Creating Sprites

This is where our experts try to teach you the very flexible modding system for our previous release - SOW Gettysburg and its add-ons. It's powerful, but dangerous. Post your tips and your questions.
Legion
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Creating Sprites

Post by Legion »

Just wondering if there is any good tutorials on how to create new sprites for the game?
There are many uniforms that i'd like to see and I figured it would be a good idea to learn how to make them.

Any help is much appreciated.
Davinci
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Re: Creating Sprites

Post by Davinci »

Just wondering if there is any good tutorials on how to create new sprites for the game?
There are many uniforms that i'd like to see and I figured it would be a good idea to learn how to make them.
This post sheds a little bit of light on the subject, but as far as I know there has Never been a Complete topic on how uniforms are made.

Basically, there are only a handful of people on the Forum that has the talent to make uniforms.

http://www.norbsoftdev.net/forum/modifi ... -years-war

davinci
The only true logic is that, there is no true logic!
Legion
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Re: Creating Sprites

Post by Legion »

I read through it but it really doesn't offer much.

Why would you need a 3d model? The sprites are 2d aren't they?

If someone could post a few pics and a brief explanation of the process thats all I need. I don't need it to be in depth.
gunship24
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Re: Creating Sprites

Post by gunship24 »

Although the sprites are 2d they are rendered from a 3d model. This is because there are 16 angles around the model that are created to allow the sprites to point in the correct direction. This would take a long time to individually draw.

Essentially you need to:
1) Make (or import from other games) a 3d model into 3d software like blender, 3DSmax (is what i use), Maya etc
2) Animate the model to march, run, fire, lie down etc
2) Render out for each frame of animation 16 angles. Could do less but wouldn't look as smooth when rotating the camera.
3) Pack all the individual renders into sprite sheets
5) Edit the game csv files to detect the new unit and new sprite sheets

I learnt it all from scratch a few years ago. There is a learning curve but very rewarding once you get it right...
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Saddletank
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Re: Creating Sprites

Post by Saddletank »

Gunship - those are Russian sprites I haven't seen before. Have you been making new ones?
HITS & Couriers - a different and realistic way to play SoW MP.
Martin James
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Re: Creating Sprites

Post by Martin James »

They do look very tasty.

Martin (J)
Pom
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Re: Creating Sprites

Post by Pom »

Just like gunship24 I also started from scratch. I started out by reading the manual and as many posts on the forum as I could.

I then had a play with other peoples mods to get used to the file system used, and the route from sprite sheet to game. You can move about the vanilla sprites, and use them to add in new units to the game. You can do this before making you own sprites just to see if you want to do all the file work that goes into adding new units, before investing in the programmes needed to make your own.

As gunship24 has said, it can be very rewarding when you see you own work in a game. It's well worth having a go.

Pom.
remus
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Re: Creating Sprites

Post by remus »

Hi Legion

First thing I would suggest is to checkout the price of the graphics program that you would need to create the sprites. As mentioned by Gunship and I am pretty sure that Pom uses a similar program, they can be fairly prohibitive cost wise. I too use 3ds Max and Photoshop,but you might be able to find cheaper programs that will do the same job.If this is manageable and your confident in using it then further advice on the creating of sprites will make more sense for you.

Remus
Jace11
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Re: Creating Sprites

Post by Jace11 »

Upload isn't working, i'll try againtomorrow, its a an old guide for making sprites
Last edited by Jace11 on Sat Jan 14, 2017 6:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Legion
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Re: Creating Sprites

Post by Legion »

I have blender and gimp for textures and modeling. What else would I need?
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