Problem with sprite editing
 

I have a problem editing sprites. They look ok in photoshop, but when loading them into the game, there are sometimes black around them, they have a tiny black border and/or the pink shaddow doesnt seem to work. I use layers, melt them down to one and then save them as .tga. Attached in an archive with two units, especially the angel one doesnt work.

In addition, it seems my tga (64x64) are not scaled right, they look kind of "fat" ingame, while they look just ok when editing them.

http://rapidshare.com/files/372249774/new.rar.html

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

The shadow must be 255 0 255.

Anything you want to be transparent must be 0 0 0.

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

RE: the "fat" graphics - yes, I've noticed that too. The in-game scaling does not appear to be 1:1. I don't have any suggestion other than eyeballing it - it's a particular problem if you want a fairly accurate geometric shape (as you notice when it's "off" more easily.) Note that viewing in the recruitment screen is a relatively quick way to judge, and you can get the dimensions worked out prior to fiddling with the fine detail.

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

If you pick a basic resolution and turn filtering off the sprites appear exactly as they are in the graphical editing program of your choice.

So I don't think the game is stretching sprites, it's just a matter of resolution.

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

What do you consider a "basic resolution"? I use 1680 x 1050, which is my monitor's native resolution (both in-game via the visual preferences, and in my OS.) I still see the "fat sprites" effect (not very noticeable, except when doing something like a perfect sphere.)

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

A non widescreen resolution.

Dom3 doesn't support widescreen it seems to me.

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

In the Drowned image, I see faint stray pixels around the sprite -- be sure to use, say, the magic wand tool to find and remove those (if not wanted).

As for the angel one (and possibly the drowned one too -- I didn't check it for this), the problem is that you've got a dark "halo" of nearly-black pixels around it. Most of these should be deleted, but some require a judgment call -- if removing them destroys a certain element of detail that is good, then use the H/S/L or Brightness/Contrast tools to lighten them (and possibly increase color saturation) a bit.

Edge pixels under a certain threshold of lightness will show up in-game darker than you'd expect from looking at it in an editor. Unless you specifically want an area quite dark, you need to have the edges fairly light -- maybe just a bit darker than the main color. It took a bit of dinking around for me to get a sense of it, but you can reduce a lot of the pixel-by-pixel work by using the Magic Wand tool (Fuzzy Select in GIMP) with a tolerance (threshold in GIMP) of, say, 5 or 10. Experiment to get a good result.

Attached image should show you what I mean.

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

Ill try, thanks for your help guys. After cleaning the angel up, it looks better ingame, it was indeed a a faint black halo around it, probably from the copy/paste and smudge job.

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

I don't know if this will help, but one little trick I found very helpful for smudging or smearing or any sort of thing like that is to use the hand-drawing select tool (I haven't reinstalled it since the HD crash, so I can't remember the exact term it used) to carefully select only the area you want to smudge/burn/whatever. That way, you can't push color into the surrounding pixels even if you try.

(Another trick in a situation where you only want to avoid tainting the black background is to use the magic wand to select the black background color with 0 tolerance, then Selection->Invert.

Don't know if those tips are helpful, but thought I'd throw 'em out there anyway.

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

Ack! So the game doesn't actually support the listed resolutions natively??

I just tried running in windowed mode with explicit dimensions specified, and apparently I'm used to the wider fonts, etc. because now everything looks squished :(

So, basically, if you're running a 4x3 resolution, graphics are "normal", but everything else is off by whatever the scaling factor is..I also tried 1280 x 1024 (5x4, resolution of my other monitor), and that makes things *narrower*. Not at all what I would expect. This should be in the modding manual, at least (if not the game manual.)

Hrmph...

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

I've been running 1900x1220 and not noticed anything compared to my older monitor which had 1280x1084 and my monitor is widescreen. Don't have the old one anymore, so I can't compare.

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

Well, unless you're looking for it, it's not really very noticeable unless you're looking at something that makes it obvious (such as a sprite with a perfectly round circle - I think this may be what someone in the Mytheology thread was talking about when they noticed the eye sprites were slightly "flattened".)

It's very noticeable if you use windowed mode and modify the dimensions using the command line. For instance, launch specifying 1200x900, which is 4x3 aspect ratio, and then compare with 1280x1024 (5x4 - will appear slightly narrower) and then 1680 x 1050 (16x10, will appear wider.)

Just in case it's platform specific, I'm testing using version 3.24 on Windows 7 64 bit.

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

I see the problem on WinXP. I just assumed everyone else found it of no account.

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

I made some more units. Any ideas about how to make them look better or general opinions at all ?




edit: is there anyway to attach a .tga and get a small preview inside the post ?

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

No claim to expertise (I knew nothing about graphical artwork a few months ago, and nothing about art in general a year ago), but I'll give some tips based on what I've been learning lately. If anyone wants to correct me or elaborate on anything, feel free.

For the things I'm talking about, I've attached an example image to show what I mean. I worked on Marerider1.tga.

1) The base sprite for this one is already a bit fuzzy and indistinct, like one of the ones that started out at a lower res and was resampled automatically to get a higher res image. In the future, I'd start out with a better base image. However, since we're working with this one, I would toy with using the paintbrush, 1 pixel, 20 or 30 opacity, set to "lighten only," on one of the brighter colors, to pick out a few details carefully. Like, for example, the edge of the armor going around the horse's neck. (You may want to use the select tool to keep from "paint" bleeding into neighboring pixels.)

Check out the leading and top edges of the shield, the ring around the horse's neck, and the bottom edges of the barding. I used the select tool to pick out what looked to me like the appropriate lines, and then used the color picker to find the brightest white pixel and ran across the selected pixels with the paintbrush (actually, here it was Normal mode, not Lighten only, since hue is not an issue on an essentially monochromatic portion of the horse). Then I picked the brightest spots on the selected areas and ran over them another time or two to make them a bit brighter.

More details could certainly be picked out, particularly on the rider, and I think I'd probably just get rid of the whole chain thing around the neck unless it's specifically desired (instead making it just like the bottom edges of the armor), but it should serve as a good example. And I claim no great artwork here -- I did it quickly for example, and didn't scrutinize it too closely.

You may also want to slightly darken areas setting aside, for example, the bottom of the shield from the foot. Be careful not to darken it too close to absolute black.

2) Make sure the shadows are complete. In Marerider1.tga, you have chunks of the shadow missing. I've colored the missing areas white.

3) As a general rule, make sure and get rid of the dark near-black pixels that show up around parts of the image when you've (a) either reduced or transformed the image or (b) used the smudge or paintbrush or something and it bled into a side background pixel. However, drawing light sources (flame, lightning, glows, etc.) is a bit different, and often actually seem to look better with a bit of dark "halo." The best trick is to try it out in-game and see how it gets rendered on the battlefield. You'll probably want to remove a few of them. (A quick way to find them is to use the color select tool in GIMP, shift-O, set threshold to 0 on it, select some point on the black background, and find pixels that should not be showing up.)

(I haven't fixed any of this -- you'll need to do that. One thing I would do is check out one of the flame graphics from a vanilla or mod sprite you know looks good, and check out closely how they went about it. If you want to try light-sourcing, check out how I did the lightning light-sourcing on the attack sprite for the Great Enchantress in the Community Sprites Update Mod. Not perfect, but I think it gets across the idea. If you do it, though, make sure it works -- it may not work well with this sprite.)

4) A further note on flames in particular, again, must really see how it looks in-game, but one thing I can tell for sure on its flames is that the flames being breathed out of his mouth on the attack sprite are going to show up way fuzzy and conspicuously too smooth. And I can also see two more problems on both sprites immediately: (1) the hoof flames might be angled a bit too much (I see you're going for the motion/wind thing, but you may want to make it a bit more mild -- particularly on the static sprite), and (2) the flames spouting out of his back look like they're coming from holes in the horse's body (like wounds), though this, I imagine, is okay if it was intentional.

5) For eyes, I've personally found that it looks best if you keep a ridge of unaffected color above the eye, and put everything (including glow from glowing eyes) below. I've set examples of how I'd do it quickly in a few quick edits aside from the main image.

6) Watch the feet/hooves. Here, it looks like the two rear hooves that the horse is standing on do not come down to their plane properly. (I've colored it bright green to show which one.) And with the horse's left-rear hoof (from the horse's own perspective), the hoof either looks too long or like the other one is coming down too far, so it should be shortened a couple of pixels.

7) As always, make sure none of the black portions of your sprite go all the way black -- particularly something to watch for on a dark sprite, as there's nothing more ugly than the holes that appear in odd spots from an area going from dark to transparent. (I haven't included it here, but check out the high foreleg on Marerider2.tga for what I'm talking about -- the leg has a two-pixel-wide hole in it.)

I hope that helps a bit!

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

Thanks for your time. Im using photoshop, so now ive find to out how to apply your suggestions there. Thanks.

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

No problem. With PS, think "tolerance" instead of "threshold" -- that's the term it uses for paintbrush and all that. And for color select, think magic wand tool.

Oh, also, I realized after that post that for the glowing eyes, you'll want to make the pixels next to the bright eye really rich -- high on saturation -- but low on brightness. That brings out the eye nicely and gives the glowing effect.

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

Can you give me an advice on how YOU would "fix" the flame breath ? It doesnt look too bad ingame, but i certainly appreciate if it would look better. What exactly is the problem in your opinion ?

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

Aside from being too smooth? Well, like I said, the first thing *I* would do is find a sprite that can serve as a good example. It may or may not be perfect, but, say, I randomly found 0910_king_of_magma. Then I'd compare what I have to it, and note that the flames in the example sprite tends to use high contrast, not get too dark, and at least some semi-clean lines (again, too much smoothness tends to not fit in right). So I'd pick out some lines of flame and reinforce them, like you can see in the top left section of the flames in the 0910 sprite.

Like I said, I'm not hanging myself out there like an expert. Just giving asked-for feedback and sharing tips I've found useful in my own learning process.

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

It's too bad Sombre was banned, I'm sure he could come up with a few helpful suggestions.

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

Thats assuming he would even bother posting.

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

He's responded to plenty of your modding questions, lazy as you are about finding answers to them yourself, even when they're trivially easy to look up in the modding manual. So that seems uncalled for.

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

U know whats uncalled for ? Its you pretending to care about my question and you posting stuff like "oh if only sobmre would be here". He aint here and i couldnt care less about your opinion.

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

Good, because with sombre and burnsaber both gone now, that leaves me and kennydicke as the most knowledgeable modders that actually hang out here anymore, sad as that is. Now that I know you no longer care for my advice, I can only imagine that you'll actually read your damn modding manual now and answer your own questions. You'll have to, or you won't be able to mod anymore!

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

Contention is the bane of the worthy, friends.

What's done is done. A great king has fallen, alas and alack. We all must move on, without his gentle light guiding us in this plane. Fortunately, we can seek his favor in another plane, and remain in this one.


Ragnarok-X
Globu's advice is excellent in his responses to you. He won't steer you wrong.

EDIT:
Rdonj
Thanks for the compliment but I'm sure it's unwarranted. My knowledge is restricted to the technical. I claim no talent - others have that.

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

Rarely a beautiful reworked mod image can look bad in-game after the game does its own tweaking of it. The improvement can work against itself. Have you looked at and compared your sprites to ones in the game in low-graphic mode? (such as 1-9 in battle replay)

The game treats all graphics the same. So rather than compare your graphic to the hi-res in-game view, try comparing it to the low-res display which tends to be closer to the actual graphic. The game does some nice things to pretty-up the images. The hard thing to follow Kristoffers path on is knowing what type of improvements you can make on a graphic which will not work against the in-game improvements of the graphic so that it works equally well in all displays.

Im not sure what to recommend after that but maybe someone who knows paint programs better can come up with something. My guess is that it might be getting smooth/blurred twice.

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

Sorry, I got a bit upset and got carried away. I'll try to play nice :)

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

Eh, a bit more ambitious of praise than I feel I can live up to, but thanks, Kenny. :)


Totally. I keep wanting to say it's the in-game anti-aliasing that does it, though I'm only tangentially aware of 3D rendering terminology and I'm sure I'm not precisely correct on it. Either way, yeah, it's something to get a feel for. I found that a lot of the sprites where I softened harsh details and made them look much better up close actually looked worse than before in-game.

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

As I understand it, 1 should be original and 9 should be "made pretty by the game".
So I guess that a reasonable test would be, does the graphic look better at graphic level 1 than it does at graphic level 9?
If so then its time to unpretty it and look at how Kristoffer makes use of ugly pixel images to let the game prettify it?

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

Are you talking about the in-combat display settings accessible by the number keys, or some other setting?

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

Yes those keys. And you can also set it by command switch for the entire game.

Edit: Im so used to thinking in command switches. I realized, then checked. Yes there is also an in-game thing in the Options screen under Video to set the "Filter" at various levels. Setting it to Off has the effect we might be looking for.

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

I love my Nightmares. Now im looking to create a Dreadmare, which is an über-Nightmare but is etheral. Any ideas on how to make a good etheral sprite ? Or do you just use a normal one and let me game do the magic (i.e. etheral tag to make it transparent) ?

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

Goddamn doing sprites sucks donkeyballs. I need more templates to do copy/paste jobs. Doing something from scratch is 100% impossible.

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

I totally understand. I know that Im unlikely to draw anything from scratch. But changing a color, cut-n-paste to change an arm, maybe some pixel editing to put a helmet on something, that all seems to be in reach.

You might search on the net. But full images will only frustrate you. Try searching for icons, or avatars, or sprites, or thumbnails. Or go to a graphic search engine that lets you specify sizes, and pop in random words for sparking something. Like dark, light, commander, ghost, elemental, thug.

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

Could you specify the problem a bit more in detail? Is it a certain graphic that is proving problematic or some smaller area of a graphic?

I admit that the first frankensteins are difficult, but you will eventually get the hang of it with practice.

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

Well, basicly the entire topic is difficult. Yesterday i tried to make a small hulk sprite (think hulk or abomination from the hulk or resident evil franchise).
I knew doing it from scratch wont work, so i took the lower body from great lion. I then tried pasting the extremeties of agartha-oracles and i then tried to make the head right between the shoulders so it would like massive shoulders/neck with the head in between the muscles. But i didnt work, it just plain sucked.
Before that i tried to morph a werewolf / werejaguar but whatever i did, i didnt work out.


Do you have photoshop ? Here are the templates for the lion-brute.

In general, how would YOU go about creating a hulk-like thingy ?

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

Sorry, I have no photoshop.

Actually, I have made a "hulk" sprite. See my Alugra mod for an example. That was one of my earlier works.

You shouldn't really try to frankenstein too many different kinds of sprites together, especially with the sprites you mentioned being from completely different eras of Dom. They are going to stand out apart just from quality perspective.

As for Hulkish sprite, I'd start with the standard naked caveman. It's a good quality sprite that has the basic structure you are going for. If you need it to be bigger and more badass, it's easy to make a sprite couple of pixels taller & wider. See the step 24 of my sprite editing tutorial. Basically just select half of the sprite, copy, paste and then move the selected piece a pixel or two. It will leave a ugly line, but you can cover that up by careful application of the smudge tool.

If you then want to make the dude a bit animalistic, you could give him the legs of a pan or a animal head (like the fomoria dudes or the lanka demons). With the Pan-legs, you could use the loincloth to cover over the transition between fur and skin. It's your choice pretty much.

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

Ill try, thanks for your continous patience.

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

So, two hours later and i have half-decent sprite for the brute and a stupid one for the steam man (air elemental with a vine men inside lol).

Any more summon suggestions ?

Re: Problem with sprite editing
 

Let's see some pictures!