Closed, thank you!

[euphorics]

Hey everyone!! I'm still relatively new to the LS forums, so forgive me if this thread is in the wrong place, haha. ;_;
I'm currently working with a writer on a VN as the sprite, CG and background artist, but as it's my first time doing so I've been running into a ton of problems!

I've been wondering - how does everyone do variations in CGs? (e.g. expression changes of characters in the scene and so on!) I've been keeping the main lineart (for the body of the character, etc) on one layer, and the lineart for the facial expressions on another - so if I had one character and three different expressions, for example, I'd have four layers of lineart. But once I get around to coloring and finishing the CG, I have to turn on expression layer 1, finish coloring it completely, save as variation 1, then go back and repeat for variation 2 and 3. So if I need to fix something for a single variation, I have to go back to the main file and pretty much recolor everything. @___@ (Oh and, if it makes any difference - I've mainly been using paint tool SAI, with photoshop for editing, touchups etc!)

I feel like I'm probably missing something really obvious here, but... is there a way to do variations in CGs and sprites with varying expressions without having millions of layers? I can't even imagine doing this without lineart - is it even possible..?

Hopefully that made sense!! Sorry if my question seems super vague;; basically, please tell me about your CGing and sprite-creating strategies. It would be incredibly helpful and I'd be eternally grateful ;____; Thank you so much!!

[Auro-Cyanide]

Nope, you are correct. Everything that is going to change has to be on it's own layer.



The same applies with CGs. You have your base and then everything that is changeable sits on it's own layers so they can be programmed or simply saved out as individual files.

The best thing to do to minimise layers is to commit and merge. For instance, I usually do the base sprite, finalise it so I can merge the layers, then do all the emotions, finalise them and merge them so the normal eyes or their own layer, and the closed eyes are on their own layer etc.



This of course means that changing things becomes a little more difficult, but for VN work it's good to commit eventually. You don't want to be changing things too often because it tend to grow exponentially very quickly.

Hopefully that helps

[euphorics]

OH. OHHH- that was incredibly helpful, thank you so so much!!! ;____; (Also I was just playing Nachtigal ahhh, it's so cool to see her sprite deconstructed!!) I realized the main thing I was missing was just that I hadn't thought of coloring on a different layer for the eyes, mouth etc., instead of keeping all the color on one layer - thanks for showing me your layers too, this all makes so much more sense now u__u Once again, thank you!!