noob question

[Joseph]

noob question here.
ive been reading here use a character for shadows that follow player. WHY? I want to make shadow under playuer but was just going to draw it INSIDE the art of the sprite.

???so why do some make a character just for shadows and make it follow? Whats the advantage?
Sorry if its a stupid question

[Khris]

If you don't want to set your game to 32bit color depth and use sprites with an alpha channel, you can use a second character with their transparency set to 50 or so to display a semi-transparent shadow.
Another advantage of this method is that you don't have to draw a shadow in every sprite (unless you want a more realistic shadow that changes depending on the character's posture, of course).