Making Graphics

ID:193642
 
Nov 26 2001, 1:29 pm
I was reading through the "What bothers me about byond games." I have my own graphics in HOH(besides like 2 player icons), but it's a pain to make graphics. How do you people do it, I go in and try to make a detailed player, or wall with shadows. It turns out like a scratched cd, just curious to how you guys make graphics.. do you look at a picture and try to copy it, or what?
Nov 27 2001, 1:29 am
Oblivian wrote:
I was reading through the "What bothers me about byond games." I have my own graphics in HOH(besides like 2 player icons), but it's a pain to make graphics. How do you people do it, I go in and try to make a detailed player, or wall with shadows. It turns out like a scratched cd, just curious to how you guys make graphics.. do you look at a picture and try to copy it, or what?

For my little walking guy in the original Sheep, I drew that all out in the icon editor... six frames in four directions each, eesh. I doubt I'll do that again. Having animated icons really increases the workload anyway. For my other icons...

Some I stole from other games (the stones in Backgammon are slightly altered from MSN Zone Backgammon, the sheep in many of my games was ripped from War2, the doors in Sheep II are altered from RPGMaker)

Some I altered from an image I found on the web, changing size, orientation and colors (the peanuts and raisins in Backgammon)

The rest I did myself (including dice, Sheep I rocks, and the beautiful backgammon board!).

Z
Nov 27 2001, 4:35 am
Oblivian wrote:
I was reading through the "What bothers me about byond games." I have my own graphics in HOH(besides like 2 player icons), but it's a pain to make graphics. How do you people do it, I go in and try to make a detailed player, or wall with shadows. It turns out like a scratched cd, just curious to how you guys make graphics.. do you look at a picture and try to copy it, or what?

I have various tools available; I avoid any kind of copying I can, though. Most of my direct editing I do in Paint Shop Pro or in the icon editor.
POV-Ray is a ray tracer, that sometimes can produce good textured surfaces; it could be adapted with some difficulty to produce workable 3D-looking icons (though they might require a little touch-up work for things like seamless tiles).
I've worked on about a utility and a half for tiling things that could help BYOND gamers. I have yet to get back to the working one to add in a tweak it needs.
For people, if I ever make an RPG or something I think I'm likely to use Poser to render the characters.

For realistic-looking icons, I'm afraid you'll have to use other tools besides the editor; most people simply don't have the art skill to draw a good face pixel by pixel. (Although I'm not sure what Foomer uses; his icons for Ensya are amazing.) Poser is a good tool for doing human bodies and faces, but it's costly.

Lummox JR
Nov 27 2001, 10:00 am
This was in responce to Black Mist's rude posts about graphics, a while ago:

1. Paint Shop Pro is an excellent program for Byond graphics. It takes quite a bit of time to use effectively, so start by reading the manuals and testing out as many effects as you can and get familiar with them. You can download a demo of PSP at http://www.jasc.com. PSP sells for retail for around $100, but you're probably better off buying from Ebay.com or something.

2. If you're not good at doing details, start with larger graphics, then draw what you want, and resize it down to the 32x32 grid. This is mostly good for terrain, because it doesn't generally require that the graphic be transparent. Don't use this for transparent icons.

3. Deside where the light source is comming from for every graphic in your game. When you draw a graphic, just make it as plain as possible. Then shade it in by using a 10-30% transparent brush of black, and shade in the part furthest from the light source, and try to make it darker as it gets further away. If the graphic is somewhat dark to begin with, switch to a white brush and do the same to the side closest to the light source.

4. Always use a transparent brush. Always. Always always always. The only time you will ever need to use a non-transparent brush is if you need a solid color for something, but times like that are pretty rare. Dont't worry about download size. If you have too many colors, cram them into a 256/16 color graphic and they'll go away. Most of the time the graphics are too small for anyone to notice the choppy colors.

5. If you ever see the chance, steal a graphic from something totally unrelated that just happens to fit your theme. Make it fit into your game, and modify the design until it no longer resembles the original. Then get rid of the original so that no one may ever know it existed. Actually this is a very cheap way to do it, but if you don't have the experience to draw them by hand it can't really hurt anything; After all, originality is just the art of hiding your sources. :o)

6. Unless you're making turfs, anti-aliasing is evil.

--

There are a lot of little "tricks" to be learned from experience working with graphics. If you really want to make good graphics, you need to know at least some of those tricks, and you need to be familiar enough with the program you're using to be able to pull them off.

If you want better advice, you need to go into more depth about what you want help with. "How do I make better graphics?" isn't very specific.
You might want to ask maybe Xooxer or Spuzzum about doing animated sprites, or anyone else who does them, because while I could probably paint you a portrait, I'd be hard pressed to draw a stick-man walking because I am invariably bad at animations... :o)
Nov 27 2001, 10:28 am
In response to Foomer
Doing animated characters isn't easy. It takes some understanding of how things move, and how they would look in certian poses from certain vantage points. I find it very dificult to create realistic looking characters from overhead perspectives, as the movement is extremely hard to portray with the head in the way...

Most games with overhead views still show the characters from the side, as it is easier to show the movement, and the little details of the character. Look at any 2D Zelda games and you'll see what I mean... When Link's walking east or west along a southern wall, it actually appears like he's walking on the wall... heh..

Maybe I'll make up some generic template characters for people to use to start off with... If anyone else is handy with character icons, maybe we could pool our resources to make up a decent library of template characters and monsters for those with no artistic ability in this area... (Of course, you'll have to make the characters so they won't be ripped off directly without some sort of modification, I think a contour rendering with a transparent inside would work fine in this case) Any ideas? I'd love to hear them, becuase I feel a character library of this sort is way overdue on BYOND...

~X