Lemma Soft Forums

Hi,
I'd like to ask what do you think about sometimes using character sprites (or slightly changed sprites) - scaled, rotated, cropped and so on, in event illustrations and sometimes original character art but with blurred background?

The reason I'm asking is that I'd planned over 30 illustrations (or even more counting small changes) in my game and drawing each from scratch would be too time consuming.

Yes, I know, I could ignore illustrations and just show characters on screen as usual, but it doesn't show what I want in some scenes.

I think illustrations are rather visual hint of what is happening, so maybe it would be fine?

You mean as in: using sprites in CGs? Yes, I can see that work depending on the CG and the sprite. Usually it won't, because a CG will be used to portray some kind of action or pose that the sprite can't, the very purpose of that CG is to do something that the sprite can't, but I can also imagine another character just standing in the background which can be just the sprite.

What I'd do, is use the full-version sprite. So not the one that's cropped down to useable size, and I do hope you have a larger version. I myself am currently using 3000 pixels height, cropped down to 600-650 for the sprite. Instead of the sprite, I'll use the original to avoid double cropping effects and add them in the image. Then I'll use the blur effect required to make backgrounds from different sources look similar (I use Photosketch for this) which will also blur the sprite. Usually that will take away the photoshopped/cringeworthy difference between the two. I think at least, I haven't actually needed to merge sprites into my CGs like that before.

If the sprite is meant to be on the forefront, as if the camera is focused on them and unfocussed on the background, in that case such a blur is not necessary. The difference would lend itself to put more emphrasis on them.

I'll show an example to give better idea how I intend to do it:

I have 9 story endings, each has 4 small cosmetic variations (changes in characters look), so 36 CG in total.
I want to use the same background for all endings, but place character sprites instead drawing characters again.
Few characters would be in the back, and few in front with different emotions, everything depending on the story ending.

I'm attaching quick mockup example to better show what I mean, background etc. will be changed of course. In this example background will not be blurred and will match the style of sprites but I'm using the same character sprites as through the normal game in dialogues.

In that case, maybe look into whether you can use a zoom function to make the sprites bigger/smaller. That way you won't have to play around with the background, just add the sprites like usual. Depending on how problematic the zooming is, that can be easier to do. I don't know how it works, but I know it's possible.

I would draw the sprites at the larger resolution and scale down for the background characters. This thread may be helpful to you if you want to do it programmatically, but you could also very well scale the images in your image editing software, then keep those smaller versions stored away specifically for the CG scenes.

I think you're forgetting the entire function of a CG, which is to show a scene of action that would be impossible to depict using a regular sprite. So I think no mater what you do, using regular sprites for CGs will look like cutting corners. I guess in your case you have no choice, but I wouldn't expect it to have the same effect as an actual CG.