Artist looking for mentoring and or project

Cathar

Cathar

New member
Hey everyone. So I've been buzzing around OpenBor for a few days, looking for art requirements to make a project, and how hard would it be to design and animate things like players, enemies, backgrounds and other entities. And I came to the conclusion that - it wouldn't be that hard, nor it would be a very long thing to do. I want to give it a try.

12916827_1130521330321277_8455743786301653562_o.jpg

Coming out with something looking decent doesn't take much work​

I downloaded OpenBor and understood my own severe technical limitations. Like I don't even know where to begin.

After some researches on various forums, wiki and help documents made me realize I don't have the tech saviness to even understand the help provided.

So as a complete begginner, I'm looking for some mentoring to get me started on that. Alternatively, if learning how to even use OpenBor is too hard for a complete begginer I'm looking for original projects to butt in, if my graphic skills can be of any use.

Like, I want to put them to work for the greater good.

Can someone help me ? It would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
 
wow great looking artwork pm me i can try to help you if you like ask me a question and ill try to answer it.  Is that artwork original?
 
Yes, it's completely original. The character was pretty much done in five minutes and the background is horizontally seamless. I'll PM you as soon as I'm off of work, in something like 30 minutes ?

I really appreciate the reply
 
Yeah nice work

Thou, never ever use JPG , even for screenshots, so we can see the real quality ;).    Just do everything in 16bit PNG, it's what you'll be using for OpenBOR eventually.  Each image will have to conform to a 256 colour palette.

Also be wary of semi transparent pixels when working on your images, they need to use solid colours only in the palette,. 

We're happy to help with the basics, I can send you an empty mod to start working from.  The first thing to decide is what resolution to work at, most mods use 480x272 which is compatible with many handhelds.  Otherwise you can set any resolution you want.
 
Nice art there Cathar :), can you make animations for him such as IDLE and WALK stance? I asked those two cause those are the first and basic animations character must have
 
>Bestie
Oh - well, it's not a screenshot, it's just a quick mockup to ...show what I can do artwise basically. But alright, I'll follow that advice, thanks. 256 colors is pretty much assured to give a pixellated look to the pictures, but why the hell not after all.

But right now, my big problem is me standing totally clueless in front of the OpenBor program, not even knowing how to explode PAKs, and even where are the PAKs I should explode to begin with.

I assume looking like a totally retarded n00b, it's what I am, but if you want to go through the tedious process of getting me started, I would deerly appreciate it.

>Bloodbane

Of course I can :D
I'll do them once I'm done with my work shift, and I'll post them this evening
 
Yeah I figured it was a mockup.

OpenBor isn't too technical, if you have your sprites ready, it's just text editing for the most part.

For example, thou more is needed, this is the basic code to make a player with your current sprite.

Code: 
name	Guy                  
type	   player
health 10
speed   4

anim idle
loop 1
offset x x
frame  data/chars/guy/idle.png

My advice is only use other mods for examples, start your own mod from scratch.  Starting with just Openbor.exe, it  only needs a few core assets to run.  Mainly the title screens and fonts.  You could start with the title screens etc , and then build your character as the sprites are ready.  Things will make more sense if you're just learning as you go.
 
Here's an empty mod you can edit to get you started.
http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=09783619622660186642


- It only contains one empty test stage, which has black backgrounds

- It has one test character RYU, he can only walk and punch, there is some descriptions in his text file, his images are also a good example of how to setup your sprites, set palettes and offset them correctly.  You can just delete this character once you start your own player.

- it has an enemy called NONE - this is just spawned in the test level to stop it from ending, you do not need to include this in normal stages.
 
I've been running some color tests and the damage is not as big as expected in 256 colors.  Pretty cool !

Also thanks for the mod, I'll have a deep look at it

Started to work on IDLEs anims, available here : http://sta.sh/24hm23v75te?edit=1
 
To alleviate some confusion, it's actually 8bit .png for individual sprite images, not 16bit. 256 colors = 8bit.

Also, that's 256 colors for each set of sprites, NOT total. IOW, each fighter on the screen has its own 256 color palette, then the background and panels have another.

That should be way more than enough - professional sprite based games don't use nearly that many. But if for some reason it's not, don't worry. Once you have a bit more knowledge of the engine, there are some simple techniques that allow you to keep increasing the number of colors, the only limit being what your hardware can handle.

Just to put things in perspective, compare OpenBOR to the mighty Neo-Geo:

Platform:  Neo-Geo  OpenBOR
Colors Per Sprite:  16  256
Colors On Screen:  4,096  ~16.7 Million
Color Choices:  65,335  User defined RGB

DC
 
Thanks a lot for the answers you guys gave. So from what I understood, working on sprites is the first step. That's actually a good thing, it's the only part I can do alone. So... sprites this is

eh_by_number_seventeen-d9xfts1.png

Work in progress, but it's taking a turn I like​

I will come back and annoy you guys again the next time I bump into a simple obstacle

Thanks again
 
There are some awkwards elements in your sprites, legs seem stiff, foot positionning is somewhat off, face is strange but I really like the overall style. Seems you have what it takes to create good drawn-materials, which is rare. Seems you will be able to do animations pretty well too. Keep up working on these and I'm sure you'll get all the help you'll need to create a cool project  :)
 
Thanks a lot for the feedback ! I tried to animate the idle stance ; it works not THAT bad. Maybe a little too dynamic actually, guy moves a lot. But for a first try, it will be alright. It's actually both the first time I animate and the first time I make sprites - no doubt I'll get to it fast.

Priority now is to get something working

And talking about that,
eh_by_number_seventeen-d9xgu3b.png

IDLE and WALK done.


I need a title screen, and what else ? I assume a ATTACK spriteset or two ?​
 
you should reduce the amount of colours used in the palette, and work in indexed mode.  Also this is the result of removing the transparent background.  Aliasing should be avoided.

tests.png
 
Reduced the colors to 50, it gives that
eh2_by_number_seventeen-d9xhayv.png

Aliasing happens, but not too severely. I need to run some other tests, like, maybe if I get rid of the shadows and use only plain colors...

(Edit : Nevermind, doesn't help)

Also, I pasted this 50 color sprite over a 50 color BG, and the result is not too disgusting

eh2_by_number_seventeen-d9xhb9c.png


Working in indexed colors is really not something I'm used to, tho.
 
Yeah personally I would reduce the shadows and have plain colours, like CAPCOM/SNK sprites.  But you could use this style if you wanted.  I tested just now reducing to 64 colours, your result is nice too, heaps better.  If you reduce using Local (Selective) you can add colours manually that will forced into the palette.  So it's a good idea to build a palette based on your images.  Example 8 shades of orange , 8 for skin, 8 for black etc. 

Here's a tutorial for cleaning/turning drawings into sprites that might be good reference.  There is tons available on the web thou.
http://2dwillneverdie.com/tutorial/a-basic-sprite-tutorial/
http://gas13.ru/v3/tutorials/sywtbapa_making_fighting_game_sprite.php
 
I read the tutorial...Basically what they do is the same thing as I do, except they work pixel by pixel. Actually I think they lose some time with their step 3 and should instead directly ink with a 1PX pencil (what is the point of sharpening the lines if you have to rework them manually anyway), but even so, this is an insane ton of work, definitely not practicable for my one-man-team-with-no-ambition.

I ran different color tests and it gave that :

eh2_by_number_seventeen-d9xhelu.png


64 colors is indeed much smoother, I think I will stick to it. It's not omg-stunning result, but it somewhat fits. What other core animation should I get before getting started on the program itself ?
 
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