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Welcome to the first of the GA Sprite Challenges, where you will be cracking open Photoshop (or the low-fi image-editing program of your choice) and designing characters and making 2d sprite animations for a sci-fi iPhone game. We're excited to bring you a series of mini-comps that won't just be arbitrary specs for a hypothetical game like other minis, but instead be actual specs for a real game that we'll all build together. It's an RPG game tentatively titled 'Infest Station," and will be published by GA as a fund-raiser for the site when we have enough minis to cover all of the art for the game. The game, in a nut-shell, is like 'Paper Mario' 1 or 2... if it were populated by 'Clone Wars' or 'Alien Legion' characters and set on a space-station that looked a bit like the LV-426 terraforming station from 'Aliens.' For lots more information about the game project itself, please read either the GA FAQ or the longer Sprite Game FAQ.
You can see a demo of the game these sprites will be used in here:
http://www.maphart.com/uploads/Infes...tion_0_03.html
You will need the Unity web plug in to view it.
The goal of this mini is to design a low-level bad-guy, some sort of space pirate/mercenary/thug who is low in rank in the criminal syndicate, and to give him, her, or it some basic animations.
The Details:
This mini is meant to get your feet wet into doing sprites here at GA. Focus on some fun character designs, and we won't push for a ton of animations yet: We'll work our way up to the big bad bosses!
- The character should be between 75 and 120 pixels tall, and not longer than ~150 pixels wide. Please use this image below as a height reference. That's Ketra, the main character on the left, and some generic humans on the right. These numbers are a general reference for the individual animation frames, too: In the final game, all sprites get automatically ganged together on one sheet (you don't have to do it!) that is a max size of 1024x1024, so you should be going for a bunch of animation frames at a small size, not a few frames taking up the whole screen.
- Please create a hand-drawn single-pixel-outline style like the character examples above, with no anti-aliasing. The goal here is to hand-draw everything, not to render out 3D models as sprite frames. The outlines should not be all black - all of Ketra's outlines, for example, are darker values of the colors they surround.
- In this universe, humans are a very small part of the galactic civilization. You must create an alien - it can be as humanoid or alien as you like, but should come off as sentient, not a monster. No robots, either - we'll tackle them in some later mini-comps.
- Please light all characters from the top, just like Ketra, the alien with the gun/sword in the examples below.
- Your character for this particular challenge - an enemy - will be on the right side of the screen and must face towards the left. Ketra is on the left facing right because she's a player-controlled good-guy character.
- These mercenaries are a motley collection of smugglers, pirates, thugs, and ruffians - make sure they look like it!
-You must produce a neutral animation between 3 and 12 frames long (and before the 'animation' part scares you off, we have a bunch of tutorials at the bottom here!)
-You must also produce an attack animation. This can be with a gun or rifle, or a physical attack (fists, tentacles, swords, wrenches, etcetera) or some sort of thrown weapon... pretty much whatever you can think of so long as it's sci-fi. If you do a gun, all you have to do is the firing - effects are optional (but if you include them, please keep them on separate layers in your working file so that we can strip them out later!) If you do a physical attack, you'll need to animate your character running forward, attacking, and getting back to their starting position. You can use 3 to 24 frames, please use fewer if you're doing a simple gun fire, more if you're doing the whole run-forward-and-hit thing.
- Recycling frames is encouraged
- Extra credit section: You are welcome to do more animations in addition to the 2 listed above. Specifically:
* Alternate attack
* Short get hit (no more than 5 frames)
* Wounded
* Death
* Taunt
- Please assemble all your animations onto one long animated GIF on one sheet no larger than 480x320 (iPhone screen size). See the example below (but note that Ketra, as a good guy, is facing right. Your character, an opponent, should face left.)
As always, backgrounds are optional. Enemies are optional. Below is a sample background if you want to use it, but you do NOT have to. (Note: this background, unlike the one above, gives a better idea of the setting for the game.)
Other animations are optional. This challenge is here for those desiring to practice their art and learn more about sprite art and animation, and receive friendly advice from fellow artisans. Have fun, and good luck!
Please do not make a new thread for your entry. Keep all w.i.p shots in this specific thread.
It is strongly strongly STRONGLY encouraged that you post progress images as replies this thread. We're not forcing everyone to yet, but half of the point of these minis are to help build up the community. If you're posting last minute without at least saying hello, then you're missing all the fun! Stop lurking!
Some Helpful Tutorials:
http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/prin...s.asp?TID=5692 - A good primer, even though a bunch of images are missing
http://www.manningkrull.com/pixel_ar...ls/walking.asp - Walk cycles
http://gas13.ru/v3/tutorials/sywtbap...ame_sprite.php - Fighting Game sprites
http://shambolic-art.deviantart.com/...cess-138403296 - Shambolic's sprite demo
I'll post more here if anyone else has good links.
References:
http://sdb.drshnaps.com/index.php
http://www.gsarchives.net/index2.php
http://spriters-resource.com/index.html
http://www.videogamesprites.net/
Final Submission:
Submit one image, 480x320 pixels or less. This image should include your final animations all together, and anything else, even the background, is optional.
You can submit your finals here:
link to follow
Prizes:
1st place:
- 1 new forum and gallery award icon for mini challenges
- 1 point towards raising your overall game, elite, and/or master rating
on gameartisans
2nd place:
- 1 new forum and gallery award icon for mini challenges
- 1/2 point towards raising your overall game, elite, and/or master
rating on gameartisans
3rd place:
- 1 new forum and gallery award icon for mini challenges
- .25 points towards raising your overall game, elite, and/or master rating on gameartisans
Public Voting:
All Winners are chosen through a public voting system. Only GA.org
members may vote.
Soft Deadline: Voting starts Sunday December 13 around 11:59pm Eastern Standard Time(EST).
Link to the game FAQ or the Discussion Thread for the Game FAQ.
Final Submissions:
You can submit your finals here:
http://www.gameartisans.org/contests...n_sprites.html
Keep in mind: You can only submit once. If you submit and then realize you made a mistake, you're stuck with whatever you submitted. Sorry!
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