27 replies to this topic

[WMCD]

Vector graphics have their place, as do raster graphics; to be honest, I would choose raster over vector any day, not because of ease (raster graphics require much more effort on the artist's part), but because of how much more freedom I have with raster. Vector naturally leans toward minimalist graphics full of solid areas of color, which completely goes against how to develop lively graphics that look "natural" to the eye (large patches of solid color take away from the dynamic effect of realism-geared graphics).

[teej]

If you plan to use scanned drawings, your next objective is to create lineart or outlines from that drawing. Here is a tutorial for that: tutorial link. You must go for pixel art for sprites not vectorized graphics as it becomes useless when converted into raster format, often becomes blurry or white edges (unless you have GM8), I'm not saying you can't achieve good looking sprites with vector, in fact if you're well-experienced in making vectorized sprites chances are that your sprites are good. But for professional 2d go with pixelling. Another thing I'd like to point out as well is that.. you may notice that some games in GBA uses shrinked 3d pre-rendered sprites, personally I don't like them, they look blurred, pixelated and unprofessional, go with the standard: pixel art for sprites.

Edited by teej, 11 January 2010 - 04:49 AM.

[9_6]

Disagree.

I've seen your graphics, and know my own capabilities, there is no question that your insight into creating graphics is more valuable than my own. But your perspective is that of an advanced graphic artist.

For a graphical hack such as me, attempting to do anything through pixel editing is an awful experience. I absolutely need the tools and the ability to keep objects and vectors in their native format for later resizing and slight manipulations.

You know, the thing is, you should never even have to resize sprites.
The whole 'resizing' should happen as you sketch the graphic and never with the final image.

Sure there are times at which vectors can be handy (like rotating stuff or bending shapes and such) but in the end, they can take way longer to make than bitmaps, the lower the resolution of the game actually is.
I doubt anyone would ever make a vector for a 32x32 aliased sprite.
Also stuff like explosions are much faster done with bitmaps than with vectors or even 3d models (explosions are one of the hardest things to do with those from what I have heard).

Talk about animating, if you use vectors to animate and the animation requires more than just rotating and moving stuff around (tween motiooons), you basically have to re-draw everything.
With bitmaps you can still "recycle the old pixels" of previous frames and they have the 'what you see is what you get'- kind of effect which you simply do not have with vectors since they scale endlessly.
If you zoom in, you still have clean lines.

Of course in the end, it totally depends on the game though, it would be silly to use vector art for low-res games while it might be feasible for games with higher resolutions.
But even higher resolution games might use what looks like hand-pixeled sprites.
Just take a look at Guilty Gear for example.
While those undoubtedly seem to be drawn and scanned in graphics, they look pretty hand pixeled to me since the lines are just too perfect for vector art at some places.

Also the question was, "how to make sprites like a 'professional'?".
The universal answer to that is certainly not "use vectors".
Sure, it is a possibility. There is no "right" way after all. You simply use what gets the job done.
However in the case of the mentioned Chain Of Memories, the answer would clearly be "It's most likely pixeled by hand", as unsatisfying as that may sound.

Edited by 9_6, 11 January 2010 - 02:58 PM.

[PokeBreeder000]

PhotoShop sucks! Use Gimp!

[IceMetalPunk]

PhotoShop sucks! Use Gimp!

You bumped a topic after 9 months to say that? Well, while it's already up top now: Photoshop is better than Gimp any day .

-IMP

[Bobthetenth]

To create my sprite I thought I could draw it on paper with a pen , and scan the picture into the computer.
But it would still not look like the sprites made in commercial games.

Look at the 2D sprite of Sora in the GBA game Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories
It does not look like if it was drawn on paper and directly scanned into the game.
Look at its outline: it is a pixellated black border. How did they do it ? Did they create the sprite with a program like MS Paint instead of scanning it from a paper ?
How did they colour the sprite? Did they make the sprite in black and white before colouring it ?

Tell me, somebody. How do professionals make their 2D sprites ? If they draw on paper before scanning, then what kind of pen or ink or colours do they use ?

I was thinking about this while in my graphics arts class and it came to me that vector might possibly be the best way to go since you can make your image insanely small and just scale it to what you want during gameplay. This would enable very very fast loading speeds and a lot less lag. Just saying that vector would be good for a larger game. But to make any graphic look like "the pros" I'd recomend using the built in GM image editor, then saving it as a .bmp and opening it in GIMP [free (very very powerful) image editing software] - google it if you don't have it. And use the tool select in gimp to select and entire area and then fill it in with a gradient instead of a solid color. You'd be surprised how much they improve by simply adding some gradients and shadows to your game art.

[hanbaal]

PhotoShop sucks! Use Gimp! />/>

You bumped a topic after 9 months to say that? Well, while it's already up top now: Photoshop is better than Gimp any day />/> .

-IMP

Why? nobody can explain why.


Whoh! I just looked up photoshop, does it cost $800!?

Edited by hanbaal, 09 January 2013 - 12:07 PM.

[AngryKhan]

PhotoShop sucks! Use Gimp! />/>/>

You bumped a topic after 9 months to say that? Well, while it's already up top now: Photoshop is better than Gimp any day />/>/> .

-IMP

Why? nobody can explain why.


Whoh! I just looked up photoshop, does it cost $800!?

Photoshop CS2 is free now. http://www.adobe.com...oads/index.html

It doesn't have all of the features of CS6, but you don't have to pay $800 for it.