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The examples

Ship sizes

Ferrus guide

BSF guide

Infestation guide

depth guide

medonca's spriting guide

avan's colouring guide

Tip and tricks

Light and shade guide

[TheHappyFace]

Ship sizes (thanks to Valkyrial) , There is also an extended list on page 8 by Thule.

Spoiler

Arkship ~ 1750 - 2500 pix
Titan ~ 750 - 1750 pix
Dreadnought ~ 650 - 750 pix
Mothership/Supercarrier ~ 550 - 650 pix
Battleship/Battlecruiser ~ 350 - 550 pix
Superheavy Cruiser/Heavy Cruiser ~ 300 - 350 pix
Superheavy Destroyer/Cruiser ~ 225 - 300 pix
Heavy Destroyer/Destroyer ~ 175 - 225 pix
Heavy Frigate/Heavy Gunship ~ 125 - 175 pix
Frigate/Gunship/Heavy Corvette ~ 75 - 125 pix
Corvette ~ 50 - 75 pix
Heavy Fighter/Bomber ~ 35 - 50 pix
Fighter/Interceptor ~ 20 - 35 pix
Heavy Drone/Drone ~ 5 - 20 pix

[close]

Xenoargh's guide to speed painting

Spoiler

http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=6360.0

[close]

TheHappyFace Ferrus guide

Spoiler

first my guide to drawing ferrus ships

step 1: i start in a document where all other sprites from the faction are to take parts of them and to make sure the style says the same.
i also put the independed carrier in it because soldier wanted it had the same design.
step 2: making the basic design, mainly important so the ship doesnt seem "out of balance"
step 3: putting in some extra's mainly to fill the giant gaps in the ship so it doesnt look like some simple shapes.
step 4: setting the places for the mounts and engines if not allready done and placing some extra stuff in where needed.
step 5: giving everything a simple colour, also make sure lower and sloping spots are darker.
step 6(important step!): changing it from just a simple colour to one with shades and giving the outlines a different colour, something that resembles the colours nearby. in this step things will look rather fuzzy and too smooth.
step 7: placing stripes and other large details on the ship , in this style its mainly placing stripes and making parts look like plating.
step 8: adding extra details,in this case that were mainly adding some pipes and an extra mount.
step 9(most important of all!!!!!) uploading it and showing it to others to gain comments!

step 6 a little more detailed

[close]

Sproginators guide when using BF

Spoiler

1) Now startup BF ShipMaker, you will see something like this

2) Go to Tools->Group arrange. This will pop up screen like this







Go to Tools->Save sprites ini. This will save our current sprite config. I recommend you to to use different sprite configs for different ships\ships series to not discontinue its "style".

6) Now we want to a screenshot of our ship. But this pesky grid is no good for us, so go to tools->Change Background, and use earlier created bitmap where White bears In White Antarctica field in White snowfall chase Pale white Antarctica scientists in all White. Or just just fill some random bmp with white colour. Now its perfectly fine for us and we can screenshot it. Press F11. Press F9 and drag over your ship, to choose what needed to be screenshoted.



Also you can use this Change Background feature to load some ships picture to background and use it as silhouette for creating your ship.

7) Now go to \Battleships Forever\SMScreenshots\ where your screenshot is saved, and open it for example in Adobe Photoshop.

First of all rotate whole image 90* CCW and after use "magic wand" tool to select whole white trash pixels, that we dont need. Inverse selection, so only our precious ship was selected and copy it.

Create new file, which will be sized right for our copied ship, insert our ship and than delete "background" layer. Now you are free to edit as you want, ambient occlusion, radial blue, all this jazz. You want it you do it, i dont. Now save it as PNG. We got our basic sprite of ship.



But Starfarer is counting every pixel for designate how big ship is, and we have to change our ships image size accordingly to size of ship in game. I will use table of sizes from    
Fight For Universe: Sector Xplo http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=2091.0 topic:

1 pixel = 1 meter.
* Fighter, approximate long axis is 10~15 meters.
* Bomber, approximate long axis is 20~30 meters.
* Gunship, approximate long axis is 35~50 meters.
* Corvette, approximate long axis is 55~90 meters.
* Frigate, approximate long axis is 100~160 meters.
* Destroyer, approximate long axis is 180~230 meters.
* Cruiser, approximate long axis is 240~340 meters.
* Battlecruiser, approximate long axis is 360~540 meters.
* Battleship, approximate long axis is 560~960 meters.
* Dreadnought, approximate long axis is 1,080~1,860 meters.
* Mothership, approximate long axis is 2,200~5,200 meters.
* Titan, approximate long axis is 8,000~16,000 meters.
* Flagship, approximate long axis is 86,000~126,000 meters.
* Arkship, approximate long axis is 2,240,000~8,860,000 meters.

So with help of your graphical redactor tools, resize your ships images height to an needed size, and voila we have our handmade ship sprite!

If you don't have photoshop, DON'T PANIC! Paint.net is a great piece of free software that allows you to easily and effectively edit your own sprites with some of the features photoshop has

[close]

Kriieiters guide to draw fleshy looking infestations on sprites

Spoiler

Note that this is all done in PS and I'm not sure if GIMP has access to anything like Plastic Wrap (but you can always do the highlighting that it does by hand).

Step 1:  I just use the magic selection tool to get rid of all the blue background.  Next I duplicate the layer and set the top one to "Darken" as its mode.  Here, I turn off the visibility on the top layer so I can see what I'm doing with the coloring of the base layer.  Then we go to Hue/Saturation and colorize the base layer.


Step 2:  Here I go into the filters and play around with the Plastic Wrap feature until I get some highlights I like.


Step 3:  Next I go to Filters>Render>Lighting Effects and play around with those settings until I get some good dark highlights.  I like to put the texture on "Blue" as it seems to drag out the best highlights on the color I use for the base.

And we end up with it like this, and that's it for the base part.  Next we move onto the top layer.


Step 4:  First we enable vision on the top layer so we can see what we're doing to it.  After that, we go to Image>Adjustments>Brightness/Contrast and I adjust it so that it's a bit lighter (this is so it only highlights our next color in a few areas) and add a bit more contrast.


Step 5:  And once again we go to Hue/Saturation and choose our color.  You can adjust the brightness to decide how much of the color we want to show through onto the base layer, and the saturation for how dark it will be.  And we're almost finished!


Step 6:  In this step we start by merging our first two layers together, and then duplicating the single layer that results.  After that we take the bottom layer and scale it up a bit so that it sticks out from under the top layer a bit.


Step 7:  Now we add a very small Gaussian Blur (any type will really do here) ,and we're pretty much done!


And here's an example of a finished ship that I used these techniques on.

A few other things I do:  I usually bring up the ship first, and do all these steps while the bio-part is sitting atop the ship.  I grab one that I think will fit nicely on the ship and get it into its relative final position before I start.
After I get a couple pieces on I usually take the eraser tool and blend them together at the "seams" where they intersect to make it flow better.  I tend to save the last step (the blur) until I have every piece laid onto the ship, and then make a copy of the entire biomass and blur it all at once.  After that I go in and clean up any edges I don't like, add more blur layers (if I feel the one wasn't enough), and add darker highlights where I deem necessary.
 

[close]

Erick Doe's depth guide

Spoiler

[close]

Medonca's guides for spriting

Spoiler

STEP 1, OUTLINE:



STEP 2, COLOUR:



STEP 3, TEXTURE:



STEP 4, ALL TOGETHER:



Basic process is to have the outline on the background layer, have the colour on a multiply layer above the outline, and have the texture on an 'overlay' layer on the topmost. All the textures are selected from various contiguous areas from David's original art (and some of my stuff as well).

This is as per the Paint.net terminology.

From there I would work on an extra detail layer, add some specular highlights by hand (maybe a low opacity layer, drawing with white) and some shadows to 'finish it off', but you can get to this stage fairly quickly. Also, once the layers have all been flattened and you are happy with the sprite generally, you might want to do some touching up on a pixel by pixel basis.

examples

Spoiler

CONCEPT


DRAW

[close]

[close]

Warstalker's Guide for drawing sprites from scratch

Spoiler

[close]

psiyon's guide for changing 3D models into 2D sprites

Spoiler

This tutorial is for those of you who want to get your 3D models into Starfarer (Or any other 2D game). The software I use is 3ds Max for rendering, and Photoshop for post-processing the completed renders. You can render your ships out in other software, like Blender, and you can also use other image editing programs besides Photoshop. This tutorial is focused on these two pieces of software, however, the concepts would apply to any other program.

Part one (video): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0WVhI7BgKs

Render scene file: http://www.mediafire.com/?e0qx48x48pck7kf

(Alex, any chance of a forum update so we can embed youtube videos into posts? It would make things a bit more convenient.)

Part 2:

I tried a video version of this, but in the end, it would have just wound up being way too long and drawn out. A text and picture version will work better and allow you to work at your own pace, instead of pausing every five seconds to see what I'm doing.

I'll be using a different render than the one I used in the video, because I made that one when doing the ill-fated video version.
(Here's how it turned out, if you're curious:

)

Let's begin.

First, start by making a new document, and copying both the render and its Ambient Occlusion pass into it, each as a separate layer.

Because the ship we're making is symmetrical in shape, we're going to make sure it's symmetrical in every other aspect as well. Select half of the ship, from right down the middle.



Copy and paste that halved segment of the ship. It should now appear on a new layer. Go back to your base layer, and select the other half of the ship. Delete it. Now, you'll be left with two halves of the same ship, each on a different layer. Select one of the layers, and transform them horizontally. (Edit>Transform>Flip Horizontal). Align the two halves so they fit together.



Finally, merge the two layers into one.

Then, repeat those steps for the ambient occlusion pass. Make sure that it fits over the base layer nicely before merging. Once done, set the AO layer mode to Multiply.



Now that we're set up, we can start doing the editing that matters. Duplicate the base layer, and then go to filter>sharpen>sharpen. The filter might be a little powerful, so adjust the new layer's opacity as needed.



Duplicate the base layer again, and move it underneath the Sharpen Layer. Go to Image>Adjustments>Brightness/Contrast. In this case, I'm actually going to decrease the contrast, however, in most cases, you'll find that increasing it will look better. It all depends on what render settings you used, as well as the model's texture. Make sure the contrast layer's opacity is left at 100%, as it will soon become our base layer.



Next, I'll duplicate the base layer one last time, and move the new layer above the Sharpen layer. On our new layer, we'll go to filter>filter gallery, and then under brush strokes, choose the Accented Edges filter. Set all properties to the lowest they go.







As you can see in the picture, the right side looks more uniform than the other side. While it might not necessarily look better, it provides a good foundation for our next step: detailing.

Create a new layer, and set its mode to multiply. At this point, we stop preparing the ship for making it look good--here, we actually make it look like a sprite. Set the brush width to 1px (still using the pencil tool), and select shades of grey--usually a shade right in the middle of black and white works well for this. It depends on how much you want your ship to "pop". If your detailing is too dark, the ship will look silly, and if it's too light, then it will also look silly. Experiment to see what works best.

When it comes to detailing, I find that outlining distinct parts of the ship is a good place to begin.



Again, you only need to work on one half of the ship, we can duplicate and flip it later.

The next step is to add smaller details--like hull plating, little dots and squares, etc.



Finally, if you're satisfied with the result, we duplicate both the paint-over and detail layer. Flip the copies horizontally, and align them properly.




The last step is adding lights, if you want them. Create a new layer, and set its mode to linear dodge. Move it above the ambient occlusion layer. Choose a color that you want your lights to be, and add them wherever you want.

When you're done, duplicate that layer, set its mode to normal, and put it underneath the light layer. Go to filter>blur>Gaussian blur, and set the radius to about 0.5. Hit OK.




Do any last-minute touch-ups you need, and then you're done! Export it as a .png file with a transparent background.






I hope you found this tutorial helpful. And, an offer: if anyone wants their model rendered off by me, don't hesitate to ask. As long as I don't get swamped with requests (which I doubt will happen) I'd be happy to render a ship here and there. I won't, however, do all the post work. That's your job

[close]

Avans way of colouring sprite

Spoiler

Sure, I actually saved my file in a manner that would allow me to step-by-step show progress, and explain what I was doing in each layer.

Its very layer intensive, but I made that frigate in about half an hour. I'm using paint.net, which is free, and I actually don't recall using any of my plugins (well, none that were vital, you could still use the stock versions of them.) so that simplifies things.

I am using a tablet for this however; it /vastly/ simplifies the artistic process I find.

First I make a basic outline using a low-alpha pencil tool:


Next I use a 50% tolerance 'wand selection', and select the regions that are 'not part of the ship'. I copy this blank area. I then take a solid 'base color' I want to use for the ship, and then create a layer under my line-art and use the paint bucket to dump it all in. I then paste the 'not part of the ship' area I copied onto this layer, and then hit delete on that selected region, which leaves only the region under the ship colored:


Next, I then take a low-alpha pencil tool again and begin painting on the top layer by layer: (each layer is a different color) - Note that I put all the drawn color layers /on top/ of the line art; this allows me to 'soften' it as I go, removing the hard black lines that I initially had.







I then collapse and mirror these layers to then cover the whole ship.


However, I felt that the lines were still to harsh, so I then duplicated my still transparent color layer to get this:


Now, I take that upper layer, and mess around with that layer's alpha, its saturation and its lightness (and maybe even hue if you wanted to. This may have... hideous results though, but minor changes in the slider can often produce nice effects) until I achieve an effect that I like:


The final step is to add on all the hardpoint and turret slots (the only kitbashing required), like this:

[close]

TheHappyFace's light and shadow guide

Spoiler

[close]

 send in your tips and tricks for all other spriters to see

Spoiler

- While making a concept make sure you think in 3D this will in the end make your ships more appealing and interresting.
- if you draw out the base of your sprite and figure out the places of the engines try to make it look balanced. I mean it should look like it would actually look like it will go forwards when the engines are online.

[close]

 

psiyon's weapon modding guide

usefull links:

Spoiler

Psiyon's free stuff
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=347.0
spiral arms free stuff
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=1131.0

[close]

[Sproginator]

Spriting:

Spoiler

Now, spriting(Drawing ships or weapons mainly) can be as simple or as complex as you like, it just depends on;
A) The tools you use
B) The complexity of the ship/weapon you wish to make
C) How many you want to make
Many people of the community(As far as I am aware), Do one of two things.
They either use the Battleships Forever ship editor to help create detailed or simple designs(Depending on the amount of time you wish to spend working on it) Or they "Kitbash" various different parts for individual ships together in order to make a whole new ship. Personally, I'd start off with the ship editor first, its more user friendly(That i have found).
This can be found here and is included with the game:
http://www.wyrdysm.com/games.php
It is free, so no worries there!
I recommend you download and install some "parts packs" though, as it helps make your ships more complex and eye-appealing. A good one that contains a large amount from the forums is this one:
http://www.wyrdysm.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=5764
It's easy to install and very good to use.

1) Now startup BF ShipMaker, you will see something like this

2) Go to Tools->Group arrange. This will pop up screen like this

As you see there is 4 group of parts, to switch between them you have to press ~ and use 1\2\3\4 keys for every group respectfully. But mine work flow goes around arranging needed parts in first group, and using rest three as storage for possibly usefull parts. So initially drag and drop all not used parts in first group to fourth group, just because they look bogus and we can use it only for getting some silhouette.
3) Look closely for sets of parts that you downloaded, and choose which one you like and will use in your ship. After this just drag and drop them from folder to a groups 2-4 in Ship Maker. There is pretty much unlimited storage, but it can become really complicated to orient in them if there is too much parts, as it shows only in rows by 3, and to scroll it up and down you have to use only mouses scroll wheel, which is pain in the ass.
You can multiply select parts in groups, by using Shift+click between two parts, to select everything in between. And to delete the parts that you dont need\dont like, select them\it and press delete. To move multyple parts between groups, select and just drag and drop them in different group.
4) Now drag and drop ,parts from 2-4 groups, that you gonna use in your ship to first group. Close Group Arrange window by pressing Esc, and lets start constructing our ship.
5) Now press Z to open your groups parts scroll window at side of your screen, now as you click part, its instantly goes for constructing, look for a place where you want it and using J I K L and Shift+ J I K L, position it as you want, and click to place it.
Now choose colour for it from palette to the left. First three colours will transfer their parameters to a parts which coloured by them even if you change it, so use them to define base colours of your ship. Rest 9 colours will just colour part in to their colour but not change it if you change palettes colour. To change colour right click over colour.
Now press M to mirror your part. It will mirror every unic part, so if your building non symmetric ship, dont use it.
And use A and Q keys to define "Depth" of part. Depth goes from 1 to N, where N is number of used parts and define order of parts. So part with Depth of 4 will show over parts with depth 5+ but will be under parts with depth 1 2 3.
Depth designated by parenting. Core of ship is always 0 depth, and will be UNDER every further parts. Next part will be 1 and 2 depth after mirroring, but we probably will need some depth storage for possible artistic parts over our "core" so instantly make em 5 and 6 depth. Now choose one of our first parts and place new part, it will be depth 3 because Depth 1 and 2 are taken by her parenting and mirrored parts.

And this way we build our ship little by little.





Go to Tools->Save sprites ini. This will save our current sprite config. I recommend you to to use different sprite configs for different ships\ships series to not discontinue its "style".

6) Now we want to a screenshot of our ship. But this pesky grid is no good for us, so go to tools->Change Background, and use earlier created bitmap where White bears In White Antarctica field in White snowfall chase Pale white Antarctica scientists in all White. Or just just fill some random bmp with white colour. Now its perfectly fine for us and we can screenshot it. Press F11. Press F9 and drag over your ship, to choose what needed to be screenshoted.



Also you can use this Change Background feature to load some ships picture to background and use it as silhouette for creating your ship.

7) Now go to \Battleships Forever\SMScreenshots\ where your screenshot is saved, and open it for example in Adobe Photoshop.

First of all rotate whole image 90* CCW and after use "magic wand" tool to select whole white trash pixels, that we dont need. Inverse selection, so only our precious ship was selected and copy it.

Create new file, which will be sized right for our copied ship, insert our ship and than delete "background" layer. Now you are free to edit as you want, ambient occlusion, radial blue, all this jazz. You want it you do it, i dont. Now save it as PNG. We got our basic sprite of ship.



But Starfarer is counting every pixel for designate how big ship is, and we have to change our ships image size accordingly to size of ship in game. I will use table of sizes from    
Fight For Universe: Sector Xplo http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=2091.0 topic:

1 pixel = 1 meter.
* Fighter, approximate long axis is 10~15 meters.
* Bomber, approximate long axis is 20~30 meters.
* Gunship, approximate long axis is 35~50 meters.
* Corvette, approximate long axis is 55~90 meters.
* Frigate, approximate long axis is 100~160 meters.
* Destroyer, approximate long axis is 180~230 meters.
* Cruiser, approximate long axis is 240~340 meters.
* Battlecruiser, approximate long axis is 360~540 meters.
* Battleship, approximate long axis is 560~960 meters.
* Dreadnought, approximate long axis is 1,080~1,860 meters.
* Mothership, approximate long axis is 2,200~5,200 meters.
* Titan, approximate long axis is 8,000~16,000 meters.
* Flagship, approximate long axis is 86,000~126,000 meters.
* Arkship, approximate long axis is 2,240,000~8,860,000 meters.

So with help of your graphical redactor tools, resize your ships images height to an needed size, and voila we have our handmade ship sprite!

If you don't have photoshop, DON'T PANIC! Paint.net is a great piece of free software that allows you to easily and effectively edit your own sprites with some of the features photoshop has

[close]

Taken from my noobs guide to modding starfarer

[KriiEiter]

This is a repost of my guide for making "fleshy" looking parts.
Here's the sprites I use if you want those.  

http://www.mediafire.com/?0yi628u196284vu

Note that this is all done in PS and I'm not sure if GIMP has access to anything like Plastic Wrap (but you can always do the highlighting that it does by hand).

Spoiler

Step 1:  I just use the magic selection tool to get rid of all the blue background.  Next I duplicate the layer and set the top one to "Darken" as its mode.  Here, I turn off the visibility on the top layer so I can see what I'm doing with the coloring of the base layer.  Then we go to Hue/Saturation and colorize the base layer.


Step 2:  Here I go into the filters and play around with the Plastic Wrap feature until I get some highlights I like.


Step 3:  Next I go to Filters>Render>Lighting Effects and play around with those settings until I get some good dark highlights.  I like to put the texture on "Blue" as it seems to drag out the best highlights on the color I use for the base.

And we end up with it like this, and that's it for the base part.  Next we move onto the top layer.


Step 4:  First we enable vision on the top layer so we can see what we're doing to it.  After that, we go to Image>Adjustments>Brightness/Contrast and I adjust it so that it's a bit lighter (this is so it only highlights our next color in a few areas) and add a bit more contrast.


Step 5:  And once again we go to Hue/Saturation and choose our color.  You can adjust the brightness to decide how much of the color we want to show through onto the base layer, and the saturation for how dark it will be.  And we're almost finished!


Step 6:  In this step we start by merging our first two layers together, and then duplicating the single layer that results.  After that we take the bottom layer and scale it up a bit so that it sticks out from under the top layer a bit.


Step 7:  Now we add a very small Gaussian Blur (any type will really do here) ,and we're pretty much done!


And here's an example of a finished ship that I used these techniques on.

A few other things I do:  I usually bring up the ship first, and do all these steps while the bio-part is sitting atop the ship.  I grab one that I think will fit nicely on the ship and get it into its relative final position before I start.  

[close]

After I get a couple pieces on I usually take the eraser tool and blend them together at the "seams" where they intersect to make it flow better.  I tend to save the last step (the blur) until I have every piece laid onto the ship, and then make a copy of the entire biomass and blur it all at once.  After that I go in and clean up any edges I don't like, add more blur layers (if I feel the one wasn't enough), and add darker highlights where I deem necessary.

[Starlight]

Whilst I don't feel like any kind of spriting authority, I'm certainly willing to pitch in a few tips for the topic. 

I use Gimp almost exclusively, by the by.  My simplest advice is;  Path tool, Airbrush, Layers Layers Layers.

I always start with the Paths tool.  Freehand is great for some things, but with spaceships and spaceship components, you more often tend to need precise lines with carefully applied transparency.  The Path tool lays simple vectors which you then commit to raster form with the 'Stroke Lines' button (being sure to set it to 1 pixel wid unless it's appropriate to do elsewise.)  This is great for hull lines, but there's a lot you can do with it besides, particularly as GIMP keeps a memory of all Paths used (another good reason to keep a copy of the .xcf file.)  Try using multiple shades of grey on seperate layers with slightly altered paths and a view to adding filters, for example - it's a great way to build up complex looking equipment with a small number of pixels once you've got the knack. 

Layers are very important for making your life easier.  Keep everything seperate until you need to combine it.  If you need to post-process the image as a whole and you can't do it as an overlay layer, do it to the .png not the .xcf (and keep a note of what you did.  Alternatively, copy the png for an overlay layer.)  Also important - making your hull lines a transparent layer.  I'm still kicking myself for poorly blended lines that there's no easy way to deal with.  Always remember that transparency is your friend and you can always make another layer and try something else.  Layers give you room to manuever. 

Finally on texturing, the magic wand tool is temptingly easy but it wont give you the best results usually.  Your best friend is the lasso tool.  One click at a time, it takes longer, but it's worth the precision - particularly as when you're texturing you want to outline the outside of the lined area.  Then you want to make three layers underneath your lines.  Use the lasso'd area to create a bucket-filled undercoat for opacity and then you want at least two layers of textured and shaded airbrushing on top. 

Hope this helps someone. z: )

[Archduke Astro]

@TheHappyFace: Splendid idea for a thread. Thanks to you and everyone else who's contributing their guides to this "toolbox".

[Pelly]

Spriting:

Spoiler

Now, spriting(Drawing ships or weapons mainly) can be as simple or as complex as you like, it just depends on;
A) The tools you use
B) The complexity of the ship/weapon you wish to make
C) How many you want to make
Many people of the community(As far as I am aware), Do one of two things.
They either use the Battleships Forever ship editor to help create detailed or simple designs(Depending on the amount of time you wish to spend working on it) Or they "Kitbash" various different parts for individual ships together in order to make a whole new ship. Personally, I'd start off with the ship editor first, its more user friendly(That i have found).
This can be found here and is included with the game:
http://www.wyrdysm.com/games.php
It is free, so no worries there!
I recommend you download and install some "parts packs" though, as it helps make your ships more complex and eye-appealing. A good one that contains a large amount from the forums is this one:
http://www.wyrdysm.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=5764
It's easy to install and very good to use.

1) Now startup BF ShipMaker, you will see something like this

2) Go to Tools->Group arrange. This will pop up screen like this

As you see there is 4 group of parts, to switch between them you have to press ~ and use 1\2\3\4 keys for every group respectfully. But mine work flow goes around arranging needed parts in first group, and using rest three as storage for possibly usefull parts. So initially drag and drop all not used parts in first group to fourth group, just because they look bogus and we can use it only for getting some silhouette.
3) Look closely for sets of parts that you downloaded, and choose which one you like and will use in your ship. After this just drag and drop them from folder to a groups 2-4 in Ship Maker. There is pretty much unlimited storage, but it can become really complicated to orient in them if there is too much parts, as it shows only in rows by 3, and to scroll it up and down you have to use only mouses scroll wheel, which is pain in the ass.
You can multiply select parts in groups, by using Shift+click between two parts, to select everything in between. And to delete the parts that you dont need\dont like, select them\it and press delete. To move multyple parts between groups, select and just drag and drop them in different group.
4) Now drag and drop ,parts from 2-4 groups, that you gonna use in your ship to first group. Close Group Arrange window by pressing Esc, and lets start constructing our ship.
5) Now press Z to open your groups parts scroll window at side of your screen, now as you click part, its instantly goes for constructing, look for a place where you want it and using J I K L and Shift+ J I K L, position it as you want, and click to place it.
Now choose colour for it from palette to the left. First three colours will transfer their parameters to a parts which coloured by them even if you change it, so use them to define base colours of your ship. Rest 9 colours will just colour part in to their colour but not change it if you change palettes colour. To change colour right click over colour.
Now press M to mirror your part. It will mirror every unic part, so if your building non symmetric ship, dont use it.
And use A and Q keys to define "Depth" of part. Depth goes from 1 to N, where N is number of used parts and define order of parts. So part with Depth of 4 will show over parts with depth 5+ but will be under parts with depth 1 2 3.
Depth designated by parenting. Core of ship is always 0 depth, and will be UNDER every further parts. Next part will be 1 and 2 depth after mirroring, but we probably will need some depth storage for possible artistic parts over our "core" so instantly make em 5 and 6 depth. Now choose one of our first parts and place new part, it will be depth 3 because Depth 1 and 2 are taken by her parenting and mirrored parts.

And this way we build our ship little by little.





Go to Tools->Save sprites ini. This will save our current sprite config. I recommend you to to use different sprite configs for different ships\ships series to not discontinue its "style".

6) Now we want to a screenshot of our ship. But this pesky grid is no good for us, so go to tools->Change Background, and use earlier created bitmap where White bears In White Antarctica field in White snowfall chase Pale white Antarctica scientists in all White. Or just just fill some random bmp with white colour. Now its perfectly fine for us and we can screenshot it. Press F11. Press F9 and drag over your ship, to choose what needed to be screenshoted.



Also you can use this Change Background feature to load some ships picture to background and use it as silhouette for creating your ship.

7) Now go to \Battleships Forever\SMScreenshots\ where your screenshot is saved, and open it for example in Adobe Photoshop.

First of all rotate whole image 90* CCW and after use "magic wand" tool to select whole white trash pixels, that we dont need. Inverse selection, so only our precious ship was selected and copy it.

Create new file, which will be sized right for our copied ship, insert our ship and than delete "background" layer. Now you are free to edit as you want, ambient occlusion, radial blue, all this jazz. You want it you do it, i dont. Now save it as PNG. We got our basic sprite of ship.



But Starfarer is counting every pixel for designate how big ship is, and we have to change our ships image size accordingly to size of ship in game. I will use table of sizes from    
Fight For Universe: Sector Xplo http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=2091.0 topic:

1 pixel = 1 meter.
* Fighter, approximate long axis is 10~15 meters.
* Bomber, approximate long axis is 20~30 meters.
* Gunship, approximate long axis is 35~50 meters.
* Corvette, approximate long axis is 55~90 meters.
* Frigate, approximate long axis is 100~160 meters.
* Destroyer, approximate long axis is 180~230 meters.
* Cruiser, approximate long axis is 240~340 meters.
* Battlecruiser, approximate long axis is 360~540 meters.
* Battleship, approximate long axis is 560~960 meters.
* Dreadnought, approximate long axis is 1,080~1,860 meters.
* Mothership, approximate long axis is 2,200~5,200 meters.
* Titan, approximate long axis is 8,000~16,000 meters.
* Flagship, approximate long axis is 86,000~126,000 meters.
* Arkship, approximate long axis is 2,240,000~8,860,000 meters.

So with help of your graphical redactor tools, resize your ships images height to an needed size, and voila we have our handmade ship sprite!

If you don't have photoshop, DON'T PANIC! Paint.net is a great piece of free software that allows you to easily and effectively edit your own sprites with some of the features photoshop has

[close]

Taken from my noobs guide to modding starfarer

I do the same kind of thing, but only to make the guide for a ship, then I use Paint or other programs to adapt the shape and colours.

But I also draw them from scratch when I want a challenge

When I do the colour, someone on the  forums told me how to add depth, which was to build up layers of gradually lightening shades of colour (I think it was the mod on Antedeveluions, sorry my minds gone blank).

[TheHappyFace]

Spriting:

Spoiler

Now, spriting(Drawing ships or weapons mainly) can be as simple or as complex as you like, it just depends on;
A) The tools you use
B) The complexity of the ship/weapon you wish to make
C) How many you want to make
Many people of the community(As far as I am aware), Do one of two things.
They either use the Battleships Forever ship editor to help create detailed or simple designs(Depending on the amount of time you wish to spend working on it) Or they "Kitbash" various different parts for individual ships together in order to make a whole new ship. Personally, I'd start off with the ship editor first, its more user friendly(That i have found).
This can be found here and is included with the game:
http://www.wyrdysm.com/games.php
It is free, so no worries there!
I recommend you download and install some "parts packs" though, as it helps make your ships more complex and eye-appealing. A good one that contains a large amount from the forums is this one:
http://www.wyrdysm.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=5764
It's easy to install and very good to use.

1) Now startup BF ShipMaker, you will see something like this

2) Go to Tools->Group arrange. This will pop up screen like this

As you see there is 4 group of parts, to switch between them you have to press ~ and use 1\2\3\4 keys for every group respectfully. But mine work flow goes around arranging needed parts in first group, and using rest three as storage for possibly usefull parts. So initially drag and drop all not used parts in first group to fourth group, just because they look bogus and we can use it only for getting some silhouette.
3) Look closely for sets of parts that you downloaded, and choose which one you like and will use in your ship. After this just drag and drop them from folder to a groups 2-4 in Ship Maker. There is pretty much unlimited storage, but it can become really complicated to orient in them if there is too much parts, as it shows only in rows by 3, and to scroll it up and down you have to use only mouses scroll wheel, which is pain in the ass.
You can multiply select parts in groups, by using Shift+click between two parts, to select everything in between. And to delete the parts that you dont need\dont like, select them\it and press delete. To move multyple parts between groups, select and just drag and drop them in different group.
4) Now drag and drop ,parts from 2-4 groups, that you gonna use in your ship to first group. Close Group Arrange window by pressing Esc, and lets start constructing our ship.
5) Now press Z to open your groups parts scroll window at side of your screen, now as you click part, its instantly goes for constructing, look for a place where you want it and using J I K L and Shift+ J I K L, position it as you want, and click to place it.
Now choose colour for it from palette to the left. First three colours will transfer their parameters to a parts which coloured by them even if you change it, so use them to define base colours of your ship. Rest 9 colours will just colour part in to their colour but not change it if you change palettes colour. To change colour right click over colour.
Now press M to mirror your part. It will mirror every unic part, so if your building non symmetric ship, dont use it.
And use A and Q keys to define "Depth" of part. Depth goes from 1 to N, where N is number of used parts and define order of parts. So part with Depth of 4 will show over parts with depth 5+ but will be under parts with depth 1 2 3.
Depth designated by parenting. Core of ship is always 0 depth, and will be UNDER every further parts. Next part will be 1 and 2 depth after mirroring, but we probably will need some depth storage for possible artistic parts over our "core" so instantly make em 5 and 6 depth. Now choose one of our first parts and place new part, it will be depth 3 because Depth 1 and 2 are taken by her parenting and mirrored parts.

And this way we build our ship little by little.





Go to Tools->Save sprites ini. This will save our current sprite config. I recommend you to to use different sprite configs for different ships\ships series to not discontinue its "style".

6) Now we want to a screenshot of our ship. But this pesky grid is no good for us, so go to tools->Change Background, and use earlier created bitmap where White bears In White Antarctica field in White snowfall chase Pale white Antarctica scientists in all White. Or just just fill some random bmp with white colour. Now its perfectly fine for us and we can screenshot it. Press F11. Press F9 and drag over your ship, to choose what needed to be screenshoted.



Also you can use this Change Background feature to load some ships picture to background and use it as silhouette for creating your ship.

7) Now go to \Battleships Forever\SMScreenshots\ where your screenshot is saved, and open it for example in Adobe Photoshop.

First of all rotate whole image 90* CCW and after use "magic wand" tool to select whole white trash pixels, that we dont need. Inverse selection, so only our precious ship was selected and copy it.

Create new file, which will be sized right for our copied ship, insert our ship and than delete "background" layer. Now you are free to edit as you want, ambient occlusion, radial blue, all this jazz. You want it you do it, i dont. Now save it as PNG. We got our basic sprite of ship.



But Starfarer is counting every pixel for designate how big ship is, and we have to change our ships image size accordingly to size of ship in game. I will use table of sizes from    
Fight For Universe: Sector Xplo http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=2091.0 topic:

1 pixel = 1 meter.
* Fighter, approximate long axis is 10~15 meters.
* Bomber, approximate long axis is 20~30 meters.
* Gunship, approximate long axis is 35~50 meters.
* Corvette, approximate long axis is 55~90 meters.
* Frigate, approximate long axis is 100~160 meters.
* Destroyer, approximate long axis is 180~230 meters.
* Cruiser, approximate long axis is 240~340 meters.
* Battlecruiser, approximate long axis is 360~540 meters.
* Battleship, approximate long axis is 560~960 meters.
* Dreadnought, approximate long axis is 1,080~1,860 meters.
* Mothership, approximate long axis is 2,200~5,200 meters.
* Titan, approximate long axis is 8,000~16,000 meters.
* Flagship, approximate long axis is 86,000~126,000 meters.
* Arkship, approximate long axis is 2,240,000~8,860,000 meters.

So with help of your graphical redactor tools, resize your ships images height to an needed size, and voila we have our handmade ship sprite!

If you don't have photoshop, DON'T PANIC! Paint.net is a great piece of free software that allows you to easily and effectively edit your own sprites with some of the features photoshop has

[close]

Taken from my noobs guide to modding starfarer

I do the same kind of thing, but only to make the guide for a ship, then I use Paint or other programs to adapt the shape and colours.

But I also draw them from scratch when I want a challenge

When I do the colour, someone on the  forums told me how to add depth, which was to build up layers of gradually lightening shades of colour (I think it was the mod on Antedeveluions, sorry my minds gone blank).

could you make a guide for it?
or ask the person that learned it to you to make a guide for it? 
that would be really great

[Sproginator]

Spriting:

Spoiler

Now, spriting(Drawing ships or weapons mainly) can be as simple or as complex as you like, it just depends on;
A) The tools you use
B) The complexity of the ship/weapon you wish to make
C) How many you want to make
Many people of the community(As far as I am aware), Do one of two things.
They either use the Battleships Forever ship editor to help create detailed or simple designs(Depending on the amount of time you wish to spend working on it) Or they "Kitbash" various different parts for individual ships together in order to make a whole new ship. Personally, I'd start off with the ship editor first, its more user friendly(That i have found).
This can be found here and is included with the game:
http://www.wyrdysm.com/games.php
It is free, so no worries there!
I recommend you download and install some "parts packs" though, as it helps make your ships more complex and eye-appealing. A good one that contains a large amount from the forums is this one:
http://www.wyrdysm.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=5764
It's easy to install and very good to use.

1) Now startup BF ShipMaker, you will see something like this

2) Go to Tools->Group arrange. This will pop up screen like this

As you see there is 4 group of parts, to switch between them you have to press ~ and use 1\2\3\4 keys for every group respectfully. But mine work flow goes around arranging needed parts in first group, and using rest three as storage for possibly usefull parts. So initially drag and drop all not used parts in first group to fourth group, just because they look bogus and we can use it only for getting some silhouette.
3) Look closely for sets of parts that you downloaded, and choose which one you like and will use in your ship. After this just drag and drop them from folder to a groups 2-4 in Ship Maker. There is pretty much unlimited storage, but it can become really complicated to orient in them if there is too much parts, as it shows only in rows by 3, and to scroll it up and down you have to use only mouses scroll wheel, which is pain in the ass.
You can multiply select parts in groups, by using Shift+click between two parts, to select everything in between. And to delete the parts that you dont need\dont like, select them\it and press delete. To move multyple parts between groups, select and just drag and drop them in different group.
4) Now drag and drop ,parts from 2-4 groups, that you gonna use in your ship to first group. Close Group Arrange window by pressing Esc, and lets start constructing our ship.
5) Now press Z to open your groups parts scroll window at side of your screen, now as you click part, its instantly goes for constructing, look for a place where you want it and using J I K L and Shift+ J I K L, position it as you want, and click to place it.
Now choose colour for it from palette to the left. First three colours will transfer their parameters to a parts which coloured by them even if you change it, so use them to define base colours of your ship. Rest 9 colours will just colour part in to their colour but not change it if you change palettes colour. To change colour right click over colour.
Now press M to mirror your part. It will mirror every unic part, so if your building non symmetric ship, dont use it.
And use A and Q keys to define "Depth" of part. Depth goes from 1 to N, where N is number of used parts and define order of parts. So part with Depth of 4 will show over parts with depth 5+ but will be under parts with depth 1 2 3.
Depth designated by parenting. Core of ship is always 0 depth, and will be UNDER every further parts. Next part will be 1 and 2 depth after mirroring, but we probably will need some depth storage for possible artistic parts over our "core" so instantly make em 5 and 6 depth. Now choose one of our first parts and place new part, it will be depth 3 because Depth 1 and 2 are taken by her parenting and mirrored parts.

And this way we build our ship little by little.





Go to Tools->Save sprites ini. This will save our current sprite config. I recommend you to to use different sprite configs for different ships\ships series to not discontinue its "style".

6) Now we want to a screenshot of our ship. But this pesky grid is no good for us, so go to tools->Change Background, and use earlier created bitmap where White bears In White Antarctica field in White snowfall chase Pale white Antarctica scientists in all White. Or just just fill some random bmp with white colour. Now its perfectly fine for us and we can screenshot it. Press F11. Press F9 and drag over your ship, to choose what needed to be screenshoted.



Also you can use this Change Background feature to load some ships picture to background and use it as silhouette for creating your ship.

7) Now go to \Battleships Forever\SMScreenshots\ where your screenshot is saved, and open it for example in Adobe Photoshop.

First of all rotate whole image 90* CCW and after use "magic wand" tool to select whole white trash pixels, that we dont need. Inverse selection, so only our precious ship was selected and copy it.

Create new file, which will be sized right for our copied ship, insert our ship and than delete "background" layer. Now you are free to edit as you want, ambient occlusion, radial blue, all this jazz. You want it you do it, i dont. Now save it as PNG. We got our basic sprite of ship.



But Starfarer is counting every pixel for designate how big ship is, and we have to change our ships image size accordingly to size of ship in game. I will use table of sizes from    
Fight For Universe: Sector Xplo http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=2091.0 topic:

1 pixel = 1 meter.
* Fighter, approximate long axis is 10~15 meters.
* Bomber, approximate long axis is 20~30 meters.
* Gunship, approximate long axis is 35~50 meters.
* Corvette, approximate long axis is 55~90 meters.
* Frigate, approximate long axis is 100~160 meters.
* Destroyer, approximate long axis is 180~230 meters.
* Cruiser, approximate long axis is 240~340 meters.
* Battlecruiser, approximate long axis is 360~540 meters.
* Battleship, approximate long axis is 560~960 meters.
* Dreadnought, approximate long axis is 1,080~1,860 meters.
* Mothership, approximate long axis is 2,200~5,200 meters.
* Titan, approximate long axis is 8,000~16,000 meters.
* Flagship, approximate long axis is 86,000~126,000 meters.
* Arkship, approximate long axis is 2,240,000~8,860,000 meters.

So with help of your graphical redactor tools, resize your ships images height to an needed size, and voila we have our handmade ship sprite!

If you don't have photoshop, DON'T PANIC! Paint.net is a great piece of free software that allows you to easily and effectively edit your own sprites with some of the features photoshop has

[close]

Taken from my noobs guide to modding starfarer

I do the same kind of thing, but only to make the guide for a ship, then I use Paint or other programs to adapt the shape and colours.

But I also draw them from scratch when I want a challenge

When I do the colour, someone on the  forums told me how to add depth, which was to build up layers of gradually lightening shades of colour (I think it was the mod on Antedeveluions, sorry my minds gone blank).

I would love to see a guide on this, I've been meaning to add more depth to my images

[calvin1211]

Spriting:

Spoiler

Now, spriting(Drawing ships or weapons mainly) can be as simple or as complex as you like, it just depends on;
A) The tools you use
B) The complexity of the ship/weapon you wish to make
C) How many you want to make
Many people of the community(As far as I am aware), Do one of two things.
They either use the Battleships Forever ship editor to help create detailed or simple designs(Depending on the amount of time you wish to spend working on it) Or they "Kitbash" various different parts for individual ships together in order to make a whole new ship. Personally, I'd start off with the ship editor first, its more user friendly(That i have found).
This can be found here and is included with the game:
http://www.wyrdysm.com/games.php
It is free, so no worries there!
I recommend you download and install some "parts packs" though, as it helps make your ships more complex and eye-appealing. A good one that contains a large amount from the forums is this one:
http://www.wyrdysm.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=5764
It's easy to install and very good to use.

1) Now startup BF ShipMaker, you will see something like this

2) Go to Tools->Group arrange. This will pop up screen like this

As you see there is 4 group of parts, to switch between them you have to press ~ and use 1\2\3\4 keys for every group respectfully. But mine work flow goes around arranging needed parts in first group, and using rest three as storage for possibly usefull parts. So initially drag and drop all not used parts in first group to fourth group, just because they look bogus and we can use it only for getting some silhouette.
3) Look closely for sets of parts that you downloaded, and choose which one you like and will use in your ship. After this just drag and drop them from folder to a groups 2-4 in Ship Maker. There is pretty much unlimited storage, but it can become really complicated to orient in them if there is too much parts, as it shows only in rows by 3, and to scroll it up and down you have to use only mouses scroll wheel, which is pain in the ass.
You can multiply select parts in groups, by using Shift+click between two parts, to select everything in between. And to delete the parts that you dont need\dont like, select them\it and press delete. To move multyple parts between groups, select and just drag and drop them in different group.
4) Now drag and drop ,parts from 2-4 groups, that you gonna use in your ship to first group. Close Group Arrange window by pressing Esc, and lets start constructing our ship.
5) Now press Z to open your groups parts scroll window at side of your screen, now as you click part, its instantly goes for constructing, look for a place where you want it and using J I K L and Shift+ J I K L, position it as you want, and click to place it.
Now choose colour for it from palette to the left. First three colours will transfer their parameters to a parts which coloured by them even if you change it, so use them to define base colours of your ship. Rest 9 colours will just colour part in to their colour but not change it if you change palettes colour. To change colour right click over colour.
Now press M to mirror your part. It will mirror every unic part, so if your building non symmetric ship, dont use it.
And use A and Q keys to define "Depth" of part. Depth goes from 1 to N, where N is number of used parts and define order of parts. So part with Depth of 4 will show over parts with depth 5+ but will be under parts with depth 1 2 3.
Depth designated by parenting. Core of ship is always 0 depth, and will be UNDER every further parts. Next part will be 1 and 2 depth after mirroring, but we probably will need some depth storage for possible artistic parts over our "core" so instantly make em 5 and 6 depth. Now choose one of our first parts and place new part, it will be depth 3 because Depth 1 and 2 are taken by her parenting and mirrored parts.

And this way we build our ship little by little.





Go to Tools->Save sprites ini. This will save our current sprite config. I recommend you to to use different sprite configs for different ships\ships series to not discontinue its "style".

6) Now we want to a screenshot of our ship. But this pesky grid is no good for us, so go to tools->Change Background, and use earlier created bitmap where White bears In White Antarctica field in White snowfall chase Pale white Antarctica scientists in all White. Or just just fill some random bmp with white colour. Now its perfectly fine for us and we can screenshot it. Press F11. Press F9 and drag over your ship, to choose what needed to be screenshoted.



Also you can use this Change Background feature to load some ships picture to background and use it as silhouette for creating your ship.

7) Now go to \Battleships Forever\SMScreenshots\ where your screenshot is saved, and open it for example in Adobe Photoshop.

First of all rotate whole image 90* CCW and after use "magic wand" tool to select whole white trash pixels, that we dont need. Inverse selection, so only our precious ship was selected and copy it.

Create new file, which will be sized right for our copied ship, insert our ship and than delete "background" layer. Now you are free to edit as you want, ambient occlusion, radial blue, all this jazz. You want it you do it, i dont. Now save it as PNG. We got our basic sprite of ship.



But Starfarer is counting every pixel for designate how big ship is, and we have to change our ships image size accordingly to size of ship in game. I will use table of sizes from    
Fight For Universe: Sector Xplo http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=2091.0 topic:

1 pixel = 1 meter.
* Fighter, approximate long axis is 10~15 meters.
* Bomber, approximate long axis is 20~30 meters.
* Gunship, approximate long axis is 35~50 meters.
* Corvette, approximate long axis is 55~90 meters.
* Frigate, approximate long axis is 100~160 meters.
* Destroyer, approximate long axis is 180~230 meters.
* Cruiser, approximate long axis is 240~340 meters.
* Battlecruiser, approximate long axis is 360~540 meters.
* Battleship, approximate long axis is 560~960 meters.
* Dreadnought, approximate long axis is 1,080~1,860 meters.
* Mothership, approximate long axis is 2,200~5,200 meters.
* Titan, approximate long axis is 8,000~16,000 meters.
* Flagship, approximate long axis is 86,000~126,000 meters.
* Arkship, approximate long axis is 2,240,000~8,860,000 meters.

So with help of your graphical redactor tools, resize your ships images height to an needed size, and voila we have our handmade ship sprite!

If you don't have photoshop, DON'T PANIC! Paint.net is a great piece of free software that allows you to easily and effectively edit your own sprites with some of the features photoshop has

[close]

Taken from my noobs guide to modding starfarer

I do the same kind of thing, but only to make the guide for a ship, then I use Paint or other programs to adapt the shape and colours.

But I also draw them from scratch when I want a challenge

When I do the colour, someone on the  forums told me how to add depth, which was to build up layers of gradually lightening shades of colour (I think it was the mod on Antedeveluions, sorry my minds gone blank).

I would love to see a guide on this, I've been meaning to add more depth to my images

I was working on a guide for spriting in BSF. I'll post it in the forums when I'm done (though it'll take a while)

[Pelly]

kk i think this was it:

"Looking at your sprites, they appear to be handdrawn in a basic graphics program like MS Paint. Correct?

Great! That is ideal for drawing up a ship, giving it color and even giving it some depth and detail.

From there you could add further detail, color, shading and depth in an advanced graphics program such as Photoshop, Corel Draw or (completely free) Gimp.


How do you add depth in a simple program such as MS Paint, so that it doesn't look as flat, you ask? Simple. Pick a color, create a simple pallete for it, ranging from very dark to very light. Then add the darkest shade of the color on the outer edges of your ship, and then work inward, making it lighter and ligher. Eventually, your ship will appear to have some depth.

This can then be improved upon and augmented in an advanced graphics program, allowing you to add differences in lighting, shading, etc.


Here you can see an example from one of my Antediluvian sprites:


1.) The lower part has already received some detail and depth in paint, the top half hasn't. As a result it looks very flat. Right next to the ship you can see two simple color palettes. Copying the colors and adding them around the edges of the ship will result in giving it a less flat, more 3D look.

2.) The ship has received detail and depth in MS Paint.

3.) The colors have received some augmentation in an advanced graphics program. The contrast has been improved.

4.) The ship has received darker shadows around the outer edges and brighter lighting on the center, resulting in more depth and an overall more interesting look."

All credits to Erick Doe

[TheHappyFace]

kk i think this was it:

"Looking at your sprites, they appear to be handdrawn in a basic graphics program like MS Paint. Correct?

Great! That is ideal for drawing up a ship, giving it color and even giving it some depth and detail.

From there you could add further detail, color, shading and depth in an advanced graphics program such as Photoshop, Corel Draw or (completely free) Gimp.


How do you add depth in a simple program such as MS Paint, so that it doesn't look as flat, you ask? Simple. Pick a color, create a simple pallete for it, ranging from very dark to very light. Then add the darkest shade of the color on the outer edges of your ship, and then work inward, making it lighter and ligher. Eventually, your ship will appear to have some depth.

This can then be improved upon and augmented in an advanced graphics program, allowing you to add differences in lighting, shading, etc.


Here you can see an example from one of my Antediluvian sprites:


1.) The lower part has already received some detail and depth in paint, the top half hasn't. As a result it looks very flat. Right next to the ship you can see two simple color palettes. Copying the colors and adding them around the edges of the ship will result in giving it a less flat, more 3D look.

2.) The ship has received detail and depth in MS Paint.

3.) The colors have received some augmentation in an advanced graphics program. The contrast has been improved.

4.) The ship has received darker shadows around the outer edges and brighter lighting on the center, resulting in more depth and an overall more interesting look."

All credits to Erick Doe

could you add some pictures for examples to your guide?
then i'll add it to the list
thanks for contributing

[Erick Doe]

Looking at your sprites, they appear to be handdrawn in a basic graphics program like MS Paint. Correct?

Great! That is ideal for drawing up a ship, giving it color and even giving it some depth and detail.

From there you could add further detail, color, shading and depth in an advanced graphics program such as Photoshop, Corel Draw or (completely free) Gimp.


How do you add depth in a simple program such as MS Paint, so that it doesn't look as flat, you ask? Simple. Pick a color, create a simple pallete for it, ranging from very dark to very light. Then add the darkest shade of the color on the outer edges of your ship, and then work inward, making it lighter and ligher. Eventually, your ship will appear to have some depth.

This can then be improved upon and augmented in an advanced graphics program, allowing you to add differences in lighting, shading, etc.


Here you can see an example from one of my Antediluvian sprites:


1.) The lower part has already received some detail and depth in paint, the top half hasn't. As a result it looks very flat. Right next to the ship you can see two simple color palettes. Copying the colors and adding them around the edges of the ship will result in giving it a less flat, more 3D look.

2.) The ship has received detail and depth in MS Paint.

3.) The colors have received some augmentation in an advanced graphics program. The contrast has been improved.

4.) The ship has received darker shadows around the outer edges and brighter lighting on the center, resulting in more depth and an overall more interesting look.

[TheHappyFace]

ill be trying to put some new life in this thread since im back from my three week trip and i found some time!

first of all i'll be asking everyone to send in there tips and tricks.
this counts for experienced spriters, beginners and even non-spriters
as long as its for spriting ofcourse.
i will be putting them in the top post.

second i ask everyone to come with questions about spriting if they have any.
i will try to answer them and if i can not, there are plenty of other spriters who probaply can.

[Sproginator]

ill be trying to put some new life in this thread since im back from my three week trip and i found some time!

first of all i'll be asking everyone to send in there tips and tricks.
this counts for experienced spriters, beginners and even non-spriters
as long as its for spriting ofcourse.
i will be putting them in the top post.

second i ask everyone to come with questions about spriting if they have any.
i will try to answer them and if i can not, there are plenty of other spriters who probaply can.

I'll help you work on it tomorrow

[TheHappyFace]

im here causes i like shiny things


lol

could you tell me why you posted this?
please do for this thread is for sharing knowledge about spriting
not for saying random stuff.
i like it ,but i would rather want you to keep it for yourself or post it in another thread.
thank you

i hope you could send in your tips and tricks to help other spriters

something else
i made a new poll