Bear with me, this is from a fire emblem guild, as well, I am primarily, as of now, a Fire Emblem spriter. Therefore, it is easy for me to talk about Fire Emblem sprites. However, the process itself, can be applied to several other sprite forms as well.
Brought to you by Ice Dragon (his photobucket album has most of the completed FE6-8 animation, therefore, thought it would be awesome to post here. I am pretty sure he is not a member of Gaia, but a member of one of the FE Fan Forums
Ice Dragon's photobucket siteSo after watching all those do their fancy move (and by god, they are quite fancy, what I LOVE about FE. Something completely different from Final Fantasy), you want to make them, don't ya!
Ok, even a newbie, like myself, at photoshop can do a simple animation. I guess, for all those who want to know how to animate, I will teach you how to animate.
Terminology:
Sprite: Sprites are basically pictures ranging from 25*25 pixels to probably ginormous ones... These are what game developers use to interact with the game environment.
so here I go, but before I will go, I will say this
I am using a GBA rom to play FE 6-8 (although I haven't beaten it yet...). So it IS plausible to get a snap shot of each frame of animation for the character. However, note the word "plausible". I am sorry, but looking at some of those animation, i would be crazy to be clicking at each frame. That is outrageous and crazy (i am doing that for most of the guilty gear destroy move. and I will say, may's is a b***h to do, as well, when completed it turned out to be about 1.7mb).
The easier solution is finding sprites sheets.
A thread, on this guild forum, talking about where you can obtain sprite sheetsWhen do I shut up and tell you all how to make them? Right now, after this post. =P
NOTE:
If there are other programs that can do animated .gif files, PLEASE write the steps below mine. Hopefully, it can be useful for the future when people decide to create .gifs on their own.
Getting images:
so now you have a sprite sheet. yippie! But as you can see, you are dealing with numerous sprites of the same character at different stages. From playing the game, you will know which frame comes first.
For my example, i will be using a shaman sprite sheet to create the animation.
http://sprites.fireball20xl.com/NSA/Sheets/fe7_shaman.gifStep 1:
open whatever version of photoshop you have (if you don't have photoshop, that might be your first step. Although, I have no other way of know if there is another way of creating animations.....)
Step 2:
open your sprite sheet (in my case, the shaman one)
Step 3:
Using your "rectangular marquee tool", select your first sprite image
Step 4:
Copy it
Step 5:
Go to file>New Canvas You will be presented with several options, however, if you copied your image, the size should already be set to the size of the copied image. Therefore, just click ok.
[Key thing] If you want the background to be transparent, go to the background contents drop menu, and highlight "transparent" option.
Step 6:
paste the image in the new area.
Step 7:
use your magic eraser tool (in the eraser tools) to get rid of the color (If you are making the background into another color, then just select your color, and use the paint bucket tool.
Step 8: TEDIOUS!
If you want your sprite to look awesome, I highly advise you not skip this step.
Zoom in so that the image is 1600%. Do you notice that some of the pixels are faint? Well, you must fill those pixels in with your pencil and the right colors.
[suggestion] use the "eye dropper" tool to get the exact coloring. If you are creating a custom character, basically, fill in the appropriate space with whatever color you desire. (probably, later on, I will custom my sprites with own color, however, I first need to learn shading in pixels....)
ex:
bleeding
fixed
or, you can do it this way:
Saturnos
There is an easier way to remove the background from a particular sprite, so that you DO NOT have to retouch it because the edges are looking funny. This method eliminates the bleeding entirely, and therefore saves you time on the "most" tedious step, and by saving time, I mean you might as well skip the step.
1) Don't use the Magic Eraser, use the Magic Wand instead.
2) Set the Tolerance down to 0, and make sure Anti-Alias is NOT selected.
3) Click on the background, which should highlight the entire background, and ONLY the background.
4) If there is still background that has not been selected, because the character's pixels are completely around it, use Select-->Similar. This will select all pixels that are the same color as the background. Make sure none of the sprite's pixels are selected. If they are, deselect them by holding... I think it was Ctrl... whatever makes a little minus sign appear next to the Magic Wand, and click on the pixels you want to deselect.
5) Delete. Deselect. Easy.
Step 9:
repeat steps 3 through eight for each image you are using in your sprite. For the shaman, that is 20 more. Hey, I didn't say this was going to be a cake walk....
[note] If your canvas size is slightly different from other's don't worry about it. It will be solved later on
[note 2] always a smart idea to save each picture, just in case something happens (and yes, the unimaginable has happened to me once)
Step 10:
copy your FIRST image (in my case, it is the Shaman's neutral stance). Create a new canvas, and then paste your copied first picture. Now copy your next image, then paste it, but ALIGN IT so that later on, your animation won't be bumpy. If you don't align them right, it becomes something like my hand drawn Shaman. It moves....although that is funny all together. Keep on copying and pasting until you go back to your neutral stance.
For example, I had 21 separate sprites. In the end of my animation, I should have sprite 1, rather than sprite 21.
Step 11:
Once you finish your canvas with x number of layers on it (for mine, I had 22 layers), save it. Then, go to file>edit in image ready
Step12:
Once image ready is opened, on the animation pallete (sp?) create as many slides as you need (In my case, 22). Then click on the very first slide, to highlight it. Go to your layer pallete (sp?), and click off EVERY single eye icon except for the first. Once that is done, click on the next slide. B/c your background is transparent, you NEED to click off the very first eye icon, but click on the next eye icon. Do this for each slide.
Step 13:
time your sprite animation. The easiest way to do this, is if your character is based off of an original character. Use Image Ready to open Ice Dragon's .gif that you are copying. It should say what the time lag for each frame is. Copy that
Step 14:
when you are ready to save, go to file>save optimized...
This was my end result ->
<- note, this animation is not that good, due to the fact that it is not timed right, as well, couple of frames are missing.
If you have any questions, please PM me (probably I can't answer it, and refer you to the person who created all those other sprites)....
In the spirit of Fire Emblem, this is an animation showing you how to create
custom Mug shotsI will only leave this thread open, b/c I trust that people will respect what I am about to say. The only post people are allowed to make, are suggestions, to an alternative step, OR how to animate on another program. Any questions should be done via PM. Any comments should be done via PM. Any spam will not be tolerated. Please respect this guideline. Thank you. Now, let there be sprites!
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