Is there a specific color palette for Pixel Art in game?

[Pubbles]

I've been fooling around with some of the NPC ideas needed on the To Do List, and it just dawned on me...

If the colors I'm using (custom, because MS Paint has a horribly inadequate color palette) will even work in the game... it would be silly to work out an NPC that can't translate into the game itself...

So, if there IS a specific color palette in use for the game, could I get a copy of it, in png format of course, to copy and thus use proper PU colors?

Thanks!!!!!

PS: I'm not very good at this, but I think I'm getting better, I hope that with each tiny project I play with that I get better, and eventually produce something worth your time to look at and such!

[Jerry]

I probably don't have that kind of information, but my guess would be that any colour (i.e. from #000000 to #FFFFFF which is 16*6 colours) would be okay.

[Pubbles]

I think that encompasses all the possibilities in MS Paint, but I'm not sure. I'll pull up a HTML color chart and copy/paste it into Paint so I can have it on hand if that turns out to be correct!

Thanks Jerry, always trying to answer questions and help! =)

[Jerry]

Hey, there's GIMP which you could try. You have the full range of colours, you can create your custom palettes, get transparent pixels, make custom grids and zoom in and out with much more flexibility. Best of all, it's open source =P

[Pubbles]

Hey, there's GIMP which you could try. You have the full range of colours, you can create your custom palettes, get transparent pixels, make custom grids and zoom in and out with much more flexibility. Best of all, it's open source =P

Yes, I've used GIMP before - I made my profile picture with it, from a rather horrible .bmp file I found somewhere. However, that was on my old laptop, and I downloaded it recently to the new laptop, but something went wrong with another program so I had to reset to a previous date.

Although I haven't learned much about the program, I am also not sure I'd be able to learn the complicated program very well.

I have used Paint for ages though, so I'm pretty decent with it. I'd like to know GIMP better, but I really don't have the time.

[Jerry]

I wouldn't say it's complicated for pixel art

Here's a screenshot: http://p1cture.it/images/67fc62aadf45e704d1b4.png

I pick the pencil tool, set the size/scale to 0.1.
I pick the colours from the side pane on the bottom right (this is a dockable dialog through Windows>Dockable Dialogs I think)
Then, Ctrl+RollUp (with mouse) to zoom in.

I can use the palette editor, I can create one, I can also apply grids through Preferences. The two latter ones are not as straightforward, but once you know how to do them, it makes things much much easier. In any case, you can do pixel art without those.

[Pubbles]

Oh, I agree, it's not difficult for Pixel Art, but with all the bells and whistles, it looks crazy complicated.

I did like it when I'd used it before, I'll look into it again soon, but for now I'll play around with Paint, it suits Pixel Art pretty well.

[Jerry]

Okay, if it suits you

[Yume Tsuki]

I've worked with a sprite insterting program before, and with it I had a program that converted the image to have a limit of 16 colours, had to do that to make sure the program picked up my colours properly. It didn't matter which colours, because it's just a single sprite. Same goes for tiles, and my guess is that the parperdoll system will have seperate sprites for the clothes.

[Pubbles]

I've worked with a sprite insterting program before, and with it I had a program that converted the image to have a limit of 16 colours, had to do that to make sure the program picked up my colours properly. It didn't matter which colours, because it's just a single sprite. Same goes for tiles, and my guess is that the parperdoll system will have seperate sprites for the clothes.

True, that would make the most sense. I will be sure to keep anything I attempt limited to 16 colors, that shouldn't be overly difficult, as I'm not attempting anything nearly as detailed as the competitions that have been going on... But so far, all I've really had trouble with is the hair.

For some reason, I can't seem to get any hair done at all, it all looks horrible to me! =(

Since I am only toying with NPC sprites on the To Do List, I'm not sure if things like hair-styles will be transferable from the Player Sprite options.

Thanks for the answer!

[Bryan]

This week I'll set up a little thread showing the paperdoll slots (Head/Mask, Chest, Leggings/Shoes, ETC.) Also with a small tutorial explaining how to choose a palette for what you are doing. The only thing I ask, is that the paperdoll have a black outline around it's body. This allows for the character and NPC to show up much better on the tileset.

[Yume Tsuki]

I've worked with a sprite insterting program before, and with it I had a program that converted the image to have a limit of 16 colours, had to do that to make sure the program picked up my colours properly. It didn't matter which colours, because it's just a single sprite. Same goes for tiles, and my guess is that the parperdoll system will have seperate sprites for the clothes.

True, that would make the most sense. I will be sure to keep anything I attempt limited to 16 colors, that shouldn't be overly difficult, as I'm not attempting anything nearly as detailed as the competitions that have been going on... But so far, all I've really had trouble with is the hair.

For some reason, I can't seem to get any hair done at all, it all looks horrible to me! =(

Since I am only toying with NPC sprites on the To Do List, I'm not sure if things like hair-styles will be transferable from the Player Sprite options.

Thanks for the answer!

Could you show me some examples by PM? I might be able to help. =)

[Pubbles]

This week I'll set up a little thread showing the paperdoll slots (Head/Mask, Chest, Leggings/Shoes, ETC.) Also with a small tutorial explaining how to choose a palette for what you are doing. The only thing I ask, is that the paperdoll have a black outline around it's buddy. This allows for the character and NPC to show up much better on the tileset.

I thought there was something similar posted around the time of the first Paperdoll competition, showing the different slots that would be available, etc..

I searched for it using the search bar and also glancing through Mr Dark's last few months of posts, because I thought it was him who posted it, but I might be wrong about who posted it... It wasn't anything I bookmarked, so I can't find it easier than that.

However, I know I saw something similar to what you're talking about - maybe not the same thing, and perhaps not even something for this game/implemented, but meant just for an explanation? No big deal though.

Could you show me some examples by PM? I might be able to help. =)

When I say horrible, I meant "so silly or bad that I just held Ctrl+Z until it all disappeared" =p So I don't have anything to show you, hair-wise. I can send you a concept I worked on, but I'd rather wait until it's closer to being finished. It's a "Body-building-beach-bum" (say that 5 times fast!) and so far I have the arms buffed up and the chest/abs defined as much as I could. This also meant I increased the overall size (width and height) of the torso for the sprite (Only the torso, and arms, I have left the legs alone so far, I may extend them one pixel or so (shifting up, of course) to possibly gain a little more room for "muscles" I think the shading on the body so far is pretty good, using the base-paperdoll's flesh colors.

I didn't change the face either. So far all I've done (this is in severely unusual free time) is the torso, arms and the swim-trunks.. And I'm not sure I like the swim-trunks.

Anyhow, I'll let you know when I get a little farther in overall progress on it!

=)

[Pubbles]

Could you show me some examples by PM? I might be able to help. =)

I tried to PM you, but it won't let me for some reason! =P

So here is what I wrote to PM you:

I haven't spent much time working on the lower half, I filled in the "underwear" of the original base sprite, with a bright color scheme, then spent most of my time on the arms, torso and head. I added a hat, mostly because I couldn't think of a way to do the hair right - and then decided to add some straggly hair, perhaps dread-locks? Anyhow, I actually kinda like it.

[Yume Tsuki]

That looks pretty good actually. The cap from the hat is just a little bit too small, and there are some outlines missing between the arms and the torso.