Hello all. I was wondering what apps people were using to make background pics and character sprites. Anyone know the name of a good sprite generator/app?
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i'ts a bit unusual but try using Flash instead of Illustrator : it has fill tools wich are a lot handier then illustrators, and you can preview your animations without having to leave the program.
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realistic backgrounds?
step 1
try getting hold of some textures from UT or Quake sites, a lot of people there make realistic stone, wood, grass, etc. textures. Be sue to only use textures that are free to use, and if the artist ask it, mention him in your credits file! Also send a email, as i'm sue they'd love their work to be used outside of a fps game, and might even hlep ou or make custom textures.
This should get you started on outside backgrounds, but it's also the first step to genuine photorealistic locations:
step 2
For making a frontview room: take a nice woodboard texture. Go to image>Canvas size and set the it to the size you need. cut and paste the texture tile untill it fills the whole image. Flatten the layers (apple-e). Use the stamp tool to work away seams - option-klick in the middle of a tilen then just paint over the edges - practice makes perfect
save this, as another file if necessary. keep saving regularly!
Select all (apple-a). Then do Edit>transform>free transform. drag the top coners down and towards the middle.
keep draggin them around untill you like what you see. hit enter and lean back - you
just made a floor.Save again!
If this doesn't work on the version you have try to get a lite version of 5 or 6, it's been so long ago that i used 4 that i can't remember what it did and didn't do.
repeat this step with stone textures for the walls, and wood textures for the ceiling again (I assume you're making a medieval rpg
)make another wall texture and place it in the back of the room by downsizing it (apple-t)
keep saving!
Step 3
Flatten all layers and use a black or brown airbrush of a big size (100 pix) set to 5% opacity and multiply to paint darkness in the corners of the rooms. Use a white or yellow airbrush set to 1% opacity and color dodge to paint light sources - be careful though!take a picture of a lamp, scan it (or get off the internet - pictures of medieval stuff can be found on planetunreals prefablab (http://planetunreal.com/prefablab/) )
colorise, the"n paste it into the pic and mov it where you want it, scale it then..
you can use the render>lensflare filter to make it glow, or paint the glow with the airbrush set to 'screen' with about 5% opacity or 'color dodge' at 1% opacity.Step 4:
in a 3d program, you would have just set the stage.
You can fill it up with cut and paste pics of furniture, or use the technique u used for the walls and floor to draw tables and chairs, a coffin....
flatten everything, then select the furniture by using the point to point selection tool.
do Select>invert selection,, and airbrush soem shadow around the bottom of the furniture.voila - now you can start on adding the characters! hope this helps, and be sure to put up the results
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Quote
Originally posted by -LethaLGraphiX-:
**i'ts a bit unusual but try using Flash instead of Illustrator : it has fill tools wich are a lot handier then illustrators, and you can preview your animations without having to leave the program.**
Sounds great, got a spare copy of Flash to lend to me?
No, I don't think I could live without actions, gradient meshes, and Illustrators intrinsic coolness. ------------------
CALL 555-1234 TO ADVERTISE HERE -
I guess i should have said 'and' instead of 'instead'
I use flash for characters and interiors, Illustrator for outside buildings.
Then photoshop to finish it all off
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Originally posted by -LethaLGraphiX-:
**realistic backgrounds?
voila - now you can start on adding the characters! hope this helps, and be sure to put up the results
**Holy Cow! I didn't expect someone to reply... and reply in such detail! Thank you thank you thank you.
I'm at work now, but I'll give this a shot VERY soon. The only real quandry is that unless I could make a background that EXACTLY matched. The existing Coldstone graphics, I would have to make ALL my own... which might be fine for a quick, small game... but eventually I want to write an EPIC, of course...------------------
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Originally posted by thebeagle:
**Holy Cow! I didn't expect someone to reply... and reply in such detail! Thank you thank you thank you.
I'm at work now, but I'll give this a shot VERY soon. The only real quandry is that unless I could make a background that EXACTLY matched. The existing Coldstone graphics, I would have to make ALL my own... which might be fine for a quick, small game... but eventually I want to write an EPIC, of course...**
Oh, "Epic" is the way to go!
The above techniques can be used on the stock Coldstone graphics; start pulling textures and parts off the buildings and so forth and cobble up some of your own.
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"Nomuse" -
Now why didn't I think of that? - must be the coffee
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This is a trick I use for making wood, rain and grass textures in Photoshop.
You can do marvels with a simple Fill, Noise, and Motion Blur. It's great for making grass, wood, and rain.
1. Fill a selection with a color (a brown color for wood, green for grass, and blue for rain)
2. Choose Filter>Noise>Add Noise (i think that's the path)
3. Choose Filter>Blur>Motion BlurI use it mostly for making wood. If you make wood, a way to add realism is by creating little swirly things that you sometimes see in wood.
1. Select the circular marquee and make a selection
3. Go to Filter>Distort>Twirl or something like thatAnother couple things you could do is create the illusion of multiple boards.
1. Select a row a couple of pixels thick and as long as your wood is with the rectangle selection (did that make sense? if so ask)
2. Then hit shift-delete to bring up the fill dialog.
3. Set the fill to 20% blackThe final thing I do to wood is put bolts at the end of all boards.
1. Select, with the circular marquee, a small circle
2. Fill it with a gray color of your choice (select a foreground color and hit option-delete)
3. Add an bevel/emboss layer style and make it the settings of your choice. (I prefer a small pillow emboss)This is how I usually make my wood. Some people have different techniques. I hope this helped a few peolpe out. I have Photoshop 6 so i dont know if this will work for any earlier versions.
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Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool. -
Quote
Originally posted by spitfire:
**This is a trick I use for making wood, rain and grass textures in Photoshop.You can do marvels with a simple Fill, Noise, and Motion Blur. It's great for making grass, wood, and rain.
1. Fill a selection with a color (a brown color for wood, green for grass, and blue for rain)
2. Choose Filter>Noise>Add Noise (i think that's the path)
3. Choose Filter>Blur>Motion BlurI use it mostly for making wood. If you make wood, a way to add realism is by creating little swirly things that you sometimes see in wood.
1. Select the circular marquee and make a selection
3. Go to Filter>Distort>Twirl or something like thatAnother couple things you could do is create the illusion of multiple boards.
1. Select a row a couple of pixels thick and as long as your wood is with the rectangle selection (did that make sense? if so ask)
2. Then hit shift-delete to bring up the fill dialog.
3. Set the fill to 20% blackThe final thing I do to wood is put bolts at the end of all boards.
1. Select, with the circular marquee, a small circle
2. Fill it with a gray color of your choice (select a foreground color and hit option-delete)
3. Add an bevel/emboss layer style and make it the settings of your choice. (I prefer a small pillow emboss)This is how I usually make my wood. Some people have different techniques. I hope this helped a few peolpe out. I have Photoshop 6 so i dont know if this will work for any earlier versions.
**
There's a great little book out there called "Graphics for Games." I saw it on Amazon for 25-30 bucks (and read about half of it standing up at Barnes and Noble). He describes some similar techniques to create textures from scratch using Photoshop filters.
I'm a Bryce nut myself so I tend to scan things. I brought a camera on vacation partly so I could shoot interesting textures, and I did this image -- (url="http://"http://home.earthlink.net/~nomuse/brycepages/ninja.html")http://home.earthlin...ages/ninja.html(/url) -- just to try some of them out.
One of my favorites is the Lighting Effects filter...especially when used with a custom bump-map.
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"Nomuse" -
My favourite filter is the texture fill - then the noise filter & blur.
but the must use tool for making textures is the offset filter- hidden all the way at the bottom
- other>offset - and the stamp tool. Offset to get the edges in the middle, then paint them over with the stamp tool to hide them - voila : the neverendign texture ------------------
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Quote
Originally posted by -LethaLGraphiX-:
**My favourite filter is the texture fill - then the noise filter & blur.but the must use tool for making textures is the offset filter- hidden all the way at the bottom
- other>offset - and the stamp tool. Offset to get the edges in the middle, then paint them over with the stamp tool to hide them - voila : the neverendign texture **
I've used that method. Lately, tho, I've been cloning four times, tiling that, cleaning up the seams then re-selecting in the middle. It may be extra work but I like the results. And of course I work in layers so I can generate bump and spec maps right on top.
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everywhere else, it's --
"Nomuse" -
Painter is the best tool I know of for creating textures. It has a fractal noise feature that is a little like Photoshop's "clouds" feature, but gives you tons more control. Then you can make a gradient and map the gradient's colors to the gray values of your fractal texture, so the lightest colors might be yellow, then becoming green as they get darker, then brown in the darkest areas. You can also "apply surface texture" to make the thing look three-dimensional, like a relief map. There are paper textures, so you can make your text look like it's printed on aged parchment. There's just lots of stuff, too much to mention here. Plus there's an animation feature. And you can paint seamless tiles very easily.
I'm not quite sure how to use Illustrator for game graphics. I would love to see some examples.
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Mark -
I wish, I wish, I wish I had something more advanced than Kid Pix. :frown: :redface: However, be that as it may, for retro style games you can just make copies of custom KP stamps... Hell, I could whip up the Phantasy Star 4 walking sprites or the map pictures of the Shining Force charas with KP stamps. Any idea what I should get thats... ahem... more advanced? I want to make retro-style sprites, a la PS, SF, or FF games, among other things because I hate rendered art with a passion.
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