Topic: New 100% fresh artwork for Castlevania: The Rise of Nosferatu.. Need programmer!

[Donoffrio]

What a relief..
Im glad you liked that sprite of Enthu I made,mont!
Say,are you planning to use it in any way? :0

[Belmontoya]

Corpsecrank

I'm glad that you pointed those things out because I've actually been well aware of pretty much every knit pick that you just pointed out.

As far as the palate colors go, I should let you know that I am still in the process of re-scaling all of my art. In the case of the bush that you pointed out as being mismatched from the rest of the level- there is a reason. I made that bush originally for a different level and added it in there last minute because that area looked empty before I uploaded it on here. I have yet to adjust it's color to match the forest level, but I'm glad you noticed that too because I have been planning on fixing that, it's just low on my priority list right now.

Now on to the subject of the hard edges. Let me tell you that I have been trying to find a way to fix that for over a week now! It's very frustrating. The problem is that all of my sprites are originally drawn with a 1 pixel thick black outline. It looks good with the HD style, but after I scale the images down 70%, or increase the pixel size, the black outline gets a gray haze around it. The only way I have found to (almost) fix that problem is to fill all of the blank space around the image with black. After that I scale the image down and re-fill the area around the sprites white. This eliminates the grayish haze, but I'm left with fragments of remaining black outlines in random areas. I've tried so many different re-scaling techniques and using smart images but nothing seems to work.

This is a huge problem because it has the potential to put a ton of work on my plate going over the outline of every sprite again. But I will fix it by hand if it have to before the actual game is finished. The only reason the sprites still look like that right now is because I am still in the experimental phase with colors and scaling. It wouldn't make sense to go through and do all that by hand until I am 100% sure of color palates and sizing.

If anyone has any ideas of how to solve this problem with an easier technique than going over every sprite by hand, please let me know! You will save me countless hours.

Meanwhile Corpsecrank, you should know that I am and have been well aware of those issues and will indeed fix them.

Thanks for your input!

[Corpsecrank]

It makes sense to me now. You are scaling the graphics the wrong way grasshopper! When you scale you are losing quality hence the hard edge issues going on.

What program are you using to create this with? I know a few great ways to scale graphics without any loss of quality depending on what you have on your machine to work with. The easiest way if you have no semi-transparent pixels is to simply zoom in or out in your program and then take a screen of the image at that resolution and pull it from the screen. You have to make sure when you zoom that you have a full % you will get blurring if you have things zoomed to say 50.78% so try to keep the zoom in a full amount 50% 75% etc.

If you have anything that is semi-transparent you run into issues but there are pretty easy ways to deal with that also.

I just had to upscale some sprites that had semi-transparent pixels so I know the woes of scaling stuff believe me.

That could solve a whole lot of the issues you have right now. I would like to solve the scaling issues you have and then see what your graphics are looking like. Once we see how that effects things I might be able to help you work out some of the other issues left behind.

[Belmontoya]

I am using photoshop CS5 for effects, color editing and scaling, and simple MSpaint to draw. I also have Illustrator but I haven't used it much for this project.

I'm glad to hear that you've dealt with this problem too. What's your e-mail? I'll send you a png of some of my Enthu sprites if you want to have a go at it. I appreciate your help!

[Belmontoya]

Donoffrio

Thanks for your Enthu in SOTN style contribution. I already changed the standing pose I was using for Enthu to one based on your sprites. I thought it looked very natural. I am also leaning more towards a color palate in the direction of what you created.

But using the SOTN scale for this game isn't likely because a part of the point of this game is to give it a new look.

With that said, I think your sprites look great and we should try to complete a full set of frames for him. There are bunch of people on here programming fan games in the SOTN style that I'm sure would love to use a cool character like Enthu in their games.

Thanks again! You're very talented!

[Corpsecrank]

I am using photoshop CS5 for effects, color editing and scaling, and simple MSpaint to draw. I also have Illustrator but I haven't used it much for this project.

I'm glad to hear that you've dealt with this problem too. What's your e-mail? I'll send you a png of some of my Enthu sprites if you want to have a go at it. I appreciate your help!

Yeah I use cs5 here also. I can do one better. I will record a video on how to resize sprites using photoshop and using illustrator. You actually only use illustrator if there is any transparency and if the conditions are right. Unless that happens you can use photoshop and it is easy as pie. I up-scaled all my graphics for my game project using just photoshop.

Let me pull up some of my graphics and record the process so you can see it in action.

[Belmontoya]

Awesome! There are no transparencies, so I won't be using Illustrator. I'm much more comfortable with CS5 anyways. Thanks man!

[Corpsecrank]

Well the video was up.  It was removed due to length. I must have been just over. Let me break this into 2 parts for you and re upload them. I will cover each method in separate videos this time around and post each. I won't have time tonight but I can have them up in the morning so check back then.

[Belmontoya]

Awesome! Will you post a link on here to the CS5 video?

Thanks again!

[JooohnShaft]

this is an idea i thought of-
'lilith: queen of the succubi'

[Lumi Kløvstad]

Chun-Li called. She wants her thighs back.

[Belmontoya]

Thanks for your efforts Shaft, but I'm afraid this isn't the style I'm going with for this game. It looks very Dark Stalkers/Street fighter, which isn't a bad thing- it's just not a good fit for a mythological origins game. 

I appreciate your time and work! 

Thanks again!

[Donoffrio]

@Montoyagraphics
No problem!
If you need my input on anything that's sprite related..let me know..
But I still might help you with your sprites though..i might be able to edit your current enemy sprites in the size that you want for your game. :p

[Corpsecrank]

Awesome! Will you post a link on here to the CS5 video?

Thanks again!

Yeah I sure will post the links for you here. I got a call first thing today and had to work or I would have put the video up already. I am actually not done working yet so give me a bit and I will get the vids up here for you in a couple hours.

[Corpsecrank]

Ok the first video is uploaded. I am rendering the second and uploading it next.

This is full HD so you will be bale to see that the quality of the image stays the same during the resize process.

http://youtu.be/bIh6uhCD03s?hd=1

Second Video is up and covers sprites with semi-transparency.

http://youtu.be/ZpqVu5eXLGw?hd=1

Third video is up covers tracing for infinite scalability. This one is really just for those who wondered about tracing and what that meant. This is really more useful if you work in flash and want to lighten the size of the file and do certain things with the sprite that cannot be done using a bitmap image type.

http://youtu.be/UW2p9QvxfTw?hd=1