Bob and George

Thanks again to Kiseki for taking the time to write this all out.

A note: This is the reconstructed Sprites for Dummies I promised a few months ago. Have fun reading.

Introduction:

First things first, reading this thread will not make you a uber genius spriter right off the bat. The only thing this thread will do, is give you technical tips and advise. Put simply, you won't get anywhere if you don't practice. So practice if you want to improve. Whining that everyone's a better spriter and sitting on your ass begging for sprites won't help you at all. So suck it up and sprite. And a note here. RECOLORING doesn't count as spriting. That said, let's move on.

Also, having MS paint does not MEAN that you are a bad spriter. Having PSP and PS doesn't mean you are a good spriter. What programme you use, does not AFFECT your spriting ability. Please, keep that in mind. Also, I use MS paint, myself.

Okay, keeping in mind that you must practice to improve, and that improvment takes time, you can't realistically expect dramatic improvement over a few sprites, but it's possible if you sprite a lot, and put in effort over each sprite. Smacking ugly pixels over sprites aren't helping you any. Spriting's a art. And you improve mainly by taking in advice and applying it, and practicing. I cannot repeat this enough. And, pride won't help you any. You may think you sprite looks fantastic, but in truth, it's crap, and someone tells you, snapping their head off doesn't change the fact your sprite's crap. Maybe 16 bit X's head wasn't made to go on Forte's 32 bit form. etc. (Note: It ISN'T) People who tell you your sprites are "nice" aren't really helping you any. Keep in mind.

Making the Sprite:

First things first as a new spriter, keep this in mind. NEVER recolor a sprite and leave it at that. Protoman in neon green does not cut the mustard. You'll be called crap and you'll have to believe it. And don't try to rationalise how you actually love your recolor and bullshit like that. You are just plain lazy and in denial. Granted, a recolor might look better then your first edit, but the edit would be your work, not stolen from some game and named as yourself. However, recoloring a sprite to use as a base for a edit, is a rather common technique, and I fully endorse it. Now, that I've made it clear plain recolors are bad, here's the real stuff.

First, I advise finding a bittage you work well in, and work with it. For me, it was 16 bit, for others it could be 8 bit or 32 bit. Everyone has a bittage they find easier to work with, and when you get good enough, try other bittages. And remember, never mix bittages in a sprite. A 16 bit head doesn't look good on a 32 bit body no matter how hard you try. That also applies for comics. I'm not asking you to limit yourself, I'm asking you to find your groove.

Once you've got a bittage you work well in, you probably want to work on your own charector. BnG has a large number of Rock/Forte/Blues/X/Zero based edits and recolors, so standing out will be rather difficult, so what can you do? While if you are good enough, you could probably make edits out of, for example, Rockman that looks very, very different from the other edits around, like Ran and Oppolo, but chances are, you probably can't. Still, I don't deny they are good bases to work with. So, what can you do? One, learn to custom edit, or two, try using a unique base. There are a number of ways you can produce a unique base, one would be a frankenstein. For example, Rock's head on Forte's body. (One of my preferred bases, truth be told.) Basically, taking bits of various sprites and RESHADING and RECOLORING them while ensuring they don't look like someone crapped in pizels. Another method would be using a base that is rarely used, like Auto, or Dr Light. The main problem would be a lack of poses though.

Anyway, now you have your base, you edit it. A quick sketch could help you visualise your charector better. Don't be afraid to look different, and don't immediately dismiss your work as crap if it doesn't look good. At the stage, your sprites basically look like crap. Mine do too. They really shine after the shading and touching up phase though. Essentially, keep adding and changing things on the sprite till it looks different from the base, and enough like your charector. Start with small edits, like a new chin, better eyes, good hair (People, hair defines much of your sprite. Keep that in mind. The whole head, actually.), then move on to bigger stuff like casual clothing and a big sword. If working with a non-human base, keep in mind the things that aren't human. For example, recoloring Rockman's hands and feets into skin colors just means a very ugly sprite with deformed limbs. Adjust them to human size to match the rest of the sprite. When you have the edits, done, my guess is the colors are probably fubar by now. So, it's time to shade it.

When it comes to coloring your new sprite, it's best if you can get the colors off official game sprites. They are rarely bad, though there are exceptions. Or you can get a color, and darken it into a few shades and work with that. Something important to note. Most of MS Paint's default colors are crappy, and should be adjusted. If I see another spriter with a neon Protoman head, I'll ****ing tear his head off.

Anyway, you've got your colors, so you should shade it. Which, I notice, didn't get much attention in the reconstruction thread. Which is a problem. Shading defines at leasty 60 % of your sprite. If you mess up your shading, it doesn't matter how good everything else is. It's still fubar. So, how exactly do you shade a sprite? First, fill every part with their respective colors, I( reccomend the 2nd lightest color, myself), then add the darker shades according to the light source. The edges normally are darker, except for the parts affected by the light source. The lightsource, usually comes from infront the character, diagonally above. The part farthest from the lightsource needs to be shaded darker. Seeing how your not working on a flat surface, you have to shade with the curves, folds and other details, so try looking at official sprites for examples. This gives the illusion of depth if done correctly.

Keep in mind to zoom in and out of your sprite at all times to make sure it looks right. When you finish with the shading, zoom out, and then zoom in 200%, adjusting as you see fit. And presto! New sprite!

Don't be afraid to give up temporarily if something isn't turning out the way you want. You can always go back to it later, instead of making something now that you are not satisfied with.

Put your sprite aside for a few hours then look at it again before showing it to everyone-- and preferably first show it to someone you trust to be honest about its flaws, as well. After working so hard on something for so long, it might start looking great to you even though it isn't; going away and coming back to it can give you a clearer view; I can't count the number of times I've realized how awful something I was going to post really looked and refrained.

If something you're spriting REALLY isn't turning out the way you want, start all the way over from scratch. Sometimes you can get stuck repeating the same mistakes over and over again until you wipe the slate completely clean. It's also not a bad idea to revise your sprites every now and then. There's always room for imprvement.

Custom Poses:
One thing you can do for those interesting poses is to look for sprites that do what you want, and mesh them on to your sprite. It's not a bad thing, and quite a lot of people work with Forte's kick and Zero's slashes. Keep in mind to ensure these new parts match with your sprite though. Personally, however, I prefer going scratch for these. Draw out the outline with the pencil tool or line tool, clean it and edit, the fill, shade and color. It's not difficult. And it helps you get ready for scratch.

Scratch work:
Here we are, at the meat of the tutorial. The scratch work. Personally, I sketch it out with a combination of pencil and line tool, starting with the head, then the body. I always start with a completed head. Life's so much easier with one. When I mean completed, I mean shaded, touched up, etc. You can refer to anime or other media if it helps. Always keep in mind the style you are working with though, and referring to official sprites is never a bad thing. Ending up with a X style face on a MM7 sprite always hurts. Also, have one "average" sprite of the style you are spriting next to your work, so you can compare at all times. And obviously, keep a eye on how the shades are shaded. That's my 2 cents really, and I'll just paste Thought's essay on it here.

Thought's thoughts on Scratch:
The first step in scratch spriting is to decide if you want it to be in a specific game's style. I personally prefer a Megaman 7 style just because of the cartoon feel to them (I believe that any joke is just better with those sprites than MM9 sprites). But the point is, once you know what style you want to use as a guideline you then need to study it to determine what makes it different from other games of similar bitage. The primary differences tend to be in the pixel dimensions of the sprites and the proportions of the characters. Because I know MM7 sprites, I will use that as an example. Basically, all Light-bots are 2.5 heads high (a head is the measuring unit for proportions). One head is, as the name implies, used for the head of the character. Legs are always either at least as long as the torso or longer (depending on what drawing style you prefer). The face size is another controlling factor. On Megaman his face takes up around 1/2 to 1/2 his head. As such, he looks like he is a good guy. Not particularly an amazing physical specimen but most certainly someone who works on the side of good. Bass/Forte on the other hand is also 2.5 heads tall but his head is larger and as such he is taller. However his face is, at the same time, a little smaller. This makes him look more serious and as such a little more evil. One can also detect this in Dragon Ball Z art. The more powerful Goku's form is, the smaller his face is making him look much more serious and, at the same time, slightly dangerous.

In general, however, head size in relation to the rest of the body also conveys other meanings. If they head is smaller on the body it will make the person look all the stronger (within reason). As far as Megaman goes, this is of particular note in Gutsman and Junkman. Both their heads are unusually small for their body and so both of them look a little stronger than normal (most certainly stronger than, say, iceman). This is also a result of wider shoulders. Megaman's head sit atop shoulders that are basically the same size as itself, a little bigger. This doesn't make him look too strong (the ratio however is influenced greatly by face size to shoulder width). Bass/Forte has wider shoulders and as such looks stronger and again more dangerous (this is accomplished through the pauldrons).

Eyes are another important feature of any sprite. Because sprites are small, eyes are useful for conveying subtle (or not so subtle) emotions. Larger pupils increase the cuteness/innocence of the character (note how Megaman has pupils almost twice as large as Bass for roughly same sized eye). At the same time, unnaturally small pupils can give a scared expression. Unusually large ones can imply a state of arousal (no, not sexual. Just that something desirable has got their attention, like a vat of industrial strength ice-cream). Thick eyebrows than rest heavily on the eyes will convey a stern look where as partially close eyes (minus the eyebrows) makes a character look tired.

Proportions, being so important to a character, should be mapped out for a scratch sprite before much else is done. This is where Photoshop, or any program with layers, shines. First determine how big the head is then map out the general proportions of the rest of the body using that scale (basic Anime proportions tend to be 7 head tall, with the legs being about 4, the head being 1, and the torso being 2). Then make a stickman figure of the pose using those proportions. I personally have a separate sheet just full of stick figure poses that I will use for reference. Once you have the stick figure drawn out, determine which basic joints will be (that is, where is the knee and elbow. Wrist and ankle can be useful, but many sprites are too small for this to be of much use) and mark those. Now on a new layer (or just copy the stick figure so you have a backup if you don't like Photoshop) start with the general shape of the various limbs, making sure to keep each totally separate from the others (even if they will overlap later. You want to be sure that the full left leg looks good before putting the full right leg over it. And this is useful for future poses if only a few limbs change). The shapes are fairly quick and will allow you to judge proportions without spending all the time to actually color, detail, and shade the part. For this purpose I tend to create each piece (R foot, L Foot, R Leg, L Leg, "Iron Underwear", Torso, Head, L arm, R Arm, and hair) in a different, distinct, color. Such as 255 0 0 red green blue, 0 255 0, 0 0 255, 255 255 0, 255 0 255, 0 255 255, etc. Once you have the shapes of each individual limb worked out you will be better set for adding details and shading, especially because if you are thinking in layers you will already be thinking in 3-d and so shading is easier.

Metals and anything well polished will have more shades to them and the brightest shade will be whiter whereas cloths and other dull objects will have fewer shades and the difference between then will be a little less (especially towards the light side. You won't get glare from a shirt the same way you'll get glare from a suit of armor). If you are having trouble with shading, try to first determine how light would fall on a sphere, a cone, a cylinder, and a cube. After you have that down you can determine everything else by just imagining complex shapes to be made of those simpler shapes. In general, the brightest section will be off center towards wherever the light source is. But because most things curve around, it will be totally surrounded by darker colors (unless there is not enough pixel room) and the darkest colors will be placed farthest away from the light source. Those are only general guidelines though.

One last note for poses, a mirror is your best friend. If you can't get a pose just right, I find seeing how it looks makes it easier to reproduce. Go pose in a mirror if you need to see how limbs will overlap or if you need to see how light will fall on the pose (though when posing keep in mind the angle of view for the sprite to make sure you duplicate it and try to keep the light source in mind as well).

For animations ( Just C&P jobs. I can't animate worth a damn)
Making an animation is fairly easy for me, probably because I've been doing it for so long. And I used to do it the old fashion way. Make each frame in Paint and then use Quicktime Movie Player to put them all together.

My suggestion is to get a nice animation program like Animation Shop 3, or Adobe After Effects, read the manual, and PRACTICE. Just start with small animations, like a character shooting a gun, and then work your way up.

Making smooth animation is really difficult if you don't know what you're doing. Depending on how fast your frame rate is, you need to adjust how many frames you make for a movement. Someone swinging a sword is going to use less frames than someone walking slowly. Basically, the faster the action is, the less frames you'll need. That's basically beginner's animating. I'm sure CBX and a few other people around here can post their tips as well.

Tutorials:
http://www.pixeltutorial.cjb.net/
http://bubblescope.net/matt/other/spriting/




And here is a basic tutorial that shows a trick to getting anti-aliasing and opacity using MSPaint.
http://www28.brinkster.com/kurobei/SpriteTutorial.html

Blood Spriting Tutorial:
http://forums.aftervision.com/index.php?showtopic=8490


Shortcuts:

PSP:
Click the box to Lock the style. It's much easier (at least for me) if the colors stay the same for all tools.
Use pure white and pure black freely; the only people who have to worry about this making their sprites have weird transparencies are those who use horrid programs like MS-Paint and a large number of GIF converters. Use your programs superiority to your advantage! -- This only applies to Photoshop and PSP users, I suppose.

ctrl-shift-e Pastes as transparent; the second color you have will be the transparent color.

ctrl-shift-c Copies EXACTLY what you see! This means all visible layers will copy as if they were first merged down, but they won't be -- it's very useful. Keep in mind that if you only have one layer, however, it won't copy what you have selected at all -- just use ctrl-c then.

Just press (b) once to switch to the brush tool. Make sure the layer box isn't active when you do, however.

(f) switches to the flood tool.

Holding ctrl (or alt for PS users, I think) will usually change whatever tool you are using into the eye dropper -- extremely useful; when you release ctrl, it changes right back to the tool you had selected.

Right Clicking will preform whatever action the tool you are using would normally have only with the secondary instead of the main color -- excepting certain tools like the Marquee set and the Letter/Text tool.

Hold alt down, then press (and release each key after pressing while holding alt throughout) c, a, e in that order to bring up the Hue Map dialouge. Now you can instantly recolor an entire sheet in a matter of seconds!



Credits: Disciple, Robert Oakes, Maneko, Disciple, Ran, GW6560, Oblivion, DisgruntledFerret, Harpuia, CattleMan7x7, Sanitizer Man, Gamorian, Guy, JJ, Silverfox, Zantetsu, Amgis, Dakedesu, Thought, Oppolo

New suggestions and questions are welcome, conflicting opinions are reminded to remain civil, and I look forward to rewriting this when there enough fresh suggestions and questions worth answering.

A little piece of advice.....

SIXTEEN BIT X AND MEGAMAN CLASSIC SPRITES ARE NOT TO BE MIXED EVER!

The sprites are completely the wrong proportions to mesh with eachother....

YES I'M TALKING TO YOU, YES THE ONE WITH PROTOMANS HEAD ON ZEROS BODY!

Ok I'm done.

Well, sence sprites are used for animation... How do you get the the square around the actual sprite, when you use the slect tool, in Flash to go away? (I think it's called transparency.) I don't think there's a little button like with Paint, when you have the select tool, so how?

Ah, are you asking for help with Flash?

We have a thread over in the Information Station about that.

Edit: Err... maybe not. That was before the forum switch, so it's gone now. But you're free to start a new Flash help thread there.

What do you guys use for effects?
I use Ulead Photo Express for most of my spriting, and it has some good effects.

I use Paint 8. It's real similer to Adobe. I think you can find it in the free programs thread.

I got some good advice:
16 bit MM7 Roll is a toxic base for females! That Roll is more like a 8-10 year old girl, and has horrific difficulty to be resprited as a woman of age 20+

I reccomend just work on something a little more on scratch, or possibly using X1 Zero as a base instead or something.

One thing about editing sprites in MS paint: Zoom in when you are trying to erase pixels. This is just a way to be sure that you, A) erase all un-wanted pixels, and B) so that DON'T erase anything that you want to keep.
P.s Remember you can undo up to 3 mistakes in Ms Paint with the undo button.

My advice.

Don't be intemedated by scratch sprites. All they really are, are small pictures that are colored nice.

An easy way to make one is to draw a small undetailed scretch, scan it(make sure you have your scanner set to just black and white), and color it in.

And if you lack a scanner, then draw it with your mouse.

Naraku out.

I disagree with that. Granted, some spriters can bumble their way into making freaks, but don't believe you can. Most of them are hard pressed to replicate their works. Study sprites, especially those of the style you wish to learn, then from there, learn to sprite.

There's more to spriting than that, Naraku. And I have yet to see a sprite from you that I'd actually consider to be half-decent.

Don't try to give advice when you don't know what the hell you're talking about.

Actually, the draw/scan/color method is a fairly good technique in making sprites. Even *gasps* Capcom artists, themselves, have used this technique in making their fighting game style sprites and mugshots.

Of course, with smaller sprites (particularly Megaman style sprites) that technique lacks much use... because by that point, it'd just be a mess of super-resized pixels and cleaning it up would take just as much work as drawing a sprite on a blank canvas in Paint.

Yes, I realize that. But it still requires skill, and isn't as easy has he made it sound. :/

i fell kinda stupid for asking this but how do you take a sprite off of a sprite sheet?

It's probably best to say what program you're using to make sprites and comics, some programs work differently.

With Paint Shop Pro, use the selection tool and draw a box around the sprite with the pose you want. Then click copy and then paste it onto your comic or whatever it is that you're working on. It's probably best to paste it as a transparent selection or something like that to avoid having to redo a background.

Other programs should be able to do something very similar, but I'm not 100% certain.

It works the same way in MSPAINT and Corel PhotoPaint.

hey thanks for the help kritter i have paint shop pro but i couldn't figure it out like i said i feel kinda dumb.

When you've gotten used to making real sprites, try redoing the shading in a different style than it already is eg. 32 bit X style-> 32 bit Forte style, not only does this make your sprite more unique it also prepares you for scratch spriting.
When making sprites of the mmx universe in mm7 style (or vice versa) remember to keep proprtions right ( remember that Zero is about a head taller than Forte) and do not reuse heads. Your better off trying to make the head from scratch rather than using Rock's or Forte's because of the size difference and the fact that Rock looks to young to be changed into X's.

I will say this again: Roll is a TERRIBLE base to create a new female sprite.
Megaman's body with Roll's attached head and Zero's ponytail is NOT a female sprite either. Deal with it. And Megaman's leg stance is NOT femenine at all. Just look at him, dammit! He is spreading his legs!
That is NOT a femenine posture!

Bass and Zero are decent bases to make a female sprite, though. A girl's body looks like a guitar or a sandclock, and usually her knees are pointing each other, keep that on mind.

Just in case: Megaman's body with Roll's head, Zero's ponytail and a set of GIANT boobs is NOT a female sprite. Thanks.

I have only a couple things, one of which at least has been said but can never be said enough.

1) Practice. Just keep doing it. Starting out with a recolor really had no shame--just as long as from that point on you continue to play with the art until you can move beyond a recolor later.

2) Look at other sprites. Hang out in the Cameo Central section and click on the links to spritesheets people post. Hang out in the Spriting Main section and browse people's sprite threads. Hand out in the Fancomics and the Fansite/Subcomics sections and read the comics. All of these will get you more accquianted with using sprites and such, and give you better ideas on how to sprite your own imagined characters and effects. Sorta like a sponge soaking up water.

3) Practice. Oh, wait, did I already say that? Oh well, I'll say it again. Practice.

yes.. LOTS of practice... i was lucky the way my first sprite turned out... had to do little editing after that but still need to work on shading... i'm sure even DAVE practices spriting some, although has more experience in spriting than alot others...






well neither are many of the positions in your avvy.. heheh.. oh crap! ::runs::

Question:
How do you do conversions from 32 bit into 16 bit?

Depends on what you want to convert. Some people completely re-sprite it, others add the outline and take away some shades of color, and I'm sure there are more techniques. It all depends on what you're converting though.

I did the Rush bike. Basically, I just took away some colors, and I got really into it. But I don't like the way it turned out, so I thought some help would be nice.

Well, here is what I would do. First, I'd add the semi-black outline that all of Capcom's 16-bit Megaman sprites have. Next, take the 16-bit Rush, and steal its colors to color your conversion. For the face of the bike (Assuming it has a face, I dont remember what it looks like) combine some clever scratch work with some splicing of 16-bit Rush.

As I've stated before, I recommend starting on 8-bit sprites and working your way up to the higher bittages. While I'm not the best spriter in the world, it IS how I started out, and thus far, it's seemed to have worked for me.

And as Kiseki stated in the whole thing (as well as others stating), the original colors in MSPaint are generally HORRID for spriting, if you MUST use them, use them sparingly, or for your transparent background like I do. >_> I generally rip colors from official sprites when I need them.

Meh. I can't think of anything else offhand at the moment.

GW6560

A note on editing sprites to look like your character:

If you want to base a hero-type character off of Rock, I strongly suggest giving him a heavy edit before you start really customizing him. Face it: His body design cannot be older than twelve. Making him taller, editing his (very bulky) hands and legs, changing his eyes and that weird smirk, those things are the least you can do. Even if your character really IS ten or twelve, Rock's sprite as-it-is isn't that good.

For Forte, if you're planning a human character who won't have pauldrons, simply recoloring him to have a shirt on will not work. Doing that makes your character look like a gorilla. Trust me; I'm tried it. Shift his arm clsoer to his body, and round off the shoulder. Thinning his legs is good too, unless you really like baggy jeans.

For a female character... I prefer scratch sprites. But if I want to use a base, I never use Roll. Ever. I just don't like her sprite's face - too soppy. (What? I just prefer strong-willed female characters who don't cling to the hero.) Using Rock and Forte works way better - so long as you don't just give them breasts and leave it at that. In anime, girls tend to be more delicate. The noses and mouths are smaller (except when she's yelling and whacking people with baka-hammers)and the eyes are larger. This isn't a hard and fast rule, though.

EDIT:
I need advice myself... I need tips on doing curly hair, or at least wavy.

A bit of advice for MSPaint users:

Because Paint has only 3 undos available and no initial layering features, when you're using parts that you scratched or heavily edited (arms, torsoes, legs, etc.), don't assemble the actual part into the final sprite. Instead, set off a portion of the bitmap as a "parts bank" and copy & paste each of the parts you need for each sprite. If the assembly goes badly, you can just start over instead of having to readjust the parts. It's also helpful to do this if you're making many poses, because you can reuse most of the parts in other poses instead of having to recreate them or split them off from a completed sprite.

Well, I thought I'd share how I do sprites, mainly 32 bit. I might make a few refrences to my RMs so you know what I'm talking about, in the
W W W button.

1) Sprite Base. You can scratch for a uniqe base, but it's not nessacery. Like Gutsman 32 bit, I used Duo, and an enimy from MM&B, this would be frankenstineing. If you can't scratch, or are just too lazy, then I recommend this. However if you just don't hacce what you need for that then you scratch. Be patiant, if it's your first time you won't have gold. I made Centuarman's lower body from scratch, I started with basic shapes, then fined them out, and viola!

2) Refrence. Now you don't always need one but it can help with making pacific chariters. Like When I was making Crashman, I made proportions, stance, and color from the refrence. Refrences make your sprites look much better.

3) Color sceam. The preset colors form MS pait aren't always the best. I like to use colors from my refrences. Also reameber certin bittages have a certen amount of shades for one color. 8 bit can have 1-2, 16 bit can have about 2-3, and 32 bit can have about 3-5 sometimes. However blasts can be have anywere from 3-10 shades. And the shades also give the sprites a "3-D" effect. And if your making a metelic sprite, a VERY light color, like white or grey, will do the trick.

4)A black line. It can make all the diffrence in a sprite. From making it bigger, to making it stand out more. It usally give the sprite a more cartoony effect. All mine have it. It's also my style. So 32 bit sprites can have it, it's not just for 8 bit or 16 bit sprites.

5) Backgrounds. Really, only nessacery for comics and games, not just sprite making. When making backgrounds intened for public use, start out big, not everyone usees the same panle size as you. And teh ones I do are scratch, but you can use varius things to make it look better. Like taking the floor from and X1 level, tehn putting that infrunt of a MM7 backdrop. Also reamember you don't want to draw attention from the sprites, I use a blurr tool every once and a while then go back and touch it up.

6) Tools. The right ones can make all the diffrence. The magnifing glass is the most important. You can get good coloring done with it. The pencil tool, I se this for free hand drawing and cloring. It's much better for detialed areas of the sprite. I only use the eraser for erasing. The paint can tool will fill in the large areas too. the line tool is grreat for making those swords your all crazy about, and anything else for a strait line. For speashal effects ANYTHING can be used, but the right program helps, Photo shop is good, and MS Paint 8.

And with that enjoy making sprites. (I have the BGs at my thead in Sprtiing main if you want to see them.)