[Tutorial] 3 Spriting Tips You NEED to Know

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Landuros
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[Tutorial] 3 Spriting Tips You NEED to Know

Postby Landuros » Sun Dec 27, 2015 11:04 am

Many people have had trouble spriting, and it's frustrating when you can't get the image to look like what you want. I'm not the best at spriting, but can give a few tips to help people start off. Feel free to post more tips and tricks, as there will be things I haven't covered.

1. Stealing Game Sprites :shock:
Now, this method isn't actually as bad as it sounds. In Prison Architect's objects.png folder, you will find most of the games sprites drawn in there. If you can't manage to draw good sprites, or just take way too long to make one, try copying a sprite and modifying the sprite to suit your needs. Make sure you at least change its colours, or the content is not yours. Don't overuse this method, as some users may complain that you have used 'unoriginal sprites'.

2. Using a Different Photo-editing Program 8)
There are thousands of programs in the vast internet to create your own sprites with, and some are easier to use than others. For example, this type of low-level spriting is not suitable for Photoshop, because it is too expensive, and too complicated. A better program in this situation to use is GIMP, as it is easy and friendly to people who struggle with using computers :wink:. Here is a list of programs I recommend you use to start off with:
    1. GIMP
    GIMP is free, and like I said earlier, very easy to use. It is capable of importing and exporting over 10+ file types, which I thought was impressive for a free program. https://www.gimp.org/

    2. Paint.net
    Not to be confused with Microsoft Paint, Paint.net is a second option if you for some reason can't get GIMP. However, this program has its limitations. Paint.net can't be used with 32-bit computers and needs a x64 edition of Windows. Also be careful of the bit depth, as Prison Architect doesn't support the auto-detect big depth function on Paint.net. http://www.getpaint.net/download.html

    3. Steam Store
    There are over a thousand different types of photo editors if you navigate to Photo Editing under Software in the Steam Store. Most of these cost money, but you can take a pick to suit your needs.

3. Practise Practicing! :?:
Always, ALWAYS practice, as it is the only way you'll get better. You'll have to spend hours to master the style that Prison Architect uses and make your sprites merge into the game. Make sure the end result is always better than the last, so you can see what you've done wrong and etc. Make sure you understand opacity, because that is a big part to making sprites.

Hopefully that wasn't too long :D. I just wanted to give some of my tips to those who were looking for some, especially people new to modding. If you would like, I could post some more, but this'll do for now.

Have a Happy New Year and a great time spriting!
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HookerHeels
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Re: [Tutorial] 3 Spriting Tips You NEED to Know

Postby HookerHeels » Fri Jan 29, 2016 9:46 pm

Paint.net can be used with a 32x system.
And I use the auto detect and it works fine.
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Ghost314
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Re: [Tutorial] 3 Spriting Tips You NEED to Know

Postby Ghost314 » Sat Jan 30, 2016 6:14 pm

HookerHeels wrote:Paint.net can be used with a 32x system.
And I use the auto detect and it works fine.


Whether or not the auto-detect setting will work, will depend on which bit depth paint.net decides to auto-select when saving the file. If you try manually saving a png with a bit depth of 8, then it will end up looking like a bunch of static when Prison Architect tries to render it (unless they fixed this in a recent patch or something). See this thread for details on my experimentation: viewtopic.php?f=88&t=59205

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