Characters

[Tyr]

Hej all,

Sorry for such a noobish question and it being not strictly on topic of scripting but I can't find the answer anywhere (even googling) or a better place to post it.

How does one make animated sprites?
Where do you find the templates mentioned in the wiki?

I can draw my characters no problem but I've no clue on the procedure to make them actual animated figures.
(This is before adding them into the game, not related to the different direction coding)

[Matti]

Well, you could look at Kafka's Koffee, or at the contribution thread. Also, you can look if you find something useful here.

Generally, googling brings up much useful stuff (templates & tutorials). For example this site for walkcycles.

[Wonkyth]

If I read Tyr's  question properly, he is asking about how to create a view in AGS, not how to draw one.
If you haven't yet done the tutorial, then I suggest you do, as it will tell you how to make the image frames into an animation loop, as unlike Game Maker, AGS doesn't use the animated single sprite system.


And don't worry, your thread is perfectly fine in this part of the forums.
Although, maybe next time you could use the forum search thingo first. 

[Matti]

Mh, perhaps you're right. He said something about about before adding the animation to the game, so I thought he meant the drawing part. But right before that he said the drawing part isn't the problem... ah, well, whatever.

Yes, as wonkyth mentioned, you don't animate a single sprite before adding it to AGS, you use views for that. So there's no need to make a GIF or something..

[Tyr]

Well, you could look at Kafka's Koffee, or at the contribution thread. Also, you can look if you find something useful here.

Generally, googling brings up much useful stuff (templates & tutorials). For example this site for walkcycles.

Yah, its the Kafka's Koffee sort of thing I'm looking to get. How do you make those animated image things?
I could draw the character then I could draw him walking but...how do you put that together?
Since backgrounds/characters are the hard part I'm sticking to just trying to get something decent done with my arty programs before touching the editor.

[Matti]

Well, as wonkyth pointed out, there's no sense in animating a sprite before using it in AGS, because AGS uses views, in which all the sprites of an animation are stored in a certain order.

But if you want to make an animation (like the posted examples) nevertheless, you need to make a .gif with a program that can handle gif animations. Here's a thread with a list of programs and I'm sure some of them are useful for animations.

Oh, now that I think of it, it is possible to import gifs in AGS, at least there was a module/plugin with that feature..

[Vince Twelve]

But again, you do not need to make an animated .gif to make a character.  If you draw each frame one by one and save each frame, or lay them out on a sheet in a grid, you can just import the graphics into AGS and create a view, which makes the animation for you. 

Making .gifs is good for previewing your work or sharing it over the web, but is not necessary for making an animated character.

[Tyr]

Ah, right. Thanks.
I've managed to make a little walky bloke (with heavy use of a image elsewhere), there's a bunch of stray pixels floating about and I don't think it loops right (he goes down a few inches suddenly at one point...I can't spot which frame though, I'm guessing the last) but I think I've got it.




One big question though: What do you do for the background?
Obviously there's not meant to be a background, when making images I use a horrible colour I'm not going to use in the image but what for importing it into the program?

edit- oh damn, he's moving at seizure speed...he wasn't on my computer...Oh well thats not important.


p.s question: How would I use black in drawing characters?
Obviously the outline is black so...it wouldn't look right at all, would all be ruined. On this one I've purposfully given him much lighter trousers then I originally had as they were too near black and ruined everything.

[Khris]

You shouldn't use black except for outline. Take a dark blue or purple.

But since this is the technical forums: when importing sprites into AGS, you can set where it gets the transparent color from (usually one of the four corners).

To get comments on the sprite, post it in the critics lounge.

[Tyr]

You shouldn't use black except for outline. Take a dark blue or purple.

But since this is the technical forums: when importing sprites into AGS, you can set where it gets the transparent color from (usually one of the four corners).

To get comments on the sprite, post it in the critics lounge.

Wouldn't you get the same problem then?
The trousers were meant to be dark blue but this just looked bad and made the outlines impossible to see.

[Matti]

To get comments on the sprite, post it in the critics lounge.

[Tyr]

To get comments on the sprite, post it in the critics lounge.

I don't want comments on it, its crap and I know it is, was just testing to see if I could do it and a problem came to mind when doing it.

[Matti]

Okay, it's just that you can get really good advices in the crits lounge, so one thing you could do is to post the sprite / walkcycle with dark trousers over there and see if it helps..