Trouble with Sprite-Swapping (it looked good UNTIL...)

[Zozma]

i just wish they had made all the sprite files the same size....

[Saigas]

As my father says, "Wish in one hand, sh** in the other and see which one fills up first." Unfortunate but true.

Well, Spiky seems to work well in the Malak sprite.  And I realized there is a severe lack of custom female sprites of Type 2. A buttload of Type 1, but Type 2 is lacking, it seems.

Of course that is nixing the Misty and Jenna sprites, on account of they're already being used by lastingdawn as Alicia and Lavian substitutes.

[Zozma]

lust is a type 2 but im planning to do some major reconstruction on her now that shishi is so advanced.

[Saigas]

Sounds good.  Speaking of spriting and customizing, would there be any way that someone could make a beginner's guide to that sort of stuff?  I'm rubbish at it right now, cuz I don't know how to modify the sprite pallette, and I don't necessarily know exactly what's involved.  Plus, no Photoshop for me, cuz I don't own it.

[Zozma]

theres a topic "custom sprite making/inserting how to"
also there is a tutorial on the main page of the site.

[Saigas]

Ah, must've missed that somehow.  Thanks a bunch.

[Saigas]

Sorry bout the double post, but the topic "custom sprite-making/inserting how to" doesn't actually give any advice on how to make new sprites or tips on how to go about changing the palettes.  Also, there is no tutorial for sprite-making and palette-customizing on the main page, at least not that I could find.

Any other advice anyone can give me?

[Vanya]

Palette edits depend on the drawing program you're using. Pick one and then we can get to more specifics.

[Saigas]

Well, I downloaded SNESPal and GIMP, and MSPaint comes standard.  That's pretty much it on the drawing and graphics front, though.

[Zozma]

mspaint = good for all your major reconstruction on sprites

gimp = good for arranging color palettes, eh thats what i use it for

snespal = good for directly opening .spr files and changing colors one at a time....

[Vanya]

I use shishi for extraction of bitmaps and checking for errors.

I do everything else in NeoPaint.
*NeoPaint isn't free, but I'm a pirate anyway!*

[Saigas]

Okay, so here's the rub.  If I use MSPaint to edit a sprite, how do I go about making sure that it is still within the color limit?  Are there any specific steps to follow?

[Zozma]

i use a program to limit color to 16
then i open any old sprite (say a male squire, and change his color palette to match those 16 colors. (i use snespal directly on the .spr file but you could also use something like gimp after extracting the "squire" into a bmp)

export the new squire as a bmp and copy/paste my new sprite onto it and save.

import that file into shishi and there ya go...

i've never actually used a bmp that wasn't extracted from another spr file
since the palette setup is already in place.

[Vanya]

In NeoPaint, it displays the 256 color palette used in the file, but I can set it to shrink it down to a 16 color palette. this will automatically restrict it to the first 16 colors. Also, for portrait work, NeoPaint has a built-in palette editor. I just wish I could open the effect files in it.

[Saigas]

Alright, so I opened up SNESPal to see what it can do, and what I can work with.

...And the entire thing confused the hell out of me.

There are so many colors, how am I supposed to know which are the right ones to edit?  

[Vanya]

You'd have to know the values of the colors you want to edit. I think it's easier to use a bitmap editor, though. SNESpal is pretty much only good for editing things you can't open in a graphics program. IMO.

[Saigas]

So what would be the best to use in this case?  Nixing those programs that I can't find a bootleg for, or just can't afford strait up.

[Vanya]

I'd say use NeoPaint.

[Saigas]

And how would I go about getting NeoPaint?

[Vanya]

Check your PM.