How to make Sprites

[ArthurCh]

Well, I don't know if someone already made a topic like this but I noticed a lot of people wanted to make custom sprites for their Mugen characters. I don't know if there's a easier way, but that's how I do. Some sprites are lame because i did them only for this tutorial.                                                                                                                                                  (Note: I suggest you to use MS Paint.)

1º Step: Sketching

You can just draw a sprite right way (unless you're good), and you also can't make a medium-sized sprite pixel by pixel (unless you're VERY good), for each drawing you'll need a sketch... First you'll need to draw a stick figure with one color (you can skip this part if you want), then you draw some other details with another color, and then finally you can trace your final sprite.

(Don't laugh at my failed attempt at Daryl)

 

Try to make good poses for you character, don't make him look hard like a statue..

 

BUT wait... How I'll get rid of the other colors if Paint doesn't have layers? You'll need to put the undesired colors as the secondary color, then copy the sketch and paste it again, remember to check the option 'transparent selection'.

 

2º Step: Coloring and Shading

 

Well, there's not much to say about this part, but be careful with the shading, it's a optional extra work but it makes the sprite look more alive.

Always make a palette next to your character, so you can pick the correct color easily.

 

* Ways to do a Sprite Sheet....

1. Frame by Frame:

Well, you can draw them one by one, but you would need to be careful to don't change things and body sizes too much. I recommend to use the 1º and 2º ways..

 

2. Body parts:

You can draw separated body parts and then build them together, but It would be better if you did a full body first before trying this.

Example:

With a few parts you can....

...Make a whole walking sequence.

It's a good idea when doing complicated poses and animations.

 

3. Pivot 3

It's an idea I had some time ago, but not much of a good idea.. Sometimes I use it for some stuff. Pivot (Version 3) can load images...(The transparent color is the pink from that previous picture), and you can flip, re-size and turn them at any angle without making those annoying "jpg" pixels around it like Gimp do, so it can be very useful if you keep drawing wrong anatomy. First you load your pictures, after building the sprite body you click 'next frame' and then 'play' (so those little circles around it can disappear) and then print screen it to paint. Warning: Don't over do it if you don't have much body parts, the character can look hard and weird.

 

Other important stuff:

* Save each sprite separated, so you can put in Fighter Factory.

* Save in bmp (24-bits), NEVER save it in JPEG. .__.

* Don't do Sonic edits. (Ehh, I'm kidding. do whatever you want and don't care what others say about it..)

 

That's all I had to say about it... I hope it helped you. 

[Ryon]

Personally I would like to add.

 

SAVE AS PNG.

 

DO NOT SAVE AS BMP.

 

1. the filesize is alot bigger with BMP.

2. Compression is better with PNG.

3. FF can read PNG's with Palletes, and it gives you a messed up pallete with a 24bit BMP.

4. PNG all the way. its the new standard, I feel.

[lyr]

Yeah, I also think PNG is better than BMP.

[agmoyer]

I'm new to this and am planning on making basically everything from scratch, select screen, life bars, stages, beats, menu, and characters. I want to know how can I pick the exact size of the character, is there a choice when added to fighter factory or something? If so would that mean I can just draw it any size in any program that uses pixels like ms paint or aseprite then adjust the size to my liking in the other program?

[Алексей]

I'm new to this and am planning on making basically everything from scratch, select screen, life bars, stages, beats, menu, and characters. I want to know how can I pick the exact size of the character, is there a choice when added to fighter factory or something? If so would that mean I can just draw it any size in any program that uses pixels like ms paint or aseprite then adjust the size to my liking in the other program?

Mugen 1.0 has a parameter in the ".def" of your character that can be set known as localcoord. This defaults to 320x240. That's usually for low-res characters, so you can make a canvas (which would act as the size of the screen) of that size and then make your character exactly the size you want. Now, if you pick a localcoord of 640x480, your character will be scaled down by 2, which is perfect for higher resolution sprites. Going from that, you can scale down by 4 by using 1280x720 for HD characters. Those from BlazBlue and Guilty Gear use this localcoord.

Here's some extra info for you if you want to read up more on localcoord: http://elecbyte.com/mugendocs/coordspace.html.

[seijura]

the image is broken any other links for this guide? :(

[Ryon]

why make sprites?

well you have to consider not everyone will understand HOW to make a 3d model, or apply textures, or move bone structure to make the moves happen.

and the hardest part of all, indexing your sprites so they can work in mugen 1.0.

you can make a character that is NOT indexed, but there is a cost, no palettes. no palletes, means if a character fights himself, they both look the exact same. you need palettes, and you need to index.

Colorloss will happen to 3d modeled characters turned 2d. So learning how to draw sprites can be used as a base for making your 3d models, especially with animation.

why spend hours of a animation when you can plan it out as a sprite, then mirror the animation and do it is less.(maybe hour singular?)

[dreddheaddotaku]

Niiiiice, now I won't have to rage again about making my self char.

[Flare-Gamer-64]

This guide is super useful. I even have it bookmarked.

Thanks.

[MarioPlayz_Gamez]

I'm using Photoshop for my SSB4 Mario edit but something's wrong:

 

1. I've put the Mode on Indexed Color on 8 Bits/channel (Mode - Indexed Color and 8 Bits/Channel) because, well, while I was making a SSB4-styled ducking style for Pizzasauce's Mario, I found out that both HCL's Ducking Sprite (I used this to copy it) and the Pizzasauce sprite were in Indexed Color and 8 Bits.

2. Saved it as both .bmp and .png. When I put the .bmp first near the stand-to-crouch sprite (via Sprites menu, not Animations menu), almost every sprite changed color. Same goes with .png. When I added it on the very last sprite (shield), it still has the same problem.

[Belair64]

On 4/14/2013 at 2:17 PM, Ryon said:

Personally I would like to add.

 

SAVE AS PNG.

 

DO NOT SAVE AS BMP.

 

1. the filesize is alot bigger with BMP.

2. Compression is better with PNG.

3. FF can read PNG's with Palletes, and it gives you a messed up pallete with a 24bit BMP.

4. PNG all the way. its the new standard, I feel.

New development DO NOT use PNG if you are using FF.Classic It will not be accepted.