Creating Avatars

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Revision as of 11:54, 5 April 2009 by Eggmceye (Talk | contribs)

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Here are a couple of contributors notes on making sprites. The main things to note are:

  • sprites are 16x16
  • 4 frames

Method #1

Use paint to create the way your sprite looks (it's easier than photoshop, but by all means use PS if you know what you are doing). There are 4 frames total, 16x16 pixels per frame. There is a 1x16 pixel spacer line between each frame, so the entire series of sprites needs to be 67x16. See below for an example.

Golemsprite.gif

Note that for illustration purposes only, these frames are 32x32 each with a 2px spacer.

It's usually best not to use a lot of movement in your sprite or else it will most likely not look good animated.

Save your work as 256 colour gif or as PCX. Gif and PCX are lossless graphical formats. JPG is not suited to saving sprites.

Testing your work

You can test out your new avatar by using photoshop to open EUO\pics\btiles23.pcx, look for the 4 frames of your current avatar and cut/paste your new one over the top of your current sprite ingame (make a back-up first). Start the game and test out the random frame changing in-game.

Method #2, Extell's notes

1) Design and save your avatars/monsters at 16x16 pixels. This was the original size of all the avatars/monsters for the original game. It can be quite difficult to get the right look but in the end they are blown up to double their size in the game itself.

2) Stick to smooth colors/shades. Trying to design an avatar/monster with outlandish colors generally does not work at all. Try to make you color design fit that mold.

3) Design something that fits into the fantasy theme of EUO. Don't make an avatar carrying a pistol or a rifle. Stick to a medieval fantasy look/feel.

I myself have alot of stuff in the works, one of which is something that a few players have been requesting, something to make the night scene of EUO seem a little nastier. But, I will say one thing, making a good looking monster/avatar is not easy. I've sent stuff to Egg many times for him to send it back giving lots of criticism that he does not like this, does not like that, etc. And even the stuff he has used of mine was slightly altered to his tastes. A designer cannot let this stuff to get him/her. If you truly want one of your designs in the game, make it, post it and ask for criticism/comments. If you keep at it you too can have one of your creations in the game.

And one last thing: DO NOT SAVE YOUR FILES AS JPG! Use GIF or PCX format. Saving as a JPG really lowers the quality of your creation unless you use the highest detail level. Saving as a GIF or PCX keeps it exactly as you designed it. On the GIF style and designing with Photoshop (like I do), before you save, change the image type to Indexed (Image -> Mode -> Indexed), or use Save For Web (ctrl-shift-alt-s).

Graphics Editors