Few Question about Sprites and sizes

[Ravenx2000]

Hello all,

So a friend of mine wants to make a game and he asked me to make sprites. I come from a wide background of art universities and other things. I can paint,Aquarel,draw and work digitally. However I've never made a sprite before. Now i did some searches here and around the web.
And the most asked and for me not clear for the answer is the following. How big should i make the sprite in for example 640x480 or 1280x720 (might be way of the mark but again just a suggestion as example)

He wants the sprites to be High Quality so think in the terms of fighting games. It's going to be a sidescroller. But again after some searching i am at a loss.
I want to do some artwork (first sketch em out) but when i want to scan them in or import them from photoshop. I am left wondering how big should i make the sprite. I read that's its easier to size em up then down. and always by a factor of 2. But the base size of how big the canvas should and resolution i am left wondering. It's a shame to put in a lot of work only to realize its not usable for his game. As soon as i have a basesize of how big "everything"should be i can work further and other sprites and assests. Also I've read here about Tile sets like 32x32 what does that mean in the terms of creating sprites.

So in conclusion
How big should the canvas be for HQ sprites (think the newer not 3d fighting games)? (Perfect example is the Murumasa Vita game, its also the sort of side scroller he wants to make)
What should a good resolution be for HQ sprites considering that it might be made bigger later on?
What does tileset mean? is it a certain size an amount of workspace?

Thanks in advance for taking your time to help or answer some of my questions.

[32]

This is a question with no answer. It depends on your screen resolution and the style of the game. Do the characters take up a lot of screen space or a little bit of screen space? How big is the character themselves compared to other characters?

There are a million ways to figure this out but here's a couple of good options.

a: do a basic mock-up sketch of a scene from the game. Resize it to the intended resolution and measure the characters.

b: Draw a character sprite that has the amount of detail you are comfortable drawing and scale it to a background which will give you your full game resolution. At which point you can decide to scale it up by how ever many times you need to reach the resolution of the screen.

c: look at a game that is approximately what you want and measure their sprites.

The most important factor is what can you reasonably expect to be able to draw. If you don't have a target system for the game the most common resolution in use currently is 1920x1080 so you should be aiming for your resolution to either be that or a resolution that multiplies neatly into that.

Another thing to consider is whether it will be pixel art or painted. If it's pixel art you're going to want to scale up. If it's painted you're going to want to scale down. Ideally for both you would not scale at all but this is only really an option if you have a set screen resolution, for example if you're developing for console.

Generally this is something you'll work out together with the developer by doing some sketch versions of the assets which can be resized without any concern as to how they look. Once you figure out what is right for the game you can just resize whatever you have to the correct resolution and then actually clean it up.

Tile size is essentially unrelated to sprite size. Typically in a fighting game you would see fully painted backgrounds rather than a tiled system. If you are wanting to use a tiled system you would try to keep them on a similar scale to the characters. Within say half to twice the size of a character. That's definitely not a rule but you just don't want 32x32 tiles and 320x320 characters or vice versa. A tileset is basically a set of textures (or "tiles") that can be arranged into a grid (hence "tiled," like you would a bathroom) in order to create a background.

Absolutely do not create any finished assets before you have settled on a resolution. You will more than likely need to toss out a significant portion of your work.

[Gil]

You are talking about characters more or less the size of fighting game characters it seems. I wonder if you realize how big of an undertaking that is. We're talking about professional pixel artists spending 2 or 3 months, working full-time, 8 hours a day, to create a fighting game character. Forget making HD characters that large in traditionally animated pixel art. Muramasa Vita doesn't use pixel art for a reason.

Your two options are to either use a way lower resolution and scale up a lot (which is what most people do). A fairly large, but manageable character would be about this big (Heart of Darkness):

(click to zoom)


Or you could do what Muramasa and similar games do, just paint the body parts in higher res and use a skinning rig program to animate it. Here's a rather stunning example of what's possible (made in Spine):

[yrizoud]

He wants the sprites to be High Quality so think in the terms of fighting games. It's going to be a sidescroller.

Either he's not very experimented as a game creator, or he's not really a friend for asking you what will amount for several months of work. Lower resolution / level of detail is much more realistic project. (Note: everything should use same resolution and be pixel-aligned, otherwise it will look jarring)

A typical game with 4-6 frames for each movement (which is readable, but not very smooth) quickly ends up in hundreds of drawings because of the number of characters and their movements.

The character size relative to the scenery, character speed, and jump height are extremely important gameplay elements. They should be determined very early, because if you change your mind later, a lot of graphics can go to the scrap. Screenshots of existing games (the 2D Castlevania, etc.) can be helpful to get an idea of how much space these games leave around the player character. Whether a character can crouch to avoid shots is a critical piece of information.
 
A well-rounded artistic background will be extremely helpful, but if you don't have experience yet with animation, don't underestimate the trial and error that you'll go through. Still images can look great while they animate poorly, and this cannot be fixed up at the end: Animation and timing must be double-checked before you finish and "dress up" your character, otherwise you'll waste a lot of time redoing the same sprites.

The "bread and butter" of a sidescroller main character is his run animation : This loop of 6, 8 or more images is the one that the player will see most often. You can already have a test run (hah!) of this one. Even with just sketch lines, it's what the game creator can use to check that the character moves fast enough, etc.

In most cases, you will have complete freedom of timing ("this image should be there for 100 milliseconds, this one for 333 milliseconds etc"). This means you can always insert one frame between two if a movement is not smooth enough.

[Ravenx2000]

@Yrizoud
Hehe no he is'nt an experienced creator did some IT and programming educations. But I am at a position that i am financially secure for well forever so i've got a lot of time on my hands. And he asked for the help in which i am writing the story and will be doing most of the art. It seems like something new for me as a art form which i always like to do. So it maybe goes down in flames or whatever but I want to make a good start. Or atleast go somewhat informed before i start it off.

@Gill
The characters Will be in the end on my screen say 5 centimeters. While fighting games dependand on what kind are a bit larger generally.
I actually ran into spine quite early and it seems a bit like go to animation. However i've found no deep pixel art used for it. More painted things that are straight out of photoshopped add skeleton ad mesh and go. That direction i will need to pick up with the creator first of what he wants to do. But it does seem sprine has the "faster" workflow once you understand how it works. Which kinda goes for all I guess.
Side question though Gill. I take those images are Vectors right if I'm not mistaken in which case I can basicly make 1 sprite for all resolutions or sizes not?
Also I found Spriter also nice looking they don't use the meshes though just the Skeleton's so i guess that's more tailored for true "pixel sprites".

@32
a: do a basic mock-up sketch of a scene from the game. Resize it to the intended resolution and measure the characters. Measure you mean in Centimeters, but if i make the canvas 1920x1080 and create the sprites relative to the size I want them I am basicly set right? However the only problem i would have then is that i can only resize them down to a certain amount right? or specific numbers.

The most important factor is what can you reasonably expect to be able to draw. If you don't have a target system for the game the most common resolution in use currently is 1920x1080 so you should be aiming for your resolution to either be that or a resolution that multiplies neatly into that. Is there a chart for this perhaps?

Another thing to consider is whether it will be pixel art or painted. If it's pixel art you're going to want to scale up. If it's painted you're going to want to scale down. Ideally for both you would not scale at all but this is only really an option if you have a set screen resolution, for example if you're developing for console. But game engines can't automaticly scale up or down then? Since when you normally change the resolution it just goes up or down. Or do i need to size em for all possible resolutions?

[Gil]

The characters Will be in the end on my screen say 5 centimeters. While fighting games dependand on what kind are a bit larger generally.
I actually ran into spine quite early and it seems a bit like go to animation. However i've found no deep pixel art used for it. More painted things that are straight out of photoshopped add skeleton ad mesh and go. That direction i will need to pick up with the creator first of what he wants to do. But it does seem sprine has the "faster" workflow once you understand how it works. Which kinda goes for all I guess.
Side question though Gill. I take those images are Vectors right if I'm not mistaken in which case I can basicly make 1 sprite for all resolutions or sizes not?
Also I found Spriter also nice looking they don't use the meshes though just the Skeleton's so i guess that's more tailored for true "pixel sprites".

The centimeters thing is dependent on game scale. At 1920x1080, a 5cm character would be higher res than a fighting game character.

Spine is not made for pixel art, it's practically impossible I'd say. Spriter is a bit more geared towards it, but really, if you want pixel art, you'll be animating by hand, not with a rigging tool.

The images I've shown are not vectors, the way it works is that you make them too big and scale down, which means they work on all resolutions up to a certain limit (like, if you want to support 4k screens, you have to start at a massive size). For pixel art, the opposite happens. You make the game for a 320x200 resolution or whatever and scale it up for higher resolutions. Pixels will become pretty big, that's part of the aesthetic.


So what I propose is that you make a few small tests and show us, so we can guide you better. Maybe also show us some games you consider inspiration? Everything is possible really, it just depends on the aesthetic you want. I don't think it's interesting to ask technical questions about a vague game idea. Most answers you'll get are "sure, it's possible, but is it feasible?".

[32]

You can measure in cm and use basic maths to figure out pixel sizes yes. You need to get this resizing nonsense out of your head. You know the resolution before you start or you're going about it backwards.

If you are using pixel art which it seems you are you will avoid scaling down at all costs. And most likely you won't need to worry since screen resolutions are currently way too high to pixel above.

No chart that I know of but the maths is simple. Just take 1920 and 1080 and divide both by any integer.

Yes the game engine will scale for you but you want to be ready for that to get the best possible scaling. Working at a resolution which multiplies neatly into 1920x1080 is the easiest way. I say ideally you would work at the screen resolution because this lets you get the most out of the display and means that what you draw is exactly what you show so you have ultimate control. You wouldn't do that for pixel art on a modern screen though, they're far too big.

Take Gil's suggestion and do a quick drawing of the game, it's a lot easier than trying to figure it out with nothing to go on.

The reason people are concerned about you wanting to do fighter game scale stuff is that it is HARD. If you've never done sprites before I would say regardless of your art background you're going to run into immediate problems. I'd have trouble doing that and I have nearly a decade experience with pixel art and a degree in animation, it's certainly not something you can hand wave just because you have a lot of time. Gil's Heart of Darkness scale suggestion is definitely the way to go.

[Hagane]

Fighting game characters require lots of work. A single character needs around 500-700 frames for it to animate decently well depending on how many attack buttons and specials it has. From my own experience it takes around 3-4 months to get a single one done, and if you are unexperienced it will take a lot more at first since you will make a lot of mistakes you will have to correct later on. And fighting game players expect at the very least eight characters, so you have a lot of work right there without even taking stages into account. There's a reason why there are lots of indie shooting games and platformers but so few beat'em ups and fighters.

The most effective way would be to not use sprites and go for photoshop HD stuff as in Vanillaware games, particularly considering that you say that you don't have experience drawing pixel art. You can save a lot of time using rotation programs and still get decent animation quality with a good workflow. For resolution, I'd say draw at 4K and then resize for lower resolutions. Skullgirls does something like this I believe.

Plan the attacks out before animating them, set the timings, and set the keyframes and inbetweens. With the inbetweens you can get away with rotations a lot, as long as you use keyframes to make the limbs move around in a 3D plane, so you don't end up with silly looking animations like Rumble Fish.

Even with all this, you will need a lot of discipline and endurance to get something like this done by yourself. I started a project like this all by myself two years and a half ago and I still have a long way to go, just to make a demo to crowdfund to get help to speed things up. A project of this kind can take a reeeeally long time for a lone artist. Sugeno did Vanguard Princess all by himself and, while it looks gorgeous, it took him 6+ years to complete it, and he was a pro spriter with years of experience at Capcom.