Sprite Editors and 2d Engines

Sandbag

Hey, I was wondering if anyone here knew of any good graphics programs tailored to making sprites. I've been looking at the "Beats of Rage" engine ( http://www.senileteam.com/borinfo.php ) and it got me thinking about making a small game with it.

Does anyone have any experience with it? It seems like it will get the job done with minimal coding, which is good, the less coding I have to do the better, but I'm not as keen on the palette and other restrictions. Does anyone know of any other free/open source 2d engines?

Shanira

Personally I use Paint Shop Pro 5. Some people actually use Photoshop for sprite editing but I find it frustrating and wholly inconvenient and inadequate for that purpose, but whatever floats your boat.

If you want a place where pixel artists hang out, you can go to the so manieth Pixelation replacement. I haven't gone there for a long time, but it seemed to have absorbed most of the former Pixelation members, who were pretty good at C&C and had quite some talent. You could also try #pixelation on irc.sorcery.net for more realtime feedback.

Personally I wouldn't touch a palletized engine in this day and age, unless you wanted to do palette tricks. Even that can be handled in 16 or 24 bit color, though I can't recommend any engines; I write my own. On the other hand if you have access to a solid general palette and you're adept at keeping your sprites on a limited palette and limited colors (16 colors including transparancy is the norm) you might not mind it so much. I still wouldn't though.

Snowfly

GraphicsGale

HumbleEgo

We use Pro Motion here. Works great. Only a few bugs.

Sandbag

Thanks for the input, I'll have to look into both programs. The pixel forum should be very helpfull as well.

Shanira - since you're a coder, could you give me any input on how much work it might take to convert the engine to use a limitless palette? Since the engine is open source I might be able to add it myself if I could find a tutorial or something.

I'd like to go with a 3d engine, but that definately rules out my ability to do any of the coding, plus there's just something about the way a fully 2d game looks that really attracts me to it.

Shanira

Can't really say without knowing the engine. It could be as simple as simply changing the screen mode initialization from 8 to 16, 24 or 32 bpps. This would probably work if it were using DirectDraw or some other DiredtX module for graphics. Of course, this would break any palette tricks instantly.

On the other hand some graphics APIs can force the memory surfaces to be other than the current display mode, as in palettized images in 16bpp for instance, and then convert back and forth for blit operations. If the engine is done like that, then it'd be quite an extensive operation to change it.

So the answer is a definite "I dunno". Personally I'd look for a different engine that better suits your needs, barring that you could look into picking up coding. Certain languages like Python make it very easy and you could use something like PyGame for graphics, sound and input.

Mind you, working on a general palette isn't that horrible and quite frankly it's good practice if you're not a very accomplished pixel artist already. You might consider just using the palettized engine.

Kevin Albers

You might check out GarageGames Torque 2d Engine. It's super cheap, easy to use, and doesn't require palettes.

Slum

I'd like to suggest GameMaker for 2d games. It may seem limited, but given the right amount of knowledge you can do some amazing things with it. The coding is nothing beyond standard scripting. All the hardcore engine stuff is taken care of already. It has a pretty powerful particle sytems, really easy interface. The only major problem is once you get more into the advanced aspects of the system, it's hard to find much help or support. A friend and I are working on quite an ambitious project, so I can say it's definitely a nice package. And at 15 bucks for the full registration, it's a steal!

As for art stuffs, I just checked out ProMotion last night. Very very sweet. Moving from a Flash environment to ProMotion is really smooth. Customizable hotkeys is a nice feature.

I'll be checking out GraphicsGale when I get home from work today. It looks promising, and quite a bit cheaper than ProMotion.

CrazyButcher

you could use our engine luxinia (see link in sig) as well, it's scripted with lua. and you could use just textured billboards for the sprites. one can turn of opengl's texture filtering as well, to get the unfiltered sharp look of sprite graphics.
we also have an option to have physics locked to 2d (there is a sample in the package)
if you do it just for fun, there is no costs either...
although we dont have a pure sprite game sample yet, it surely can be done, and you can always ask us on forums or via icq if you run into troubles. we are also still heavily developing it, so any feedback for improvements will hit open ears

Snowfly

Shanira, also have a look at Game Editor. It's trickier to use than Game Maker but runs faster, and compiles to Pocket PC.

Sandbag

wow, thanks for all the info guys.

I'd love do use something like the Torque2d engine but I'm just a poor student, and I cant really justify spending a couple hundred bucks for a little side project to have fun with. Unless I went 3d with the game it probably wont do me a lot of good when I graduate either, so it's just for fun.

I'd be more tempted to go 3d if I was better at modeling and unwrapping, but I see 2d as a much faster and more attainable goal since I'm really more at home in a 2d environment (I'm an illustration student)...Plus like I said before 3d seems to bring a lot of extra elements that'd be smarter to do with a few people (at least), instead of alone.

I need to look into that GameMaker engine some more, but from what I've seen it definately looks interesting.

Crazybutcher - your engine looks very interesting...yet another temptation to go 3d! Maybe that should tell me something, heh.

CrazyButcher

I just stumbled upon
http://gamedev.sourceforge.net/

which looks pretty useable for your purpose as well...

honestly I think you could stick to 2D if you feel more comfy and are good with painting, why not ? I still enjoy those mame-games and some are really best art. One doesnt always have to go full 3d...