Metal Slug Background (GBA)
mod
I dragged my tablet with me to work today, I knew it was going to be a slow day and it helps to bring things to keep me busy. The tank is from metal slug, and I tried to make the background look like one found in Metal Slug. I was wondering if any one has made GBA games in the past and if so what size are they?
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The screen is made out of 8x8 tiles, which means you can use a tiles system like a kit to put together levels (hence many repeating elements), or you can have an image as long as it is split into an 8x8 grid. Each one of these tiles can only have 8 colours, so you dont have 256 colours per se, but you do have tiles with 16 colours, and you can have 16 palettes.
You can also have layers, and each layer follows the same rules - 8x8 of 16x16 colours.
The sprites follow the same rules, generally sprites are 8x8 but you can have larger ones in multiples of 8x8. However there are only 15 colours, because in these palletes one colour is reserved for transparancy.
I worked on some GBA stuff at Ubisoft, and this is NOT my work, its the work of another artist there who worked on a level for the same project.
http://www.stickywhippet.com/artwork/Misc/GBA01.jpg
http://www.gamespp.com/tutorials/GbaBackgroundTiles.html
Some quick C&P
Depending on video mode, the Gameboy Advance has a number of background layers it can use. But regardless of what mode you're in, they're always split up into 8x8 pixel units called tiles.
And more here:
http://user.chem.tue.nl/jakvijn/tonc/video.htm#colors
It seesm you CAN have a single image of 256 colours, but that takes a load more memory thana well designed tileset.
Mike, wow that is smaller than I thought the one on the right is the correct size but does not follow any of the rules, it is not even cleaned up properly.
I did figure out an interesting way to clean up images instead of going in pixel by pixel. I am pretty sure someone already thought of it but I decided to write a mini tutorial because I haven't seen it brought up before. It can even be made into an action.
pic_01
1) The unclean image. If you are like me then you more than likely don't draw pixel by pixel, and you end up with dirty edges. If this is how you draw, make sure it is on a seperate layer than your background, this is key to making this process work.
pic_02
2)Create two new layers under your dirty image.
- Fill the bottom layer with white.
- Then select your dirty image (hold ctrl & click the dirty image layer, in the layers pallet.
pic_03
3) On the empty layer, fill it with black.
- merge the white and black layers.
- Hide the dirty image layer for now, so you only see the black and white image.
[url="ttp://www.vigville.com/tutorials/pixel_clean_up/04.gif"]pic_04[/url]
4) Then go image/adjustments/brightness,contrast. Crank up the contrast to 100% and play with the brightness setting until you get roughly the shape you want. Generally the higher the brightness, the tighter the clean up.
- Then go select/color range, set the fuzziness to 0 and select white.
- Then delete the white out of the image so only the black remains.
- With the selection still active, unhide the dirty image layer and delete the outer half pixels. This might leave some half opaque pixels inside, which is fine.
pic_05
5) Select and fill the black layer with a color closer to your image if a black outline is not what you are trying for.
- You can also select the black layer and paint inside the selection if you need the background mask to be different colors.
- Merge your dirty image layer with the background mask layer, and you are done
Nice pics Vig, looking great.
About that cleaning technique... You can also ctrl-click the original layer, hit the 'create alpha mask' icon at the bottom of the layer palette and adjust the mask's contrast/curves/levels. That way you have the whole thing in one maskd layer. Or maybe I'm missing something?
Hope that helps!
SouL: you wise @$$
http://www.orbitalmedia.com/juka/index.html go to the media/screenshots section. I do all the level design/creation/art. Loads of shit to do.
You've got a good start....more alternates and more 2.5d is all ya need:)
http://www.glacegame.com I did all the art.
Scott
Scott