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 Erling  |
Hey there. I don't know if anyone from 'the old times' is still around, but I used to be very active in the Creatures community, and I have a couple of breeds out there. I think when I lost interest in the games was around 2008, so I haven't really been doing much content for the games since. I had a lot of projects back then that never got finished. Luckily I'm one of the people that keeps all my files, so I still have everything from back then. I recently found some new interest in the games, and I have now started remaking one of my old breeds, the Porcelain Norns, which was made using the Bloodsong's Basic Norn and Poser. I have now moved to Daz Studio instead, as it's free and the only version I have of Poser is a very old one. I have already rendered some new sprites for the Porcelain Norns, and here comes my questions: Are there any new programs for making custom breeds? I'm mostly interested in creating sprites for now, since the Porcelain Norns already has an agent and genetics. I have used SpriteBuilder to make a test of my new renders, and ingame they show up with some pretty distorted images. So I must be doing something wrong. The question is what?  I save the images as BMP 24 bit, so I don't know what it is that makes them look so weird. I remember that this has happned before, but I have completely forgotten how to fix it. I hope that someone is able to assist me on this. Thanks in advance!  Edit: This is for Creatures 3/Docking Station, if anyone should wonder.  |
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 Malkin Manager  |
Hey Erling! Welcome back! Which graphics editor are you using to save the images? Liam notes that you need to check the option "Flip row order" if you're using Photoshop. My TCR Norns |
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Erling |
Thank you very much! Yeah, I am using Photoshop and have ticked the 'flip row order' option. I'm a little clueless as to posting images here, but I do have a screenshot of my distorted sprites, if that would be of any help. |
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 Prodigal Sock Ghosthande |
Dang, welcome back! I certainly remember your name. The distortions you mentioned wouldn't be green spew, by any chance? Flip row order can help, though occasionally it doesn't, particularly if you're seeing green spew (which is why I asked). You can also try copy-pasting sprites into Paint, then copy-pasting them into SpriteBuilder, and see if that helps... it's not ideal if you do it one frame at a time, but for a whole sprite sheet, it's pretty effective. SpriteBuilder's "Automatic Cut" and "Automatic Uncut to Clipboard" features are a breed spriter's best friends.  |
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Erling |
Ghosthande wrote: Thanks! I'm sorry to say this, but I don't remember you at all, unelss you had another username back then. And yes, that's exactly what I am experiencing with my sprites! I have tried what you suggested, and also what's described in that link, but it's still the same.  And now I remember where I have seen it before. The Pink Alba Norns had the same issue. But I'm gonna keep trying. There has to be a way around it. I remember back when I made my breeds that the cut to clipboard in SpriteBuilder was not really used. I think I didn't understand it back then, but never heard of other people using it either. Would have been nice knowing that, because making breeds without it is a very tedious task, and one of the reasons why I gave up on it. I remember that someone were working on a program that could generate the .att and sprite files by itself. But I guess it was never finished. Anyway, thanks for the effort. I must be doing something wrong, so I'll keep on. |
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Prodigal Sock Ghosthande |
I don't think I was even an active member yet when you were around before, I just know I frequented your site a lot and downloaded several of your breeds. How strange that that didn't fix the problem, though. ![:\](/images/smilies/confused.gif ":\") But I know that green spew can be awfully tenacious sometimes; I've had breeds where I had to re-save the sprites three or four times in order to finally get rid of it. Makes me awfully curious as to what actually causes it... since it doesn't behave like rainbow spew, there must be some other factor at work that we can't see.Here's hoping you get it figured out. |
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Erling |
Ghosthande wrote: Oh.  Sadly my homepage has been taken down, and I don't have access to it anymore.  But I do believe that Emzie still hosts my breeds. If/when I figure all this out, and I get my sprites fixed, I'll try to find a new place to host my breeds. I have several breeds in the planning phase, that all uses the Bloodsong's Basic Norn. The problem is just that I find it way too tedious if I have to add every single sprite one by one, as I used to do. I know that if I have to do that, it won't happen. But I'm gonna try saving the sprites several times, to see if it helps. By saving do you mean from Photoshop, or in SpriteBuilder? |
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Prodigal Sock Ghosthande |
Erling wrote: That's what Automatic Uncut to Clipboard / Automatic Cut is for  It's so much easier than copying individual sprites. Or even using that silly batch import/export feature. I did mean to re-save in SpriteBuilder. This is where the features above really come in handy... because you can very easily copy all the sprites from a "bad" file and paste them in a new one to try again, and it takes only a few seconds to do so for each file. |
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Erling |
Ghosthande wrote: Erling wrote: That's what Automatic Uncut to Clipboard / Automatic Cut is for It's so much easier than copying individual sprites. Or even using that silly batch import/export feature. I did mean to re-save in SpriteBuilder. This is where the features above really come in handy... because you can very easily copy all the sprites from a "bad" file and paste them in a new one to try again, and it takes only a few seconds to do so for each file. What I meant was that if this is caused by the automatic cut/paste thing, then I would have to add them one by one. And that's not something I feel like doing, really. I'll try some more, and hope it will be solved somehow. Again, thank you for the assistance. Edit: I managed to fix it! What I had to do was open SpriteBulider, load a sprite from an official breed, save it, open my own sprite, save it and close SpriteBuilder. Now comes the task of rendering all the images. That is also causing some problems, but that's something I know I can fix. They have a black outline right now, but it's because of how I render them. Another edit: It turns out that the outline is not caused by how they are rendered. For some reason Photoshop seems to be making them. For now I have tried several things, and none of them has worked. Tried saving the renders with a black background already rendered. Didn't fix it. Tried using the magic wand on the sprites when I had put them into the sheet. Didn't fix it either. This is another reason why I stopped making breeds. I remember that I fought this same annoyance 10 years ago, and never found a way to correct it. |
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 GimmeCat |
Can you describe exactly what you did within Photoshop? What was the process? And did you resize the images before saving them at all? I've tackled the dreaded black outline problem before and may have an idea, but it would help if I could see both your raw image, and the resultant sprite with its problematic black pixels. |
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Erling |
GimmeCat wrote: I've rendered the images in Daz Studio using the right size so they won't need to be resized, and saved them as .png with a transparent background. (I have also tried saving as .bmp, but none of it makes a difference it seems). Then I open up a sprite sheet with a black bacground, move the .png sprite onto the sheet, flatten it and saving it as .bmp 24 bit, flipped. As for images, I could show you if only I knew how to post them here. I've tried uing the codes, but it just creates a link to this forum. o.O And thanks in advance. I really felt like I was the only one in the world that had that outline problem. ![[nsurprised]](/images/smilies/emot_surprised.gif "[nsurprised]") |
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GimmeCat |
Ah, that's why then. The transparent edge pixels created by rendering an anti-aliased object as a transparent PNG first means that when you flatten it onto the black background, you end up with very dark pixels surrounding the sprite. Creatures renders any pixels below a certain brightness as pure black, which is what creates the jagged black border around so many user-created sprites. To fix this you will either need to save from Daz to a non-transparent image format with a white or grey matte, so that the anti-aliased edges don't darken so much towards black, or re-edit your sprites in Photoshop and use the Magic Wand with a 0px tolerance to select the black background, invert your selection (ctrl+shift+i) so that the sprite (and all its anti-aliased edges) is selected, and manually brighten the darkest pixels you find around it. There's only one caveat to all this: I don't remember the exact darkness threshhold. Something in my brain says anything below 25% will be affected, but it may be 5% or it may be 50%. It's been a while and I don't remember- sorry! |
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Erling |
GimmeCat wrote: I don't think I understand what you mean by that. By matte, do you mean the background? And thank you for the explanation! |
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GimmeCat |
Yes. |
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Erling |
Oh.. So no matter what, I'm forced to edit every single sprite one by one? |
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GimmeCat |
For best results, yes. Or if there's a way for you to save from Daz without anti-aliasing, you could do that, but the edges will be sharp and jagged. |
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Erling |
GimmeCat wrote: I'll have to look at that. And then we'll have to see what is worse, jagged/sharp edges or black outlines, because I really don't fancy the idea of having to do all the sprites one by one. It is way too time consuming. Again, thank you for the assistance on this. |
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 Allekha |
It might be possible for you to use actions + batch processing in Photoshop, depending on your images. For example, I've had luck in some cases by making sure that there was at least one pixel of black around each side (if that's not always the case, that can be put in the action), then selecting black with the magic wand at tolerance 0, going to select->modify->expand->1px, then filling the selection with black or brightening it. Or getting lucky with a good value of magic wand tolerance and filling with black/brightening. If you can find a process like that which works well for a couple of your images, you can turn it into an action, and then use the File->Automate->Batch options to have Photoshop do all the work for you. Also, I don't know if this was the issue you were having, but if you're having trouble posting images or links because it links back to here, make sure that the url contains the http:// or https:// part; most website will interpret a link without that as a shortcut to another part of the site and so it doesn't work properly if you're trying to link elsewhere. /forum.php?view=12 becomes creaturescaves.com/forum.php?view=12, for example, while google.com without the http:// in front of it becomes creaturescaves.com/google.com, which obviously doesn't exist |
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Erling |
Allekha wrote: Yeah, I used to do that before when I made my old breeds, because I didn't know of the spritesheet pasting in SpriteBuilder. I used it mostly to flip all the files. But I don't remember if I used it for removing backgrounds. Probably not, if you look at the old breeds I made. Some of them has a really nasty outline. >.< And thanks for the info on the images. I tried linking to an image that had no http stuff in the link, so that's probably why it didn't work. |
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Erling |
Just so you can see the sprites, I'm gonna post some images of how they look ingame, and how the sprite looks when I export it from Daz Studio. And ignore the fact that the norn's head is way too big. I'm going to be fixing that. Also the body is still the old sprites. I haven't started rendering the new bodies yet, but I hope I will be able to fix this so I can render the rest. The legs are also pretty messed up, and I hope I can fix that too. Ingame:  The sprite when it has been saved in Daz Studio:  Edit: I have managed to fix it somehow. Or at least reduce the outline:  It's not as visible now as it was before. What I did is something I didn't even know you could do in Photoshop. I had the layer with the sprite (with transparency) selected and went into Layer -> Matting -> Remove White Matte. I only did it one time, so I don't know if it helps doing it more than that. But I think I can live with that, rather than having to do the selection thing on every single sprite. This way I can add all the sprites as layers, merge them and then do the matte thing. Much less work. |
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Prodigal Sock Ghosthande |
Here's how I handle the black halo issue, because I personally prefer sprites that have anti-aliasing: 1. Render and save the sprites in the modeling program. Blender has a batch render/save function which is normally used for saving animation frames, and I would assume other modeling programs have something similar. Make sure there is a solid background behind the sprites, and that it is as close in color to the sprites as possible. (eg. for the Dustdevil Grendels, I used a dark-ish orange; for the Deep Norns, dark teal.) You ideally want a color that blends in with the sprites so that you don't see their edges very clearly. 2. Then render and save a different version of the sprites, in which the sprites themselves are solid white (no shading, no texture) and have no anti-aliasing. In Blender, I turn the "shadeless" setting on, which removes all lighting effects. The background areas for this set should be solid black. These sprites will be your masks for the first set. 3. Assemble two sprite sheets, to import into SpriteBuilder: one with the "good" sprites, the other with the "masks". 4. Copy your good sprite sheet and paste it into Paint. 5. Copy the "mask" sprite sheet. Tell Paint you want white to be transparent. Then paste the "mask" over the other sprite sheet. Because we made the "mask" sprite color transparent, that sheet will act like a stencil that the good sprites will show through. So it will give you a perfect black background and sharp edges with no black "halo" on the sprites, and without sacrificing the smoothness of the sprites themselves. 6. Re-select the entire file so that both sheets are selected, then copy the combined sprite sheet and paste it into SpriteBuilder. Again, I use the "render animation" function in Blender to render the sprites and masks. By making it so that each frame of an animation has a different body part visible at a different angle, I can render all the sprites for a breed in one go... as long as the file is set up correctly, all that needs doing is to click the "render animation" option and wait for it to do all the work. I used to use this same method of masking before I knew how to batch render, but it was more tedious to manually render duplicates of everything. Works like a charm either way, though. |
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Erling |
Now that sounds like a much more effective method than what I'm doing! I will try doing that, and see if it's possible in Daz Studio. I don't know with the whitening of the model. I have never done anything like that, so I'll have to see if it is. I'm very inexperienced in Blender, so unless there is a very simple way of setting the renders up, I think I'm stuck with Daz Studio. But it's okay, because I would like my Porcelain norns to look like they do on the pictures I posted here. And I don't know if Blender renders the same way as Iray does in Daz Studio. Anyway, I'll have to see if I can do this. It sounds like a much easier solution. No matter what, thank you for this. It's very helpful. Even if I'm unable to do it in Daz Studio, there might be a way to do something similar in Photoshop, with the mask thing. |
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