Spriting Chat Thread!

[Sex_Robot]

Mod Approved!

So there are a bunch of really quite talented spriters on here all doing their own thing, I Think it would be pretty beneficial to everyone to have a thread where people can talk about their methods, both technical and artistic that they use to get the most mileage out of those small 32x32 tiles.

Might also stash template and reference images in here as well as documentation on what you can and can't do when spriting for the BYOND engine is pretty sketchy at best. So a grab bag thread for all this should be pretty handy imo.


There are a bunch of reference images loitering around the forums but I won't add them to the op without doublechecking with whoever made them, except for Haines. Fuck that guy .
Humanoid Reference Template


I personally want to know how Gannet makes magic giant lasers that look badass without fucking up the perspective.

[Gannets]

Hello, I guess I can talk about my sprites if you want me to!
Spriting for goonstation is pretty easy and there's no real trick or anything. I use Photoshop and an Intuos 3 graphics tablet.


Here's a gif of me making the PTL sprite, it's missing a few steps including the silly initial sketch 'cause I saved over that. Whoops!



AngriestIBM told me some neat lore facts about lasers/machines in SS13, so I had a few thing I could google to get an idea of what lasers like this would look like in real life, then translate that in to something that looks like it'd fit in with existing SS13 stuff and Infinite_Monkeys said it needed a charging bar and a red and green light, so when designing the interface I just put those down first and worked the rest of the fake dials and stuff around that.

A lot of what I came up with is just based on existing sprites, the main colour-scheme, along with the stand keeping the laser-tube up comes wholesale from hempuli's laser engine sprite so that when that's a part of the game, my laser won't look out of place beside it, like the same company built it or something.
The rest of it is just a few locker-esque computer racks, so I could look at vending machines and lockers to get an idea of how the light should effect shading on those.
For the glass tube, I took the colours used in the fabricator sprite and worked that in to a cylinder.

Then it was just a case of messing around with shading until it looked right.


As far as perspective is concerned, you can refer back to supernorn's post about it.



I tend to look back on that/existing sprites in the new perspective when I'm working on things.
Generally if you're working with stuff that's vaguely locker shaped, you can just slam a rectangle on top of what you've got to represent the roof and you're good! (This is probably a v. lazy shortcut, but eh it's working for me.)

With goonstation, you've already got a lot of sprites to base your stuff on, so when I'm thinking about how i'm gonna design something, I just try and find something similar that exists in-game and work from there.
Like when I made the new forensic analyzer, I based it on the new reagent scanner, same sorta' shape and display, but with a colour scheme picked from the sec headset.

If you set your View to 32x32 you can take screenshots from the game and use them to refer back to when you're working, which is what I do when I'm given a new sprite to tackle. Just pile up reference pics from in game and the internet and try and stick it all together.

I hope some of this made sense/will be useful at all, but ultimately I've only been spriting for like 6 months, so i'm kinda making it up as I go along as much as anyone else is. All I can offer in advice is get reference material so you know what it's meant to look like, look at existing sprites and pixel artists you like, then click a lot until you think it's good! Woo!

[Sex_Robot]

What do you draw in?

[Gannets]

I use Photoshop and an Intuos 3 graphics tablet.

[TheTrixRabitt]

Even though I don't sprite a whole lot anymore (sold my computer) I think I can still throw in some advice for some people.
1.) Spriting takes time. Some people start better than others, but either way through time you can improve.
2.) Experiment. In my experience's I've pretty much spent time seeing what works better than others. Mostly shading things.
3.) More of an obvious thing, but always use a reference. Sometimes spriting blind can go okay with good memory, but a reference is handy as fuck.
4.) A personal tip, if you ever don't like how something is coming out, or you abandon it. Come back later and improve it. Or just redo a sprite completely, even if you already posted it.

Well that's about I can think of, but I might think of more later.

[69andahalf]

What do people think of sprites that aren't fully representative of their "real-life" size? I'm always divided between making full use of the 32x32 area, but not having some huge ass sprite that doesn't really fit. When I was spriting a bowling bag I compared it to a backpack it was huge so I decided to make it smaller, although it fit I found it reduced the look of the sprite overall.

[Sex_Robot]

I struggled with this too. The Men at Work sign I made recently was based off of the United Kingdom roadworks sign.


my first shot was about 1/3 smaller and it was flat out impossible to make it look like something other than a red and black blob without going bigger.

I think personally the art style of the game allows for quite a bit of leeway with scale especially when it comes to things that don't show up on the player character too much. outfits and shoes and shit cause a bit of a disconnect if giant shoes appear to shrink onto your feet, but something like food that just disappears when you "eat" it with a little flavour text seems to get away with it.