Lemma Soft Forums

• Do you prefer having full, pre-made expressions, or do you prefer the Mr. Potato Head method in which you can switch around each facial feature variation?
• Do you prefer the sprite to show the entire body? Or do you prefer having a certain cut-off point? (Mid-shin, knees, hips, etc.)
• Do you prefer having different sprite bases for each body type variation, or being able to mix-and-match body portions?
• With hairstyles, do you prefer having a whole hairstyle on its own layer, or mix-and-matching front, side and back parts to further customize hairstyles?
• Do you prefer having set color options, or being able to edit the colors as you see fit?
• Is pose variation really important to you?
• What kind of characters would you really want to see more of? Plus-sized characters? Older characters? Etc...
• Is there anything else you'd like to note?

Evy wrote:Is pose variation really important to you?

Evy wrote:What kind of characters would you really want to see more of? Plus-sized characters? Older characters?

Evy wrote:Is there anything else you'd like to note?

• Do you prefer having full, pre-made expressions, or do you prefer the Mr. Potato Head method in which you can switch around each facial feature variation?
  A lot of variations is neat looking but usually doesn't actually do much. As the pose and general appearance will stay the same, even if the hair and skin color can be changed, the sprites will look too similar for the 'same art style' advantage to apply.
  However, I personally prefer a .psd file where I can not only do a Mr. Potato head but also make everything but f.e. the eyes invisible so that I can make that an image of its own. Works well with im.Composite 'ing the expressions faster and easier if there's a lot of them. And the amount of combinations rise exponentionally, plus there's no need for the expressions (and expression statements) x2 during a costume change, if that applies.
  So: If you mean 'you can make multiple characters from it' then no, but if you mean allowing the player to switch up the expressions then yes. Or just do both, the expressions will have to come from that .psd (or whatever you use) anyway so you already have it.
• Do you prefer the sprite to show the entire body? Or do you prefer having a certain cut-off point? (Mid-shin, knees, hips, etc.)
  Entire body is better, but rarely used and most likely people will crop the feet off anyway so I wouldn't say it's that necessary.
• Do you prefer having different sprite bases for each body type variation, or being able to mix-and-match body portions?
  You mean that someone would have multiple arms (hanging, stroking chin, holding an invisible apple etc.) or something in that regard? That would be quite nice, but don't combine it with multiple outfits. That's a hell to do.
• With hairstyles, do you prefer having a whole hairstyle on its own layer, or mix-and-matching front, side and back parts to further customize hairstyles?
  Whole would probably be best, it'll be hard for you and maybe a bit awkward if you'd make them all in a way that they'd work together.
• Do you prefer having set color options, or being able to edit the colors as you see fit?
  That makes me wonder if there's even a way to add such a 'choose your own color' feature simply in a standard CC sprite file. If there is, I'd say custom colors is preferred as long as it won't take you a looooong time to do.
• Is pose variation really important to you?
  Ah, so that's not what you meant with 3, oh well. It's nice, I did so myself for P&Y and plan to use it again later, but with a CC it might be difficult to tell what will and won't be used. A pose variation where the head (and thus the expressions) don't change is a must to remain sane though.
• What kind of characters would you really want to see more of? Plus-sized characters? Older characters? Etc...
  I think that the regular characters that one'd often use such as the typical student etc. would be most likely to be used, and by not giving them a school uniform or making them more adult you can probably diverge from that cliche. Characters that are barely seen in VNs probably won't be used that much simply because they probably won't make a story of their own or don't match with the art style of the other characters.
• Is there anything else you'd like to note?
  To become a much used CC, wide usability and a large set of characters is probably paramount to success. See Uncle Mugen. Maybe make a few simpler sprites to get acquainted with what and how people want CCs before you spend a lot of time on something that doesn't get used a lot, so that you already have a larger selection for them to choose from.

Nuxill wrote: ↑Thu May 11, 2017 11:35 am I've played around with extremely customizable sprites before, and personally I find going through all of the options can be kind of tiring. I don't have the patience to go through every front hair, back hair, eye style, eybrows, etc... Personally, a sprite that has a few set hairdos, a basic amount of stock emotions and a few alternative outfits is way more appealing than something that's SUPER customizable. Of course, I can draw my own sprites, so you can take my opinion with a grain of salt.

For pose variation, I think having several arm positions for each base would be appreciated by people, even if it would extra work. Though if you were going to make a large pool of sprites to choose from, it might not be as important. There's not a lot of sprite groups out there that go beyond 3-4 characters.

And we need more variety in the types of characters available. High school students are popular, but if you want to make a different type of vn there's a lot less to choose from.