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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]

I noticed you had a collection of samples growing, and I recently added (just this morning in fact) a large image with all the ships in my mod so far, which you can include: (its under the spoiler tag near the top) http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=977.0

I'd recommend using this link of the image (as opposed to re-uploading it), since it will be updated with time (in fact it will likely this weekend with the next update) and this way the copy here would stay up-to-date. Actually here it is anyways: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3061400/shipchart.png (High/Mid/Low tech ships are mostly kitbashes with custom bits, while the Post-Collapse and Pre-Autofactory ships are all hand-drawn)

thank you for those examples 

[TheHappyFace]

Hello everyone

i think its time to use this thread for one of the reasons i made it.

Spoiler

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here i got some sprites which i am working on atm.
i am asking all of you wo see this to give me some comments about them.
i love compliments but this time i am not asking for those i want some serious comments.
negative reactions on my sprites so that i can improve them
and wo knows some other spriters might learn from it too.

the style from these ships resembles that of the movie treasure planet.
they have a rennaisance look ,but they're sails (or whatever its called in english) cath sunlight instead of wind.

ps. i invite any and all spriters to place they're sprites here to receive comments (not only compliments)
ow but please dont start placing all your sprites here just a few so its easier to comment and
this thread doesnt get overloaded 

[Psiyon]

The sprites are nice, but there are two things that bother me:

1: The weapon mounts. Generally, I'd have the little triangle inside them pointing in whatever direction you want the weapon to face (Meaning, the middle ship's fore and aft mounts should be flipped horizontally, and the middle starboard/port mounts should be rotated 90 degrees in the appropriate direction). This is, of course, a personal preference, but I make this mistake all the time and it bugs me.

2: The sails. They look flat, and very close to the main deck. I'd suggest a little more shading on some of the ships around their edges to give the illusion of depth, like the second ship on the left (though the back side of that sail appears to be unshaded).

Other than that, I like the wooden appearance they have. I also like the subtle asymmetric elements of each.

[theSONY]

Great Topic, Thx for all the Tutorials, maybe  will use some of that info  ^^  cuz im still a "NewBee"
thats it, carry on

[TheHappyFace]

The sprites are nice, but there are two things that bother me:

1: The weapon mounts. Generally, I'd have the little triangle inside them pointing in whatever direction you want the weapon to face (Meaning, the middle ship's fore and aft mounts should be flipped horizontally, and the middle starboard/port mounts should be rotated 90 degrees in the appropriate direction). This is, of course, a personal preference, but I make this mistake all the time and it bugs me.

2: The sails. They look flat, and very close to the main deck. I'd suggest a little more shading on some of the ships around their edges to give the illusion of depth, like the second ship on the left (though the back side of that sail appears to be unshaded).

Other than that, I like the wooden appearance they have. I also like the subtle asymmetric elements of each.

thanks for your comment.


is this better? i changed the mounts which was not a big deal.
it seems i did that wrong from the start... but its not that big of a problem
although it does look better this way. 

the sails were a bit harder.
i changed the colour a lot mainly because i like it this way
, but also because it was hard to increase depth with the last kind of sail.
hope you like them better.
do you think they have enough depth? or shall i work on it more?
in the second case i think i would need some advice :/

@theSONY

Great Topic, Thx for all the Tutorials, maybe  will use some of that info  ^^  cuz im still a "NewBee"
thats it, carry on

thanks for the compliment , hope to see some sprites of you soon that i can comment on. 

[Upgradecap]

nice ships, happyface! Sails look better now.

[theSONY]

thanks for the compliment , hope to see some sprites of you soon that i can comment on.  

well there alredy there, but  there are just 2 sprites no big deal
 

[Aleskander]

Any tips on coloring sprites that are very slanted?

[TheHappyFace]

Any tips on coloring sprites that are very slanted?

if you mean by colouring filling it up with one single colour then you could just use the bukkit or
if you made lines which have a lot of transparantie (fuzzie) on the sides you could make another layer
fill that layer up with the chosen colour, then go back to the main layer use magic wand to select the area around the sprite,
go back to the coloured layer and delete all coloured space outside the sprite. you could use the bar at the top of your screen (with paint.net) to change how much of the transparant colour on the side will be outside the sprite or inside.

for shading its a bit harder. i think the only right way would be doing it by hand which means dragging lines while changing the brightness
every time you drag a new one.

not what you asked for? try to be more specific please and i am not that good in english i had to look up the word slanted 

[XpanD]

Just finished my first own weapon sprite (very loosely kitbashed off of the Plasma Cannon), which I might use in a mod. It's supposed to become a large-slotted sniper rifle of sorts. It's made up of 3 pieces (recoiling barrel, rotary gun and steady base), which I've combined into this picture for clarity's sake. Am I on the right track here?

[TheHappyFace]

Just finished my first own weapon sprite (very loosely kitbashed off of the Plasma Cannon), which I might use in a mod. It's supposed to become a large-slotted sniper rifle of sorts. It's made up of 3 pieces (recoiling barrel, rotary gun and steady base), which I've combined into this picture for clarity's sake. Am I on the right track here?

your certainly on the right track! 

i just got a couple of things to say/ask\

-have you checked if the picture fits on the mount? i havent but just in case.
-is this for the hardpoint or the turret? maybe both? if its turret, a lopt of people preffer it to be symmetrical at its base,
but this is just a commonly accepted opinion.
-one thing that botheres me especially is the shading although this is mainly when i zoom in.
 it would get more depth if you could make a shading layer above it like i explained in the light and shading guide.
i see you did do some shading especially on the top part but trust me its easier and faster to use the way from that guide.\

i have nothing more important say. i can allready see your quiet good at this.
your are allready a better weapon spriter than i am
wanna join the cealus team? we could use you.

[XpanD]

Thanks for the quick and helpful reply! To be honest I haven't gotten around to checking all the guides yet, so that's certainly on my to-do list. As for mounting - this is the turret version, but the position of the mount will probably change later. I'll be sure to check how it looks in a hardpoint configuration - that's a good pointer!

And as for Caelus, I think this mod will take enough of my time already for now. It's appreciated, though!

[Mr Magpie]

After snooping around this thread for quite some time, I finely decided to have a stab at making my own sprite. After my first attempt went rather badly I was a bit disheartened. But, determined to make at less a descent sprite, I had another go. The result far exceeded my expectations.



So here it is, a light cruiser similar to the Falcon-Class made completely from scratch (except the mounts which where kitbashed) with Paint NET. I didn’t now where to post this so I thought here would be a good start.

Being a bit of a perfectionist, I always look at this and think it could be a bit better but what do you guys think?

[TheHappyFace]

well well well what do we have here.
looks quiet good for a starter. my compliments 

there are just 1 thing that bothers me.
the two side wings in the back.
they seem a bit lower than the rest of the ship.
did you intend this?
if so it would look better if they were darker so that it matches there position more.

another thing, it doesnt really bother me and its not wrong or anything ,but for a ship this big its quiet... simple.
i am missing out some more details,
although that just my opinion it may be that the faction which uses this ship has the same style of smooth ships.
i think some more details like vents, lights, piping, maybe some mechanical stuff would finish it off.

just one more thing.
Keep drawing! I like it if people draw sprites from scratch 

[xenoargh]

I like the overall design; it feels light and high-tech and fits Starfarer's art style fairly well  

Looking over the sprite, I'm also happy to see that, unlike a lot of stuff, this isn't a mess of anti-aliased jaggies at the edges and doesn't have any almost-invisible fuzz around it, but has clean hard edges.  Overall, I think it's a great first public sprite and I look forward to seeing more

I've done a quick edit to show, rather than just tell, what I thought could be improved a little:



Critique:

Spoiler

1.  Outside edges need stronger contrast, so that it has a nice, clean line against backgrounds and the shape stays distinct.

2.  Keep the lighting consistent; there were a few areas where I felt like panel lines and other things were ambiguously lit and corrected them.

3.  Add some final detailing to make it feel a bit less mirrored.  And on metallic objects, don't forget to throw in some color; metal is very rarely anything like pure gray, especially if it's been heated or exposed to various abuse.  I kept it really subtle here, in keeping with the stainless-steel styling, but gave it some faint hints of grease stains, etc.

4.  Add some little edge greebles at the end to give it a few unique, non-mirrored touches.

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