starting on sprite editing - help

[godews]

hi everyone,

to start I want to congratulate the admins for the forum .

now, my propose for posting:

hi, I'm a starter at lf2 DC. I play for a long time, but I'v started editing chars a few time ago. Less than a week.

for now, I'v just edited some base charecters, adding new moves. For exemple my bat actually can fly (I'v already read all the tuts this forum have about that, ty alot) and teleport to the enemy in a shadow punch kind...

but I'm starting to have a problem, the main sprites starts to be little to my expectations. on the bat, the flying move, I'v pasted the shiny eyes from the laser (the less shiny ones cause its more modest xD). and now when my bat flyies, it looks like a kind of psichic thin, not a normal, that anyone can do (thats the magic of the sprites ).

but when we're talking about make a char to do a new move, making louisEX turn its trident arround and crash it in the ground to provoke an earthquake ... thats a completly different point, copy-past isn't enought at all.

so I'm asking for help or at least some advices. What programs should I use? I'v already saw that paint its really used but editing pixel by pixel... hmmm... I'm just looking for a better way. I'v already read some tuts about this too, including someone's (sorry do not remember name right now) that talks about using realdraw pro and idraw programs. I'v downloaded realdraw pro and it is good to make some "special efects" on the sprites, as to give the ilusion that a char is disappearing, or make it into static status like paralised sparking from his body (I think that inducing a second bdy on a point fixed on the enemy pixels its enought to apply this visual effect, right?).

if someone could tell me about some technics to draw a char making a new move I would be very grateful
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p.s. if someone wants to aprecciat what I'v done in my first day of DC editor :P, I have it here for download.

[x90z75ek]

Hi godews! God job on the edited Bat, it's very good for your first edited character. About what programs you should use for drawing sprites I can't help you since I myself use paint and that's the only thing I've seen people use on videos for LF2.

[Lauli]

If you are going for drawing new sprites, then you should look for anything that supports at least various brushes and layers.

Gimp or Photoshop would be the choices.

[godews]

hi, thanks

I thought to put bat transforming in a bat (bigger then the bats he releases), but it would probably make too powerefull to play between normal characters. :P

thanks for suggest gimp, I guess it would help a bit
but talking about paint... there's any method to make the process of making sprites easier?

thanks for comment

[x90z75ek]

The only way to make the process of making sprites easier in paint that I can think of is copying parts from other sprites and using it in your own and editing it.

[Eddie]

If you've already got Photoshop (some people do) - Use it.
If not, use GIMP and Photofiltre.

I don't know whether you read all the sprites TUT's on the forum or just the DC TUT's. If not the sprite one's then please read them. Also go onto the main LFE site rather than the forum, as that holds the best TUTS and it's much easier to find them imo.

I'd then try experimenting with different designs before hitting the bigger, better features. Most of my work imo is too plain and too bland. My work has no real detail to it when I honestly believe it should do, so I'm working on improving my spriting ability myself. I hope to go from sprite newbie to around about Siegvar/Apocalypsis level one day (yes I am a dreamer). So just keep attacking your sprites with a paintbrush and stuff, you'll have lots of fun .

Good luck to you

[Reaper]

Well, there aren't many possibilities to make spriting with paint easier, except if you are also doing these dark pixels around the characters. Then you can draw your chars twice as big as needed and resize them afterwards. I never tried it out myself, but it seemingly works.
Other than that the part consuming most of the time in paint is shading. With paint I worked with two highlight and three shading colours It took ages. So the easiest part to speed up is taking less shading colours, which would sadly also make your shading less detailed( but well, deeps hair for example hasn't got any shading at all)
Photofiltre is a very useful tool as it features antialiasing, which means that you don't have to take various colours for shading + you get the dark pixels around your char. I don't know if it features layers... I never used any( though I'm now using gimp which definately features layers).
GIMP is in my eyes the best freeware programm as you can also adjust the size of the brushes very precise, you can lighten or darken parts without using another colour, you can easily change the opacity of your brushes and so on...
Well, you don't actually need these programms, its also possible to draw nice sprites in paint( for JUS-style its actually the best programm, but thats another matter), but they make spriting a lot easier( and faster.)