The OHR open source sprite/tilemap database.

Talk about things that are not making games here. But you should also make games!

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Bob the Hamster
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

Diretooth wrote:Uh... Would it help if I said I made it with Paint, because it's easier?
At least some versions of Paint are notorious for not saving the colors you actually intended to use.

I suppose you are using the version that came with windows, so what version of windows do you have?
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Diretooth
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Post by Diretooth »

Win 7, which is not my favorite OS because all of the games I could play don't work in compatibility mode.
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Post by BMR »

<fossproselytizer>You could always try <a href="http://www.gimp.org/downloads/">the GIMP</a>, it's what I use for my pixel-ing and painting. It can take some getting used to, but it's pretty spiffy.</fossproselytizer>

Or you could just do your editing within Custom. I prefer external programs, but a lot of people here like the built-in editor. Check it out, it might work for you.
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Bob the Hamster
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

I just did a 60 second test of Paint on my Windows 7 computer (the first time I have *ever* launched paint.exe on a computer newer than Windows X) and I was able to immediately conclude that it is *still* worthless for 16-color pixel art.

When you save in 16 color mode, instead of saving a palette of the 16 colors you actually used in the drawing, it will flatten the colors in your image to fit into its own arbitray never-useful palette of 16 colors.

You are going to need to get a different graphics editor, I don't think there is any way to avoid that, sorry.

You said you like something simple, so I won't recommend <a href="http://gimp.org/">The Gimp</a> because it is anything but simple (although I love it), but what about <a href="http://code.google.com/p/grafx2/">Graphx2</a> (disclaimer: I haven't use grafx2 much myself, and don't actually know if it fits the "simple" requirement either)?

Maybe other people have some other suggestions.
Last edited by Bob the Hamster on Mon Feb 03, 2014 3:51 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Diretooth
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Post by Diretooth »

I have Gimp on my computer, as well as Paint.net (Long story).
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Post by sheamkennedy »

Diretooth wrote:I have Gimp on my computer, as well as Paint.net (Long story).
I personally do all my art in the editor. Then when I want to do mass manipulation, I export it to photoshop and mess around with the colors. Also Using a bigger program like photoshop or gimp allows for me to draw bigger things that would usually require me to combine 12 tiles in the editor.

Photoshops CS5 is expensive but relatively easy to find for free and doesn't take too long to get the hang of. I find it a lot more practical than gimp.
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Post by sotrain515 »

Bob the Hamster wrote:I just did a 60 second test of Paint on my Windows 7 computer (the first time I have *ever* launched paint.exe on a computer newer than Windows X) and I was able to immediately conclude that it is *still* worthless for 16-color pixel art.

When you save in 16 color mode, instead of saving a palette of the 16 colors you actually used in the drawing, it will flatten the colors in your image to fit into its own arbitray never-useful palette of 16 colors.
Same goes for Windows 8 (though maybe that's a given?).

If anyone is determined to use MSPaint (and I sympathize; it's still my art program of choice despite its various failings), the version of Paint that came with Vista does *not* do this color-flattening stuff. It also allows you to zoom in more than one magnification level which made it vastly superior to XPPaint for pixel-stuff.

I was able to copy the binary from my old Vista machine and bring it over to a Windows 8 laptop and get it running in place of 8-Paint. I doubt Microsoft supports old versions of Paint but if you can somehow (legally) get your hands on a copy of VistaPaint, I heartily recommend it.

Side note: I have also tried using Gimp and Paint.Net but they are so different from how I'm used to doing things (i.e. basically MSPaint ruined art programs for me...) that salvaging VistaPaint was pretty much a must in my case.
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Post by Feenicks »

I personally use Graphicsgale for all my spriting needs. Can see some benefits to using other programs, I guess, but none strong enough to justify switching.
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Post by BMR »

I've heard some good things about <a href="http://www.getpaint.net/">Paint.NET</a>. I've never used it myself, so I have no idea how good it is for pixel stuff. I have heard that it's pretty much like MS Paint but on steroids. No idea how accurate that is though.
Last edited by BMR on Mon Feb 03, 2014 5:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Bob the Hamster
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

GraphicsGale looks great. I think that is what I was thinking about when I mentioned Grafx2. GraphicsGale looks very easy to use.
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Post by Sparoku »

sheamkennedy wrote:Photoshops CS5 is expensive but relatively easy to find for free and doesn't take too long to get the hang of. I find it a lot more practical than gimp.
Same here. I've used it for years now. Very helpful for my junk. <3
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Post by BMR »

If you've got a spare monitor lying around, going dual-monitor is great for pretty much any graphics work.

BMR's workspace:
<a href="http://i1171.photobucket.com/albums/r55 ... .png"><img src="http://i1171.photobucket.com/albums/r55 ... b.png"></a>

Dunno how well it would work with other programs, but you'll be able to get a lot of functionality out of the GIMP or Photoshop with that extra monitor. The left side of that image is a single image, zoomed in and maxed out to fill the screen. The stuff on the right are tools, layers, history, etc... and an overall view of the image that stays the same size no matter the zoom. Very useful for pixel work.
Last edited by BMR on Mon Feb 03, 2014 6:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Meowskivich »

I so badly wish I had a second monitor.
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Post by Diretooth »

Thanks for reminding me of GraphicsGale. I heard about it on an RPG Maker forum, but never really tried it out. Now my Werewolf looks half-decent. Now I just need to figure out how to share images on this thing...

EDIT: I just uploaded the sprite to my Deviantart. You can find it here: http://diretooth.deviantart.com/art/Wer ... 1391464547
Last edited by Diretooth on Mon Feb 03, 2014 9:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Meowskivich »

try imgur.com, that's where I post thing usually. sometimes I use my own website, though.
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