AuthorTopic: How to high res sprites?  (Read 3205 times)

Offline Kairos

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 67
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • xlion95
    • View Profile

How to high res sprites?

on: March 09, 2017, 01:01:11 am
I was looking at some psp games and I was really impressed by the FF remake sprites.


It appears to be actual pixel art as in the artist paid attention to individual pixels, but it has a lot of gradients.

How would you go about making high res sprites like those? Draw first then shade with pressure brush? Color reduction to make it look less blurry? How would you keep shading consistent?
« Last Edit: March 09, 2017, 07:53:07 pm by Kairos »

Offline eishiya

  • 0100
  • ***
  • Posts: 1266
  • Karma: +2/-0
    • http://pixeljoint.com/p/28889.htm
    • View Profile
    • Website

Re: How to high res sprites?

Reply #1 on: March 09, 2017, 01:32:32 am
High-res painting to make it easier to get the details in there -> scale down to the appropriate size -> automatic colour reduction -> manual clean-up.

Offline Kairos

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 67
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • xlion95
    • View Profile

Re: How to high res sprites?

Reply #2 on: March 09, 2017, 01:43:02 am
High-res painting to make it easier to get the details in there -> scale down to the appropriate size -> automatic colour reduction -> manual clean-up.

Resizing! How could I forget about the resizing!

Thanks for the flowchart! I'll give it a go.

Offline Cyangmou

  • 0011
  • **
  • Posts: 929
  • Karma: +3/-0
    • cyangmou
    • http://pixeljoint.com/p/32234.htm
    • cyangmou
    • View Profile
    • Pixwerk Homepage

Re: How to high res sprites?

Reply #3 on: March 09, 2017, 06:49:58 pm
Not sure if just the image is crappy and got resized from true pixelart.
COnsidering how bad the text reads that seems to be the case and the PSP should have 480x272 resolution.

The FF remakes of FF1 and 2 on the GBA were "true" pixelart:

https://www.spriters-resource.com/game_boy_advance/finalfantasy1dawnofsouls/

https://www.spriters-resource.com/game_boy_advance/finalfantasy2dawnofsouls/sheet/25023/
"Because the beauty of the human body is that it hasn't a single muscle which doesn't serve its purpose; that there's not a line wasted; that every detail of it fits one idea, the idea of a man and the life of a man."

Dev-Art
Twitter

Offline Kairos

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 67
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • xlion95
    • View Profile

Re: How to high res sprites?

Reply #4 on: March 09, 2017, 08:01:40 pm
Not sure if just the image is crappy and got resized from true pixelart.
COnsidering how bad the text reads that seems to be the case and the PSP should have 480x272 resolution.

The FF remakes of FF1 and 2 on the GBA were "true" pixelart:

https://www.spriters-resource.com/game_boy_advance/finalfantasy1dawnofsouls/

https://www.spriters-resource.com/game_boy_advance/finalfantasy2dawnofsouls/sheet/25023/

Huh, the image got all messed up (it was looking fine yesterday) so I replaced it.

I mean it has a lot of colors that don't add anything to the sprite because of the probably resizing they've gone through but a lot of care has been put into the pixel-level detail so the FF1 remake for the PSP is true pixel art in my book. :D (Not the backgrounds though these are kind of a blurry mess)


Hm, anyone got a suggestion as to which program to use for the hi-res painting and animating before the resizing and pixelart-ifing is to take place? I really don't have any ideas besides using a 50 opacity layer as a makeshift onion skin and just pretending layers are animation cells on regular digital painting programs.

Offline eishiya

  • 0100
  • ***
  • Posts: 1266
  • Karma: +2/-0
    • http://pixeljoint.com/p/28889.htm
    • View Profile
    • Website

Re: How to high res sprites?

Reply #5 on: March 09, 2017, 08:46:24 pm
Art done in this style is usually not animated, since it's a lot of work to paint that stuff.
Photoshop has onion-skinning, but I suspect there are better animation-oriented programs out there that let you paint.

Another option is to paint->scale->pixelify just some key poses, and to create tweens by hand at the final size. With a sprite size like the example, it would be fairly doable, though still a pain to animate compared to a cleaner style.

Offline MysteryMeat

  • 0100
  • ***
  • Posts: 1997
  • Karma: +1/-0
  • "The new alternative to q-tipping your cat!"
    • mysterymeat
    • spoiledmysterymeat
    • View Profile
    • My rad art blog!

Re: How to high res sprites?

Reply #6 on: March 09, 2017, 10:13:51 pm
Art done in this style is usually not animated, since it's a lot of work to paint that stuff.
Photoshop has onion-skinning, but I suspect there are better animation-oriented programs out there that let you paint.

Another option is to paint->scale->pixelify just some key poses, and to create tweens by hand at the final size. With a sprite size like the example, it would be fairly doable, though still a pain to animate compared to a cleaner style.

This, yeah. There's a lot you can do with the move tool to keep pixel art animations sensible with more complex designs, but it's gonna be a bastard and a half to animate something of that complexity and have it look right.
As a rule, the more detailed the art style the more effort you need to make to keep the style consistent, meaning you'd have to re-angle limbs or actually think about muscle groupings and junk to make it work right.

This is why cartoons usually go for simple doodly character designs.
PSA: use imgur
http://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=19838.0 also go suggest on my quest, cmon
MAJOR BORK TALLY: |