Sprite Editing tutorials

Started by Jek, August 02, 2010, 10:36:13 pm

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Jek

August 02, 2010, 10:36:13 pm Last Edit: August 03, 2010, 05:05:05 pm by Jek
Jeks Sprite Editing Tutorials

This is my tutorial for editing sprites in any way you want. I will be teaching you how to frankensprite RMXP characters together, combine tilesets, recolor, and alot more sprite editing techniques. I am using Graphics Gale for each of the tutorials, so I advise you install it before attempting these strategies. You cannot do this in paint! Graphics gale is free, and my personal favorite for editing sprites. Its the choice because it is specifically made for spriting, while Photoshop is specific for making things look nice and not pixelated. Some of this is doable in Photoshop, but not all of it.


Important for each tutorial! Make sure to turn on tranparency in each charset you edit. In the Layers window, look for a tiny button. Click it, and it will open a window. Check the transparency box.



Table of Contents

  • Frankenspriting Learn to take Arshes head, and put it on the body of a lancer.

  • Recoloring Arshes has orange hair, but I want it blue! What am I to do?

  • WIP Combine Tilesets Ive always wanted to make a dungeon beach resort, but the palm trees are in the desert tileset, and the dungeon is a different tileset. Help me Jek!

  • WIP Jeks Avatar Learn to make Jeks "Fuck Yeah" avatar!




Frankenspriting

Lets say we want the head of Warrior-02 on the body of Cleric-02 because Warrior-02 needs to make it to an important dinner and needs Cleric-02s stature and nice suit. That's where this tutorial comes in handy.
Spoiler: ShowHide


Step 1. Chop off the head of Cleric-02!
With the Rectangular Selection tool at the top bar, select the head of Cleric-02, and press the delete key. Take off everything from the shoulders up.



Step 2. Grab Warrior-02s head.
Now, it is time to grab the head off of Warrior-02. We have to make sure that as we grab the head, we avoid grabbing the pointy shoulders. To do this, we grab his head exactly. Select it in sections by pressing the Shift button as you select. This adds to your previous selection. after selecting the head completely, press Ctrl + C to copy the head to your clipboard.



Step 3. Now, we stick the head of Warrior-02 onto the body of Cleric-02
Make a new layer by right clicking on your current layer in the Layers window, and pressing New Layer. Make that layer transparent by clicking the box and checking transparency. While in the top layer for Cleric-02s sprite, press Ctrl + V. The head of Warrior-02 will pop up at the top left of the window. Drag it down to the exact place where it fits. Use the chin left from cutting off the head of Cleric-02 to figure out where to place Warrior-02s head. If you see a white square around the warriors head whenever you put the head down, place it, then use the magic wand tool to select the white area around the head, then press delete.



Step 4. Repeat until done completely.
You can reuse the head you selected for all 4 frames facing downward in the charset. Repeat all of these steps until you finish the entire charset.

Now he is ready for a wedding or something.



Recoloring

Sometimes, we love the look of something, but we don't like the color. For instance, Arshes has orange hair. Out of hate for the color orange, I may want his hair blue, or yellow, or even green. Thats where this tutorial may come in handy.
There are 2 methods for Recoloring sprites that I will teach you. The first one is very simple, while the second one requires a small amount of precision. Use whichever one you want.
Spoiler: ShowHide


Method 1

Step 1. Prepare the sprite.
For this method, we need to change the image's color depth to 8bpp (256 colors). Most RMXP and RMVX resources are already 256 colors, but its best to do this step anyways. In the menu at the top of Graphics Gale, click All Frames, and then Color Depth... in the sub menu. Click the circle for 8bpp (256 colors), then press OK.
You should see a set of boxes like this to your right:


Step 2. Change the colors.
Make sure you are using the tool. Right click on whatever color you want changed, and then adjust the sliders to the right to change the color. Under the sliders there are 2 tabs, RGB and HSL. Most prefer HSL, but some others prefer RGB.

Step 3. Final Product.
Once you have changed each color that you need to, you should have something like this:
Before:

After:


In my personal opinion, she looks like Lady Gaga


Method 2

Step 1. Preparing the sprite
Just like in the first method, go to All Frames and click Color Depth... in the sub menu. This time, click 24bpp (Full Color). This will not limit the amount of colors in use.

Step 2. Grabbing Colors
Now you need to change to the tool. This is the Color Replacer. Right click on the color you want to replace, it should pop up on the first slide in the Color Sliders. Now press the X beside the color sliders as labeled here:

That should switch the First Slide and the Second Slide. Change the first slide (that is now white) to whatever color you want to replace with the color in the second slide.


Step 3. Draw!
Now, use the tool to draw over the colors you want changed. You can change texture and pen size with the two boxes next to the color sliders. Now, you have exact control over where you want the color changed. We can make our blue aquatic friend pink, with one green eye, and one yellow eye!
Before:

After:


Aqua

Did you show us a thing that's not doable in PS yet?
Because all that's here is doable... D:

Anywho...
This is short, simple, and informative.
Looking forward to more of these tuts.

And yay for a nice topic layout.

Blizzard

*pokes Aqua to move the topic to database*
Check out Daygames and our games:

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Quote from: winkioI do not speak to bricks, either as individuals or in wall form.

Quote from: Barney StinsonWhen I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.

Agckuu Coceg

Not bad. Wait a recoloring tutorial, because there are several different methods, including using other graphical editors.
I'm not retarded, but I'm busy. Sorry for patience.


Jek

August 03, 2010, 05:06:13 pm #4 Last Edit: August 03, 2010, 05:08:13 pm by Jek
I finished the Recoloring Sprites tutorial, with 2 different methods.




Quote from: earthnite on August 03, 2010, 12:44:44 pm
Graphics gale is awesome!!!


you should make a tutorial to create original sprites


Im not actually too good at that, and there already is one of those in the forums here.




Quote from: Aqua on August 02, 2010, 10:52:57 pm
Did you show us a thing that's not doable in PS yet?
Because all that's here is doable... D:


Photoshop doesn't have the Color Replacer tool used in the Recoloring tutorial. There is a way to do that in Photoshop, but its less convenient than the Color Replacer tool.

Agckuu Coceg

August 03, 2010, 06:07:24 pm #5 Last Edit: August 03, 2010, 06:31:37 pm by En Adun Gin-san
Color Replacer is not good... And yeah, recoloring is pretty easy.

This tutorial redistributed for any version of Photoshop. I just have CS3.

My Photoshop is russified, so it's pretty difficult to understand what is written there. But I think I have identified exactly.

1. First, we need to selecting the area that we will recolored. It is best to use the Magic Wand without smoothing and adjacent pixels, and only then remove excess, you needed a square selection.

Spoiler: ShowHide


2. Now pick a foreground color, similar to that which we want. In principle, this step can be skipped, but it will automatically adjust the hue.

Spoiler: ShowHide


3. Let's pick a "hue\saturation" (Image\Corrections\Hue\Saturation)

Spoiler: ShowHide


4. Choose a colorize and play with the settings...

Spoiler: ShowHide


5. Press the OK... And we got a similar recolored sprite. Like this. Save it.

Spoiler: ShowHide


This is making for seconds. If you wanna some more about this, I'll explain.

I'm not retarded, but I'm busy. Sorry for patience.


Blizzard

That's almost the same way I do it. I pick all the colors from his hair by using the color selector tool and then just change the hue. Done.
Check out Daygames and our games:

King of Booze 2      King of Booze: Never Ever
Drinking Game for Android      Never have I ever for Android
Drinking Game for iOS      Never have I ever for iOS


Quote from: winkioI do not speak to bricks, either as individuals or in wall form.

Quote from: Barney StinsonWhen I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.

Agckuu Coceg

Quote from: Blizzard on August 03, 2010, 06:36:55 pm
That's almost the same way I do it. I pick all the colors from his hair by using the color selector tool and then just change the hue. Done.


Quite a few are used to replace the "Color Replacer" tool in Photoshop... This is a major mistake. Why spend time on a compilation of each color, when there is a "hue\saturation" tool, that automatically adjust them all?
I'm not retarded, but I'm busy. Sorry for patience.


Blizzard

Yeah. Usually what you need is not to replace one color or a set of colors but to change the hue of the colors to retain the proper shading of the image.
Check out Daygames and our games:

King of Booze 2      King of Booze: Never Ever
Drinking Game for Android      Never have I ever for Android
Drinking Game for iOS      Never have I ever for iOS


Quote from: winkioI do not speak to bricks, either as individuals or in wall form.

Quote from: Barney StinsonWhen I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.

legacyblade

Ya. If you just use the hue saturation tool on the image, it'll change everything's hue. Often causing green or blue skin. And sometimes using hue-saturation editing will mess up the shading. So, as a long time spriter, I prefer to manually create the pallet I'll use to replace the color of the sprite.

Blizzard

For spriting from scratch that makes sense. We're mainly talking about editing sprites and images.
Check out Daygames and our games:

King of Booze 2      King of Booze: Never Ever
Drinking Game for Android      Never have I ever for Android
Drinking Game for iOS      Never have I ever for iOS


Quote from: winkioI do not speak to bricks, either as individuals or in wall form.

Quote from: Barney StinsonWhen I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.

legacyblade

I know :P I was just saying that just because you have the hue saturate tool, recoloring without it is stupid. I always get better results when I manually come up with the colors to replace, so I don't hue-saturate much anymore.

Agckuu Coceg

Quote from: legacyblade on August 03, 2010, 07:24:16 pm
I know :P I was just saying that just because you have the hue saturate tool, recoloring without it is stupid. I always get better results when I manually come up with the colors to replace, so I don't hue-saturate much anymore.


But in this case it will be MUCH LONGER time to simple work.
I'm not retarded, but I'm busy. Sorry for patience.


Lore

Depends on what you want.

If you're looking for quality, I'd say manual replacement always yields results.
If you want a quick easy sprite edit for a very minor character or monster, Hue/Saturation is the way to go.
Facebook is like your fridge. You know nothing is in there, but you check every 5 minutes anyways.

legacyblade

Quote from: Lore on August 03, 2010, 08:21:11 pm
Depends on what you want.

If you're looking for quality, I'd say manual replacement always yields results.
If you want a quick easy sprite edit for a very minor character or monster, Hue/Saturation is the way to go.


qft. I started a game yesterday I plan to make within four weeks, so I forsee lots of hue/saturation.

poxy

For recoloring: Reduce the color depth to the colours in use with GraphicsGale. Edit the palette. Takes 2 minutes.
My Project: ShowHide

Jek

August 04, 2010, 03:35:29 am #16 Last Edit: August 04, 2010, 03:40:15 am by I am the Cow Level
Quote from: USS Yamato on August 03, 2010, 10:23:16 pm
For recoloring: Reduce the color depth to the colours in use with GraphicsGale. Edit the palette. Takes 2 minutes.


That is method 1 in my tutorial...


@Photoshop lovers: Its great that you love photoshop so much to post a tutorial. Its a pretty good tutorial that is also doable in GIMP. Do you think I should rename this to Graphics Gale Sprite Editing Tutorial? I think thats too long a name...

Blizzard

Name's fine. It's already generic.
Check out Daygames and our games:

King of Booze 2      King of Booze: Never Ever
Drinking Game for Android      Never have I ever for Android
Drinking Game for iOS      Never have I ever for iOS


Quote from: winkioI do not speak to bricks, either as individuals or in wall form.

Quote from: Barney StinsonWhen I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.

Agckuu Coceg

Quote from: I am the Cow Level on August 04, 2010, 03:35:29 am
@Photoshop lovers: Its great that you love photoshop so much to post a tutorial. Its a pretty good tutorial that is also doable in GIMP. Do you think I should rename this to Graphics Gale Sprite Editing Tutorial? I think thats too long a name...


I also think that it is not necessary.

As for GIMP - yes, the principle is absolutely the same.
I'm not retarded, but I'm busy. Sorry for patience.


legacyblade

Some people don't know how to do this. It isn't unnecessary because you already know how :P To me, a lot of advanced spriting tutorials would be utterly pointless since I know how, but that doesn't mean I should get all upidy about the existence of a tutorial that contains stuff I know how to do. It's aimed at beginners who don't know how to do this, and he's walking them through the process of how to edit sprites. If you know how to edit sprites like this, of course you won't get use out of this tutorial.