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

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Posts

Ahh yep, the big tree actually has two versions, one that's the same color (you can see a little bit of it at the bottom) and one that's bright blue and has flowers. I'll try making the shadows more dramatic on the thin trees since they're not well defined >_<
author=BurningTyger
what about building on body templates? I have a rarely-used muscular guy template someone made. . . (And do my dates count as an entry?)

...?
If someone answered I couldn't find. I tried to create my own sprites and that ended in the fiery death of 1000's of people.
meh, I made my own template, let's see how this ends.

Also.. does the size of the picture for an enemy matter? (Does it need to be a certain size?)

Since I won't have the wherewithal to run another event until November, I will most likely be extending these to the end of October.
Oh man, only four weeks left to make some more resources. >< Better get my resource making groove going.
Thanks to the event I have no time for this anymore lol ;w;
BurningTyger
Hm i Wonder if i can pul somethi goff here/
1289
author=MajoracanKing
Also.. does the size of the picture for an enemy matter? (Does it need to be a certain size?)
Many of the older makers such as 2k3 had size limits for images: Rm2k: 16-320×16-160;RM2k3 16 to 240x16 to 240. BOth of those must be 256 colors or less. later makers can use items of any size, but you should still keep certain things in mind:
  • RMXP battle screen :640x320 and Sprites <= 40 pixels tall will make it hard to see effects.
    The VXace battle screen is 544x296.
author=yuna21
Oh man, only four weeks left to make some more resources. >< Better get my resource making groove going.
Mr too. but don't panic. have fun!
Pushed back to the first week of November, to (hopefully) generate more submissions and since I wasn't going to be running the next stage of the MOG event until November anyway.
pianotm
The TM is for Totally Magical.
32347
I don't think I'll be able to complete this event. My machine that I do this work on wasn't working for awhile, my laptop is too cumbersome to do this work and getting my main machine up 15 days before the event end turns out to just not be enough...I've got some things done, though, if a partial submission is worth anything. I'm a musician and I haven't even started anything on the music side, and now I'm into the Revive the Dead event. No chance.

Edit: First week of November? Well, I might be able to do something with that, and I might even be able to put a few midis together on the music side of the event.
author=kentona
Pushed back to the first week of November, to (hopefully) generate more submissions and since I wasn't going to be running the next stage of the MOG event until November anyway.


This coincides with my recent decision on RPG20XX, I will participate.
I wanted to make some enemy sprites for VX Ace, but I am absolutely atrocious at understanding shading and pretty bad at drawing in general, so for the last two days I decided to start with something simple while still creating some challenge for myself by making a small 'Retro Pack' limited to the NES palette and general sprite color limitations. I also decided that sticking to smaller canvases would be a good place to start, so even the biggest enemy of the lot initially fit inside a 40x40 pixel canvas and I simply resized them for VX Ace (Pyxel Edit is a wonderful program and made this extremely easy to do without any undesired effects).

A lot of the enemies in this pack have both a standard and a 'Classic' version and (in most cases) this just means that the Classic version has absolutely no black in the actual sprite because it's intended to be used with a pure black background to fill in the gaps like in many actual NES games. I also wanted to try to go with a 'modern setting' feel and a 'cute but weird/gross' look for the enemies in part because I simply really like that setting and style and in part because I've been very nostalgic for the Mother series lately.

At any rate, enough rambling, here's some pictures of the enemies in this "Retro Battler Pack":


This is Mr Happy (left) and Mr Them (right) and I think of them as the two big boss characters of the pack; Mr Happy may or may not be very happy depending on how you look at things.


Here are the Droplet enemies, the mandatory slimes of the pack. From left to right they are Rat Droplet, two slightly different versions of Sand Droplet, and Gum Droplet.


The Barricade Demon was the first one I made and is the only enemy with a color swap for its Classic version since all the black parts on the normal version would simply blend into the background otherwise; I think of it as a miniboss.


The upper enemy here is a Window Fang while the bottom left enemy is a Perfect Pawn with two fairly different takes on its Broken Pawn form to the right of it.


Finally, in the center there is the three-headed miniboss (boss? strong enemy?) Tickerus and to either side of it are the normal and Classic versions of the Ticker enemy to more clearly show the differences between the two. There's also a Wall Flower hanging out on the cave wall in the background; the three flowers in the center serve as eyes and a mouth, but I wanted it to be ambiguous as to which is which.


So, that's all the stuff I've made so far. There are 12 enemies total in the pack (21 total if you include Classics and Alternates) and they are far from the best things submitted to this event, but I'm actually really happy with how they turned out overall just because I normally get frustrated when trying to draw something and these turned out to at least be tolerable enough that I wouldn't mind using them in an actual game.

Lastly, I've already included a Read Me with licensing details in the pack, but if anyone for some reason actually wants to use these (both non-commercially and commercially) or otherwise modify or distribute them you are free to do so as long as you (to quote the license) "give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made".
BurningTyger
Hm i Wonder if i can pul somethi goff here/
1289
author=Seeric
I wanted to make some enemy sprites for VX Ace, but I am absolutely atrocious at understanding shading and pretty bad at drawing in general, so for the last two days I decided to start with something simple while still creating some challenge for myself by making a small 'Retro Pack' limited to the NES palette and general sprite color limitations. I also decided that sticking to smaller canvases would be a good place to start, so even the biggest enemy of the lot initially fit inside a 40x40 pixel canvas and I simply resized them for VX Ace (Pyxel Edit is a wonderful program and made this extremely easy to do without any undesired effects).

A lot of the enemies in this pack have both a standard and a 'Classic' version and (in most cases) this just means that the Classic version has absolutely no black in the actual sprite because it's intended to be used with a pure black background to fill in the gaps like in many actual NES games. I also wanted to try to go with a 'modern setting' feel and a 'cute but weird/gross' look for the enemies in part because I simply really like that setting and style and in part because I've been very nostalgic for the Mother series lately.

At any rate, enough rambling, here's some pictures of the enemies in this "Retro Battler Pack":


This is Mr Happy (left) and Mr Them (right) and I think of them as the two big boss characters of the pack; Mr Happy may or may not be very happy depending on how you look at things.


Here are the Droplet enemies, the mandatory slimes of the pack. From left to right they are Rat Droplet, two slightly different versions of Sand Droplet, and Gum Droplet.


The Barricade Demon was the first one I made and is the only enemy with a color swap for its Classic version since all the black parts on the normal version would simply blend into the background otherwise; I think of it as a miniboss.


The upper enemy here is a Window Fang while the bottom left enemy is a Perfect Pawn with two fairly different takes on its Broken Pawn form to the right of it.


Finally, in the center there is the three-headed miniboss (boss? strong enemy?) Tickerus and to either side of it are the normal and Classic versions of the Ticker enemy to more clearly show the differences between the two. There's also a Wall Flower hanging out on the cave wall in the background; the three flowers in the center serve as eyes and a mouth, but I wanted it to be ambiguous as to which is which.


So, that's all the stuff I've made so far. There are 12 enemies total in the pack (21 total if you include Classics and Alternates) and they are far from the best things submitted to this event, but I'm actually really happy with how they turned out overall just because I normally get frustrated when trying to draw something and these turned out to at least be tolerable enough that I wouldn't mind using them in an actual game.

Lastly, I've already included a Read Me with licensing details in the pack, but if anyone for some reason actually wants to use these (both non-commercially and commercially) or otherwise modify or distribute them you are free to do so as long as you (to quote the license) "give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made".
These look fun
Seeric> The battlers clash too much with everything else. The battle background, the window, and such. Maybe you can also make battle backgrounds to go with your battlers?
author=karins_soulkeeper
Seeric> The battlers clash too much with everything else. The battle background, the window, and such. Maybe you can also make battle backgrounds to go with your battlers?


I generally made them with a black (or otherwise single colored) background in mind and they definitely clash horribly with the standard backgrounds and UI windows. I'd like to make a decent background and/or UI to better match them, but I strongly suspect that I'd just delete the end result of such an attempt.
If you're doing retro graphics where you only use three colors per 8x8 cell (plus background), you should pattern-dither-shade the graphics. That makes it more authentic. Artists used to pattern-dither-shade things to take advantage of how blurry CRTs were, it would result in a new color. The SUNSOFT Batman NES game is one of the best examples of using almost no color variation to produce lots of shapes and color variation.

And yes, just have a black screen with the graphics on it. The RTP backgrounds and system clashing with the retro graphics make everything leap straight into your eyes and have a deathmatch.

Consider posting your graphics with a scanline CRT post-filter too.
I decided to try making a simplistic Window Skin last night to better fit with the look of 'older' graphics, though I'm not at all sure if I did it correctly even after looking at several tutorials and help files (I tested it out and it seemed functional, but I likely missed something) so if anyone sees anything wrong with its structure I'd really appreciate some feedback:


I wanted to go for a 'window within a window' look to keep it from being completely bland, but I think I probably overdid it.

I also took a screenshot of it being used in combat and used the opportunity to more clearly explain a bit of a problem I have with my sprites (there's quite a bit of text hidden here):




I decided to use this screenshot to illustrate a size issue I've been having when it comes to detail. In this example, the sprite on the far left is the way Mr Them looks in VX Ace, the sprite to the right of that is what happens when I apply a common 2-row dithering pattern, and the stack of three smaller sprites to the right of that is the actual size I'm working with before using Pyxel Edit to convert it into a PNG file 3-10x the original size (in this case I felt like 7x was the best size).

Mr Them is one of the larger enemy sprites I made and still fits into a 32x32 pixel frame and is actually very slightly smaller in size than the standard Final Fantasy 1 imp to his right and significantly smaller than the 'resized for VX Ace' version of my smallest enemy, the Gum Droplet to the right (and the original size in the bottom-right corner is significantly smaller than this).

Basically, all of this is to say that I'm not really sure of how to go about adding additional detail to these sprites since even a basic dithering effect applied to the original sprite ends up just looking like the checkerboard pattern that it is on the larger versions rather than giving the illusion of additional color variety.

So, should I try to add details like dithering after increasing the size, should I just work with a larger canvas size to begin with (though I am terrible at shading around imagined light sources), or should I try something else entirely or a combination of things when it comes to adding detail?

Also, somewhat off-topic, but I don't really want to apply filters as a solution to detail, in part because it feels like it contributes even more to the inevitable paradox of adding more layers of artificiality in order to achieve perceived authenticity and in large part because I personally just don't like how a lot of 'retro filters' I've seen in games look as I feel like they often go too far (ex: I played plenty of games on CRT TV's, but I inevitably end up completely turning off or minimizing scanline and 'screen bending' effects whenever I can in games like Another Star and You Have to Win the Game).



Doing some pixel based parallaxes for VXAce to go with the rest of my pixel resources.
BurningTyger
Hm i Wonder if i can pul somethi goff here/
1289
author=yuna21


Doing some pixel based parallaxes for VXAce to go with the rest of my pixel resources.
That is amazing
Took me around three days to do. ;_;
Sailerius
did someone say angels
3214
Beautiful!