Coders: question on Sprites...

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Mattyd
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Coders: question on Sprites...

#1 Post by Mattyd »

Hi there,

I'm lead dev of OmOneko.

The 1st VN I discovered was DDLC.
I don't know code, but I've done a lot of work for several DDLC Mods and indie VNs (BGs, sprite edits, script editing).

DDLC chops up the sprites to save on total assets.
Like this.
So that's how I've always worked with them.


For our project,
I started to put together sprite-sheets for when we're ready to start coding.
WaitressSpriteSheet.png

Part of the team is strongly for creating whole sprites (one for each expression/pose)
versus the chop-em-up and layeredimage way of doing it.


I'd appreciate any thought and opinions on this!

Thanks.

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Re: Coders: question on Sprites...

#2 Post by Imperf3kt »

Cutting the sprites will be beneficial in several ways.
One image base can be used for several expressions and one face can be used for several poses etc. Effectively, you can save a ton of space by using this approach. Some commercial games have literal thousands of poses and facial combinations, which take up many gigabytes of storage. Chopping them up and layering them can reduce that to a fraction.

An additional benefit is pirates have a harder time stealing your assets since they have to manually piece the parts back together and find the bit of code in your game that tells them exactly where it is supposed to align. Not trivial once your game is compiled.
Granted, you can't stop dedicated Pirate's, but you can at least delay them and discourage amateurs.
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pro·gram·mer (noun) An organism capable of converting caffeine into code.

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Re: Coders: question on Sprites...

#3 Post by Mattyd »

Imperf3kt wrote: Thu Apr 29, 2021 7:29 pm Cutting the sprites will be beneficial in several ways...
My take as well.

I think the one point that they make is by doing whole sprites, you really focus on what is needed
and that can help give each character unique personalities.

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Re: Coders: question on Sprites...

#4 Post by Morhighan »

I've seen this method used a lot with mouths/eyes and occasionally arms but have to say that cutting in half completely is new to me. As Imperf3kt points out, it'd be great for saving space.
The only downside I can think of is finagling code if you're new to it (as I believe you said in the first post), but overall it should be fairly doable! Will you be using simple character animations as well?

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Re: Coders: question on Sprites...

#5 Post by parttimestorier »

If you're using layeredimage anyway, I would personally find it more useful to have completely separate images for each layer - like the base of the sprite, the clothes, the hair, the eyes, the mouth, etc. - rather than chopping up the full combination of layers into different chunks. That's just the way that I've seen other layeredimage sprites done and found easy to work with before, and it can also allow for adding more variations later - like a variant on the hairstyle if that's something you end up deciding you want - without editing all the images you already have. But if you're the one doing both the art and the programming, and you already have a good idea of exactly how many sprite variants you want, then I think however you feel comfortable doing it is probably fine. The only situations in which I might necessarily advocate using whole sprite images for each expression over separate layers would be if you're a beginner programmer or have limited time to work on it, since layeredimage can be a bit of a hassle to figure out and get set up in the first place.
ImageImageImage

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Re: Coders: question on Sprites...

#6 Post by Mattyd »

Morhighan wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 1:29 pm I've seen this method used a lot with mouths/eyes and occasionally arms but have to say that cutting in half completely is new to me. As Imperf3kt points out, it'd be great for saving space.
The only downside I can think of is finagling code if you're new to it (as I believe you said in the first post), but overall it should be fairly doable! Will you be using simple character animations as well?
Fortunately, I won't be coding!
8)


I am a fan of things I've seen come out of programs like live 2D.
Is that what you were referring to?


There is no plan at this time for animations,
BUT...
if we have someone who does stuff like that (or other animation) join the team,
there's a lot of room in the story to add it in.

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Re: Coders: question on Sprites...

#7 Post by Mattyd »

parttimestorier wrote: Sat May 01, 2021 6:47 am If you're using layeredimage anyway, I would personally find it more useful to have completely separate images for each layer
Ideally yes,
but unfortunately some things got flattened.

So with several sprites, we're limited in what we have available without completely recreating it.

The way we're doing it in chunks is working for our needs:


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Re: Coders: question on Sprites...

#8 Post by Morhighan »

Mattyd wrote: Sun May 02, 2021 3:08 pm
Morhighan wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 1:29 pm I've seen this method used a lot with mouths/eyes and occasionally arms but have to say that cutting in half completely is new to me. As Imperf3kt points out, it'd be great for saving space.
The only downside I can think of is finagling code if you're new to it (as I believe you said in the first post), but overall it should be fairly doable! Will you be using simple character animations as well?
Fortunately, I won't be coding!
8)


I am a fan of things I've seen come out of programs like live 2D.
Is that what you were referring to?


There is no plan at this time for animations,
BUT...
if we have someone who does stuff like that (or other animation) join the team,
there's a lot of room in the story to add it in.
I was thinking of simple animations like eye blinking (as opposed to more complex stuff like Live2D), but with this method no animations is definitely simpler. :)

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Re: Coders: question on Sprites...

#9 Post by Mattyd »

Morhighan wrote: Mon May 03, 2021 11:49 am eye blinking
ABSOUTELY!

(well... psudo-animation. jumping back and forth from open/closed eyes.)
unknown (2).png

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