Description

M.O.G. "My Own Game" Multipart Event - Graphics Creation


In this event we will attempt create a graphics pack for a game. No prior experience is expected!

The intent is to get people out of their comfort zones and attempt the different aspects of game creation. The M.O.G. initiative be a 3-part event, with each event focusing on a different aspect - soundtrack, graphics, and game creation. This event will focus on the graphics - tilesets, charsets, facesets, battlers, battlebacks, animations, and so on. The music event will be running in parallel and will focus on soundtracks and sound effects. The final event will be game creation, wherein we create a game but only using resources created in the previous two events (+ general public resources, like RTP, to fill gaps)!

This is a pretty ambitious undertaking, but it sounds pretty satisfying, too!

The more forward-thinking among you might even plan a game now, and then build your resources around that idea, and make your OWN game with your OWN resources.



Submit either individual graphic resources, or partial or complete graphic packages. Share them in posts on the event profile and upload them to the official event page. Feel free to also submit them as a Resource to RMN's resource section (they are still subject to RMN's quality guidelines).

Your spriting CAN BE ASS. Your works could be filled with photoshop effects. But as long as they are YOURS they will still be accepted to the event!

THIS IS NOT A COMPETITION


For a graphics pack, what resources would you expect to make? For a fantasy setting, perhaps:

-Tilesets
-Charsets
-Facesets
-Icons
-Battlers
-Animations
-Battle backgrounds
-Window Skin

...and these are a little specific for particular games but still common:
-Title screen
-Game Over screen
-Parallax backgrounds
...and things like cutscenes, FMVs, menu systems, etc..

Your graphics pack should be comprehensive enough to supply most of a game's core art assets, in my opinion.

Legacy Works
You are free to submit custom legacy works of yours to this event. They are still subject to the "Free" caveats below.



We are doing this for the betterment of our game development skills. Familiarization with other aspects of game development, even if we never develop the expertise to be proficient in it, is still very valuable. That being said, I will be giving out achievements for:

-Complete Graphic Pack
-Individual Graphic Resources

...this includes achievements for the individual itemsets within a graphic pack (so, if you submitted a pack with charsets, facesets, tilesets, and battlers, you'd get 5 achievements in the end - 4 for the itemsets and 1 for the graphic pack).

-Legacy Works

...a single Legacy achievement will be given out if you submit any number of legacy works.



Works submitted to this event are expected to be public domain. You can place restrictions on their use on a per works basis (but please specify this in the upload and in a post on the event page). They can be share-alike, or creative commons, or free to use with credit to the author, or GPL, or free to use for non-commercial games, or just completely free, or something along those lines. Just make sure it is clear (and free)!

While the event is very RPG-centric (hey, we are RPG Maker Network afterall!), feel free to create a graphics pack or graphic resource for any genre of your choice.



It is my sincere hope that those of us here who are qualified sprites and artists might share with us their expertise and learning. Either by helping out individuals in the comments section, offering advice, or posting links to useful resources, or even as far as writing tutorials of their own.

Members who take it upon themselves to be super-helpful in this event will receive a special achievement!



When you guys share good links to tutorials, resources, graphics programs, or the like, I will update this section.

despanrs pixel tut's :)
http://rpgmaker.net/forums/topics/9908/
so hey i am working on a massive multi-part pixel art tutorial. i've written a lot of little tutorials and stuff in the past (unfortunately most of them are long lost). the goal here is to cover a shitload of topics, from the most basic to some pretty advanced stuff later on—as well as lots of smaller instructional lessons along the way.

Creating Pixel Art
http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11299
This tutorial is designed to explain what pixel art is, what pixel art isn't, how to get started making pixel art and how to make your pixel art better.

So You Want To Be A Pixel Artist
http://gas13.ru/v3/tutorials/sywtbapa_almighty_grass_tile.php
11 part series on pixel art for games

Creative Commons licenses
<Sailerius> I would suggest you only allow Creative Commons licenses. There's one to cover about every use case: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

2D Will Never Die
This place has a few interesting tutorials and such. Probably the most interesting (at least to me) are the ones centered around using drawings as a base for pixel art, which make clever use of the Threshold and Index Color Mode in a way that I'd been trying to figure out on my own for a while.

Helpful Tutorial
Also I found this tutorial useful when I was first learning how to make pixel art and I thought it might be helpful for others.
http://makegames.tumblr.com/post/42648699708/pixel-art-tutorial

Paint.NET
http://www.getpaint.net/
I also highly recommend using paint.net for spriting, chipsets ect.
It's simpler and easier to navigate than photoshop, but is more advanced and has more features than ms paint. Also the recolor tool makes it super easy to change the color of your stuff.

Graphics Gale or Pyxel Edit
I also recommend Graphics Gale or Pyxel Edit since they're more game oriented! Both have free versions that shouldn't get in the way of your game making creation. Especially since IIRC remember Paint.net has Grid issues.

Basics for RM
Ace Basics:

Face Set = 384x192 with each face being 96x96.

Sprite Set = 384x256 with each sprite being 32x32.

B,C,D,E Tile Set sheets = 512x512 with each tile being 32x32.

Anyway here's the chipset template for RMK2000 and 2003

and here's the templates + info on using it for Ace and XP.

RM2k3 templates taken from Kentona!

Charset




Battle


Battlechar


Battleweapon


Chipset


Faceset


System


System2



Anatomy of an Autotile for RMVXA
For those drawing backgrounds:
Carapace is a great tool that allows you to freely create perspective grids, then paste them in your favorite graphics editor! ^^ ~

Tutorials and Techniques
Manga/Anime Creation
Ocean's Dream Tileset Tutorial

Details

  • 08/15/2014 12:00 AM
  • 12/02/2014 05:59 PM
  • kentona

Achievements

Registration

You must be logged in to sign up for M.O.G. Graphics.

Posts

Ebeth
always up for cute art and spicy gay romance
4390
author=Archeia_Nessiah
My memory is a bit woozy, but some people I know who used paint.net had to download a separate plugin for grid guides and have a hard time making sheets with it.


author=EvilEagles
The problem with the gridmaker plugin for Paint.NET is that all it does is just draw a grid on the current layer of the piece with 1px-thick lines, which may get a little confusing at first when you have to be careful about the pixel precise positions of things within the grid. Besides, since all that plugin does is draw on the piece, you still can't snap your cursor to the blocks to make positioning things easier.


I looked around the internet and it looks like the newer version of paint.net fixed the issue of the grid being out of alignment and you don't need a plugin for it, BUT the grid is really only easily view-able when you're zoomed in quite a bit and like EvilEagles said it only draws on your piece.

Paint.net works great for me but I can see how it might not work for others.
For those drawing backgrounds:
Carapace is a great tool that allows you to freely create perspective grids, then paste them in your favorite graphics editor! ^^ ~

EDIT: BTW I tested Pyxel and it rocks
Ebeth
always up for cute art and spicy gay romance
4390
My submission(s) is done and uploaded! Whew. My graphics pack is like 95% new so I uploaded the monster sprites and battlers separately since they were directly taken from my first game.

It's all under the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 license. More info can be found in the read me files of the folders.

okay im going to go back to crying about lmms now

re-uploaded since there was an issue with the read me file sorry
Is this acceptable in any manner?



Sorry if this is still wrong.
SunflowerGames
The most beautiful user on RMN!
13323

I think Kentona will accept anything at this point :)

What maker are you making those tiles for? (They look so small.)
Ebeth
always up for cute art and spicy gay romance
4390
@MajoracanKing

I agree they look rather small (other than that they look great! your shading looks really nice). Have you been using a template as a guide for how large your tiles should be? If not that may be why they look so small. Or maybe you just re-sized it for the web and I'm over analyzing this.

Anyway here's the chipset template for RMK2000 and 2003

and here's the templates + info on using it for Ace and XP.
This is something I've actually been working on for like the last month or so, just making my own custom tile sets so seeing this event is really exciting for me, however I am not sure how the stuff I've been working on looks as it is.

I uploaded the tiles that I did a few weeks ago regardless, I hope to work on adding more to it later though, but the tiles are set up with the B tile sheet grid. They are lined up with overlapping on some grid as parts of the furniture you should be able to walk behind.

Otherwise free for non-commercial use, and I would appreciate credit for my tiles (if anyone likes them enough to use them that is haha).
Thanks, I was making them way to small I guess. I thought it was 16x16 (Rpgmaker2oo3).
Please forgive my profound ignorance. I have tons upon tons of distractions (little childrens running around), and its hard to do things right.

Edit: Actually, I pasted it on the template and it fit perfectly. I'm not sure why it appears so small.

Edit:
I feel like hiding under a hard hat.
This was not the result I was expecting.

I'm done for today.

Ebeth
always up for cute art and spicy gay romance
4390
author=MajoracanKing
Edit: Actually, I pasted it on the template and it fit perfectly. I'm not sure why it appears so small.

Edit:
I feel like hiding under a hard hat.
This was not the result I was expecting.
I'm done for today.

I guess the template just shows up small! (Regardless you still want your chipsets on the proper tiles so they show up where they're supposed to go)

And don't worry if you screwed up, that's the point of the event, right? To get people out of their comfort zone and to learn new things! Besides I'm pretty sure I know what went wrong. Here's how to fix it :)


When I make my graphics I use three layers: The bottom is the template so I know where to put everything. The top is where i draw my chip set items. The middle is a hideous color-it has too be one that doesn't appear in all my tiles.



I keep it hidden until i'm done and i go to save in which case I make it visible, so it appears as the back ground.



Now the important part! When you upload into RMK23 it looks for a color to make the transparent background. It will automatically choose the darkest color it can find, usually black, but in your case it choose the dark green you had been using. That' why it's missing from your tileset!



So when you upload you have to make sure to click the colored background so it become the transparent color! That's all!


I hope this helps you out :)
I kiiiinda want to give this a try. To not only dip into it but actually work something out. But seeing as my holiday is ending and I have no experience whatsoever ...
Ebeth
always up for cute art and spicy gay romance
4390
author=Kylaila
I kiiiinda want to give this a try. To not only dip into it but actually work something out. But seeing as my holiday is ending and I have no experience whatsoever ...


Go for it! Even if you only have time to make one sprite at least you did it! And don't worry if you have experience or not - that's the point of the event is to help people to get more experience.
I'm working on mine but slow as hell.
I did make this though

You guys are cruel :'( I see my vacation passing me by .. and I dig it.

Now, what size are sprites, tiles and all that jazz? I fear I have a lot of research to do.
Seriously.. all I find is coding stuff.
author=MajoracanKing
Edit:
I feel like hiding under a hard hat.
This was not the result I was expecting.


There is a separate section in the template for upper tiles (the lighter section on the right). Any tile that does not completely cover a 16x16 area should go in there (in your case, it's the tree and house tiles that should go there).

Also, the checkerboard pattern should be replaced with a single color that will be transparent once imported (when you import the tileset, a window will pop up with your image in it. Click on the color you want to be transparent and it will start flashing).
@Ebeth] Thanks a bunch! I would have just scrapped the entire thing and went on pretending I never even trid XD

@Someoneman] Thanks, I thought that's what I did, but I must of mixed the colors up.

SunflowerGames
The most beautiful user on RMN!
13323

@Kylaila

Ace Basics:

Face Set = 384x192 with each face being 96x96.

Sprite Set = 384x256 with each sprite being 32x32.

B,C,D,E Tile Set sheets = 512x512 with each tile being 32x32.
Thanks!
I think it was 16x16 per tile for 2k3 if I'm not mistaken? I think I'd rather stick to lower resolution if possible. But I guess I'll try both.
Ebeth
always up for cute art and spicy gay romance
4390
author=MajoracanKing
@Ebeth] Thanks a bunch! I would have just scrapped the entire thing and went on pretending I never even trid XD

I'm glad I was able to help you save your project from oblivion. If you run into any more issues or have anymore questions feel free to ask!
I just uploaded my first mini-battler pack! Like before, it's licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0, which means you can use it in any commercial or non-commercial games so long as you credit me. I've never made any battlers for RPGMaker before, so if I messed something up, please tell me so I can fix it.
Two characters for the charset done. If I keep at it as furiously I'll actually manage to submit something!