finalbossblues
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Sprite Sheet Formatting Feedback thread
🕑 Added 2021-09-29 15:00:01 +0000 UTCHello! Today's post has no new graphics-- instead I'm asking for your suggestions.
You're aware that I've spent a lot of time over the past few weeks finalizing the elements base, structure, and animations. For reference, here are the previous two progress posts:
Everything's moving along swimmingly, as I've explained (in detail) in those threads.
Right now, now that I'm set on the animations and frames-- I'm curious about how would be best to organize the final sprite sheets. I would really appreciate the thoughts and suggestions of users, so that I can come up with an organization that would make sense for most people.
I've shown the previous of all of these animations in the previous threads. For the sake of clarification, this is what we're looking at:
In all four directions:
- Stand - 1 frame*
- Walk - 3 frames*
- Arms up - 3 frames (walking)
- Crouch - 1 frame
- Jump - 3 frames
- Attack/ToolUse Anticipation - 1 frame
- Attack/ToolUse - 4 frames (5 with the anticipation)
- Bow Nock - 1 Frame
- Bow - 3 frames (walking)
Others:
- Climb (north-facing) - 3 frames
- Down/KO/Sleep - 3 frames, unique
*Note: The regular standing frame is duplicated in the walking animation as the central frame, so it isn't necessary to exist as a separate standalone animation.
For RPGMaker Users: Obviously RPG Maker by default doesn't use all of these animations. It's easy enough to put MOST of them in an RPGMaker-friendly sprite-sheet, though. The exception is animations that use more than 3 frames. I IMAGINE that if I come up with a unique format that is similar to RPGMaker, then we can get some friendly scripter-bro to make a plugin that would allow RPGMaker to read the sheets correctly... is that right? I don't know much about that side of things-- so please let me know if you have thoughts on this subject.
For everyone else: It's my understanding that most other game engines are pretty flexible in how sprite sheets are arranged, because the user can specify a lot of details (that's the reason that normally I default to the RPGMaker format-- it's the most restrictive).
That said, some arrangements are certainly more optimal than others. If there's a specific format or arrangement that would be best for general use, then I'd appreciate suggestions, any knowledge or reference points.
Individual frames is certainly a possibility as well. If so-- are there any naming conventions for the files that I should consider? I'm not familiar with most game engines, so if this kind of thing can be helpful, please share with me.
So please use this thread to share any ideas or thoughts you have on the organization and layout of the final exported graphics.
I'd appreciate your thoughts so that I can try to find something that will work best for the most users as I move forward onto the next phase of this project.
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Anyways-- I've already got the end-of-month thread written up and scheduled for this week. See you soon with that one. :)
Thanks!
Comments
Chris Jaynes
Thanks so much for taking the time to ask your patrons about these things! The nice thing about individual frames is that devs can easily re-pack them using all kinds of tools, most of which will also output an "atlas" file in JSON or other formats. If pre-packed sprites end up being the preferred option, it would be super-helpful if a basic JSON file could be included. Having uniformly-spaced sprites that can be read as a grid is the next best option, after individual files, or a sprite atlas.
Tobias Gogu
RPG Maker format would be appreciated. I'm not sure how difficult or time consuming it would be to post them in multiple formats though.
