shape. Example. Then, I add my text. Example. I merge all layers and save it as a .gif.

That's pretty much it. If you're not using backgrounds like this one where you gotta put characters behind stuff, then it shouldn't take as long. Basically, the process is the same.

And for the hell of it... An analglyphic 3D image tutorial:

Originally Posted by Quickman's Quick 3D Image Tutorial

Like I already said, alotta credit goes to Ringo for this. If it wasn't for him, these 3D pics I've shown you and the following tutorial wouldn't be up here. Thanks again, Ringo! You're an inspiration to us all.

For this tutorial, I'm using PaintShop Pro 9 and Official artwork of Axl. This Axl image was perfect as there was alotta perspective in the pic. Since his gun and his foot stuck out pretty far, I figured that he'd be a perfect canidate for 3D.

I opened Axl up in PaintShop Pro (Screen.) and set to work. Using the Freehand Selection tool (the lasso) I cut out Axl so that he was seperate from his hair and those wingie-thingies. Example. I also moved him slightly down and to the right.

I want Axl's foot to stick out a bit, so I cut out and moved his leg slightly down and to the right. I then cut his leg from the knee down and moved it slightly down and to the right. I did the same with his foot. Example. Since I want the 3D effect to be rounded and not as flat, I cut his foot into sections and moved each section down and to the right. Example.

I moved on to Axl's head, chest, and arms. Again, I cut out each section and move it slightly down and to the right. Example. This is really tedious work. To keep the effect gradual I work my way down his arms, cutting out each section and moving 'em. After I'm done, Axl looks like this.

Now comes another tedious part; redrawing the linework and filling in those gaps. It's gonna take a steady hand and majour use of the eye-dropper tool, but it'll clean the pic up considerabbly. Example.

Once I'm all done with that, I save Axl as a SEPERATE FILE and open up the origonal. I line 'em up side by side and cross my eyes til the pics overlap. This way I can check to see if the 3D effect works the way I want it. Example.

Since the barrel of Axl's gun distorts too much I go over it again then repeat the same stereoscopic method until it looks the way i want it.

Now to make it analglyphic. I make sure the origonal picture is active and go to Image--> Split Channels--> RBG Channel. Example. 3 new images will pop up; Red, Green, and Blue. I close the Red pic and keep the Green and Blue pics open.

I activate the altered Axl pic and go to Image--> Split Channels--> RBG Channel. Again, 3 images pop up. I close ONLY the new Blue and Green images, leaving the Red. Example.

Now, I go to Image--> Combine Channels--> RBG Channel. Example. I select the channels I want combined (Red for the Red Channel, Green for the Green Channel and Blue for the Blue Channel.) and click Okay. Example.

A new image, the analglyphic 3D image, will pop up and I save it. And viola! Axl is now in red-blue analglyphic 3D!

Making a stereoscopic version is easy: Take the origonal pic and go to Image--> Canvas Resize. Resize the canvas pixels so it's double the origonal size. Then copy/paste the altered pic into the resized pic and line 'em up. It's that easy!

QuickEdit: Since I had origonally made that without 3D glasses, whenever I got my 3D glasses, the pics were inverted. So, I fixed 'em and fixed the tutorial. Remember to have your 3D glasses handy whenever making analglyphic 3D pics. It'll save you alotta trouble if you hafta go back and remake 'em again like I did.

[Pinkie Pie]

Non.-Megaman. Sprites.

If you've got any non-Megaman stuff, please feel free to post that as well.

It does get quite boring for people to C+C just Megaman styled sprites all the time. :g-winky: