The Best Software for drawing sprites?

[Rydium-41]

Hi to all.

I wish to know that which software out there, do you think, is the best for drawing and animating custom sprites. Suggestions?

Thanks.

[notjustgraphics]

I believe the most common tools are Photoshop and Image Ready for the creation of animated sprites.

I've heard of GIFAnimator and Paint Shop Pro being used as well.

Hopefully others will have some tips as well!

Mike.

[Man1c M0g]

Photoshop and imageready are plenty good enough if you stick to using the pencil tool with a hard-edged tip. Its all really rather time consuming though...

[Jacorre]

I've heard people use MS Paint as well for pixel art.

[Rydium-41]

Thanks for the replies.

I use MS Paint myself for drawing custom sprites. Drawing is not the problem but it's the animation part there that I really need help in. For instance, whenever I want to make a simple rotation to fit in the next frame, I have to copy the default frame or frame segment, paste it in the rotating software, then copy it back and paste it in the next corresponding frame. This isn't necessarily the hard part but when the image/segment is rotated, the result needs quite some editing . Repeating the aforementioned process continuously for so many of the other frames truly saps the energy and will to proceed further and it consumes too much time. This is why I need some other software to work in. Recently, I've been using Adobe Illustrator CS 2 but I am having some confusions in it:

1) The Pencil tool sometimes diverts a line whenever it passes through it. How can I stop this from happening?

2) The lines are much too smooth. How do I make them slightly rigid?

3) When I copy a pencil drawn from Illustrator to MS Paint, it is a little too thick. Anyway to reduce this?

I hope I can use Adobe Illustrator to draw and animate custom sprites so If the above questions can be answered, will appreciate it greatly. Perhaps if someone here could exhibit me a sample of what Illustrator can do with it's drawing and animation capabilities, that would be great also.

Thanks.

[Hummingbird]

hi rydium-41

i know nothing about sprite making but i did a search
and these 2 pixel sites look allright,this site has forums on pixel making
www.thebbps.com
and this one is about pixel sprites
SpriteArt.com Pixel art extroadinaire
i wish could help you more

[Rydium-41]

Will try those places. Thanks for the tips.

[Hummingbird]

also so try the biorust down load centre there is a free download "resources"
it's in photoshop brushes page 6

it might help you with your pixel art

it's called uncle gheds pixels

it's says "a unique set of pixel brushes designed to make your pixel graphic
compilations that much easier to create BioRUST.com :: Downloads >> Adobe Photoshop Brushes

also try this isometric pixel art in the biorust tutorials
BioRUST.com :: Photoshop Tutorials >> Basic Principles

[turvas]

Having made some games myself i must say that the tool you choose to make sprites depends greatly on the software you use to put the actual game together.

And one more thing: Why would you rotate something using an animation? I'm sure your gamemaking software has a rotation script.

What software do you use anyways?

[Rydium-41]

Originally Posted by andy gan

also so try the biorust down load centre there is a free download "resources"
it's in photoshop brushes page 6

it might help you with your pixel art

it's called uncle gheds pixels

it's says "a unique set of pixel brushes designed to make your pixel graphic
compilations that much easier to create BioRUST.com :: Downloads >> Adobe Photoshop Brushes

also try this isometric pixel art in the biorust tutorials
BioRUST.com :: Photoshop Tutorials >> Basic Principles

Much obliged. Thanks!

Also, is there a site that allows us to download PhotoShop brushes for skins only, like the Human skin which is included in the link you have suggested?

Having made some games myself i must say that the tool you choose to make sprites depends greatly on the software you use to put the actual game together.

And one more thing: Why would you rotate something using an animation? I'm sure your gamemaking software has a rotation script.

What software do you use anyways?

The software I'll use to make the game is GameMaker.

Also, rotate something using an animation? I'm afraid you must have mistaken me. I'm not using the rotation for an animation in the sense that you seem to have understood. I take that what you are saying is about the animation in-game, for when we use the mouse, correct? Yes, GameMaker has the rotation script. But what I'm trying to say is something different. The sprites I'm trying to make are not rotation-based, like in Top-Down games (GTA 2 for example). I'm making 2D-platform sprites. The purpose for requiring the rotation capability is for making certain segments of a sprite to fit in nicely in the next frame. Let's take an example of an 'arm attached to a Combat Knife' sprite.
This is how the animation will most likely go (The frame is a 2D platform one):

1) The arm, appended with the knife, will rear back till mid-section.
2) The arm will completely thrust towards the Upper-Right section of the sprite (assuming the sprite is facing Left).
3) The arm will be at an angle of slightly more than a 90 degrees angle.
4) The arm will be at an, approximately, 140-150 degrees angle.
5) The arm will be at a straight 180 degrees angle or a little more.
6) The arm will be at an, approximately, 230-250 degrees angle.
7) The arm will be at it's default position.

Now, through-out the above animation, the angles are continuously being altered. This is why I need a perfect rotation software. Also, I always make the animations colorless. When all animations are complete, then I begin to fill in the colour and texture. But, when it is at it's colorless form, only with the black out-lines, and the frame is rotated, the lines are distorted and take some time to edit and look acceptable. I hope I've made this more understandable. Also, what software would you recommend for drawing, if I'll be using GameMaker to make the game? One last thing. If I have a sprite of whose frame size I want to double, I can easily do that by increasing the Horizontal and Vertical to 200 pixels, if it is 100 pixels by default. But when I do this, the thickness of the out-lines also double. Is there any easy way or moderately not so difficult method, to thin to those lines to be of the original, 100 pixels size?

Thanks all of you for all your help.