Yeah I don't like the format for the "special attack" being "run" either. It doesn't make any logical sense. Run should be a separate action. If you REALLY want consistency, what you should do is set run as a separate action, and for other assets you use, simply insert the walk animation for a missing run animation. Alternatively, if you keep them in separate files as BenCreating suggests, you can just check if a run file exists, and if it doesn't, only use walk.
I didn't catch it, but yeah, the walk animation is actually only 4 frames, not 5. Its 1 stand frame and 4 walk frames. 4 frames is actually pretty standard from what I have seen, I think classic RPG Maker uses 4 walk frames as well.
If anything, I think "howling" makes more sense as a "special attack". But that's up to you. I could see a magic wolf enemy use a howl for a spellcast of sorts (or for a special action; wolves in RPG's often use howling for a support buff), otherwise it could just be a taunt.
Yeah that's basically my thought. And there's no realistic solution to that problem. Because there's no way to make a "base" you can build off of, you need to create a lot more stuff from scratch to create a variety of unique enemies.
Sure, you can create new Wolf variations, but its hard to make something brand new out of that. Maybe something like a Cerberus or Hellhound could be a wolf variant, though. So there are ways to make some potential varieties from existing assets, but you can't make a slime from a wolf. Or a proper minotaur. (Best bet for a Minotaur right now is using the Minotaur head on character sprites.)
Using character sprites for Goblins and Orcs helps to reduce the requirements a bit, but then they're a lot smaller than a common "enemy" sprite you might see in other games. Creating a larger one effectively requires you to, again, redraw it from scratch.
And that's not even delving into big ones like dragons or other such things.
Not really necessary for the most part, but it could be a simple bob.
- Taking Damage
Hard to say. Taking damage might be useful, but it can be reflected with a red overlay or something like that as well. We don't necessarily need a "I took a hit" animation.
- Death/defeat
Similarly, not really necessary for enemies. Typically enemies just "fade away" when being defeated. This is not necessary and completedly optional.
- Basic Attack
- Spellcasting Special Attack
At least Basic Attack is obvious. A special attack isn't really all that necessary.
- Optional Auxiliry Action (just a slot for an additional attack or atypical feature. many monsters won't use this slot but it's available if needed)
I'd argue this would be the "Special Attack". Not sure what else would fit this category.
4-directional attacks would be nice, but isn't necessary.
I think overall, people just haven't been as interested in making enemies. Personally its the same for me. I haven't even theorized much on how much non-human enemies I would want anyway, but it is something I need to explore more.
Its kinda hard to set a standard with an open format. The best thing to do is to probably commission a few extra things. See if anyone is interested in taking commissions for LPC style enemies and making them larger.
There is no clear information on this at this time. Like I said above, I still subscribe to the belief that this is pattern-recognition algorithm, not derivative assets. Once the courts settle this matter, that is presumably what OGA will follow, whether its pro-AI art or against.
In terms of simple things like rotations, though, that's pretty clear. If its your work and your alterring it, well, there's no real problem there. Using AI to "enhance" an image by making it larger is probably pretty safe. Same with rotations. Rotations I have noticed can be really tricky with programs like aseprite. For me this is one of my biggest issues; rotating an asset to get a different angle of a sword, for example, and keep the same aesthetic, is quite annoying. Same thing goes for trying to get animations out, like having hair flowing behind a character. This is really tricky to deal with properly so I have been hesitant to push into this.
I have dabbled in AI a bit, but I am hesitant to use it for spriting yet at this time. Mostly I use it for references and concept art.
"And, even if it is, does it offend your sensibilities as an artist."
For most artists this is always going to be "no". It is artists who are primarily concerned about this, after all.
However, the line must be drawn somewhere. If you are concerned with offending artists, then you should never, ever, ever use AI art. There's literally nothing you can do that won't offend artists by using AI art at this point in time. If AI art becomes more acceptable in the future, such tensions will likely lessen, but many will still find offense that AI art is used in any way. Frankly, though, this is not the best question to be asking.
The biggest problem with this debate in general is honestly pretty simple--a lot of artists want to make money off of their art. The problem, however, is that art just isn't very profitable. It never has been, and its only gotten worse over time. And its not because of AI generation--its because there's too many artists out there flooding the market. The best artists will still be able to make good money, but lower-end artists are going to constantly find themselves competing with one another. AI art is not good enough to replace good artists, but it can replace "bad" art, which is the main thing it does. Otherwise, AI is primarily a tool than can enhance art-related projects.
Keep in mind, there's puritan artists out there who hate anything to do with digital art. I believe that used to be a big debate as well in the past--digital art isn't "authentic" art. Those comments aren't common anymore, but they used to be.
I haven't been commenting on these threads, but my take is basically this:
IDK if it would be considered "fair use" or not, but I still don't think it qualifies as copyright infringement. Its basically like an artist looking up a reference and using that to create something inspired by it. It would only infringe on the copyright if the asset is too similar to the original asset. I know the argument is "they're taking existing art, editing it, and mixing it with other things", but I don't think that's actually what's happening, nor did the existing court cases that came out make that argument.
The courts basically said AI art "prompts" are like making a commission from an artist. Its the artist's interpretation of what information you give them, and by default, the artist in question owns the copyright. However, only humans can own copyrights. For AI generated art, the "artist" in this case is the algorithm, not a person. As such, AI generated art without much human input cannot be copyrighted.
By starting with the assumption that this is like a commissioned work, they're already somewhat setting the narrative of where their thinking lies here.
Even though that is my stance on AI art, we will see how the courts decide this, and I do have one more comment...
I have no sympathy for any companies claiming "yeah we're not using copyrighted assets" and they actually are. That is blatantly lying and is a potential criminal offense. In such a case they'd be better off not saying anything than outright lying about it.
Oh, one other thing:
"evolving" an image I think _would_ qualify as being derivative. Because you're using that image as the starting point. The algorithms are created by scanning existing art and putting that into the algorithm, but its starting from scratch normally. It starts with a blank canvas and simply follows the algorithm. Evolving art, however, starts from an existing artwork and applies the algorithm over it. That is a much different situation.
I just noticed this now. I was a bit concerned by the layout, I thought you were providing the downloads without simply linking back to the sources. But no, this looks good. You're describing each item, saying who makes it, and the download links actually go to the pages where the extensions are. That's fine, though I do think maybe the Download link should say "Go To Website" instead.
Finally released this. I finished all LPC Revised assets. Eliza's LPC Revised doesn't have the legacy Cast, Thrust, Shoot, or Down, and Legacy Slash on LPC Revised is outdated. On top of that, some assets were missing from Eliza's combat animations, so I had to finish all of these things to get them up.
For now, the clothing assets are not mapped to the "Male" animations yet. LPC Revised only has "Masculine, Thin" and "Feminine, Thin" which are equivalent to "Teen" and "Female" respectively. As such, although "Teen" and "Female" have clothing assets on idle/run/jump/revised combat/sit, the "Male" assets with the thicker body do not at this time. The exception is Overalls; bluecarrot already did Overalls, so I just finished those assets as well. In theory I can use the Overalls to finish the pants assets, but I want to move onto other things for now. Eventually I will do them, though.
I haven't updated this in a while, but after a couple months of not doing much I finally came back to working on finishing this up. My intent is to finish off the LPC Revised conversions before I do the big release I had planned.
Out of all the LPC Revised assets, everything has been implemented except the following:
Overalls
All Pants/Legs Assets
Socks / Shoes / Boots
Cardigan (I want to adjust the sleeves to fit the sleeve pattern on the default Cardigan)
Wings on Combat Frames (all other wing frames are done)
Arming Sword
The only reason I haven't finished Cardigan yet is because the sleeves have a "cuff" pattern on them. The sleeves for the regular shirts (which I already finished) are pretty generic, so I was able to easily just map all layers over the sleeves and past them over all styles.
I just finished up the Heater Shield, along with _all_ patterns, including the patterns that previously were unfinished. That PR hasn't been merged yet, so those assets aren't yet available on the ULPC.
I'm planning to finish the Combat frames for the wings next. All other frames are mapped, its only the combat animations I have yet to finish at this time. I'm hoping to finish this stuff up within the next month or so, after which point I'll drop a full relaese on OGA for all this.
I could drop in some lesser assets as separate releases, but I feel like I really do want to do this whole thing first. It just makes sense because a big part of this is Eliza's combat animations. And my intent is that as more base frames get added, eventually those get added to the ULPC as well. It is, well, the "universal" LPC spritesheet generator after all, so it makes sense to truly make it universal.
By request (and with some help from Sanderfranken) the generator also now has an animation filter. You can filter assets by which assets support specific animations.
That being said, I'm also looking into other areas as well. Been heavily considering delving into FE GBA style sprites, too, which obviously cannot be released here (unless they're fully custom, of which I don't have much experience with that yet). So that might hold me back from doing stuff on OGA. But I want to go back and forth so I don't burn out on just one thing.
Yeah I don't like the format for the "special attack" being "run" either. It doesn't make any logical sense. Run should be a separate action. If you REALLY want consistency, what you should do is set run as a separate action, and for other assets you use, simply insert the walk animation for a missing run animation. Alternatively, if you keep them in separate files as BenCreating suggests, you can just check if a run file exists, and if it doesn't, only use walk.
I didn't catch it, but yeah, the walk animation is actually only 4 frames, not 5. Its 1 stand frame and 4 walk frames. 4 frames is actually pretty standard from what I have seen, I think classic RPG Maker uses 4 walk frames as well.
If anything, I think "howling" makes more sense as a "special attack". But that's up to you. I could see a magic wolf enemy use a howl for a spellcast of sorts (or for a special action; wolves in RPG's often use howling for a support buff), otherwise it could just be a taunt.
Yeah that's basically my thought. And there's no realistic solution to that problem. Because there's no way to make a "base" you can build off of, you need to create a lot more stuff from scratch to create a variety of unique enemies.
Sure, you can create new Wolf variations, but its hard to make something brand new out of that. Maybe something like a Cerberus or Hellhound could be a wolf variant, though. So there are ways to make some potential varieties from existing assets, but you can't make a slime from a wolf. Or a proper minotaur. (Best bet for a Minotaur right now is using the Minotaur head on character sprites.)
Using character sprites for Goblins and Orcs helps to reduce the requirements a bit, but then they're a lot smaller than a common "enemy" sprite you might see in other games. Creating a larger one effectively requires you to, again, redraw it from scratch.
And that's not even delving into big ones like dragons or other such things.
Bookmarking. Could be neat to add in support for the new animation frames as well.
In terms of Animations:
- Moving
Obviously this is pretty standard.
- Idle
Not really necessary for the most part, but it could be a simple bob.
- Taking Damage
Hard to say. Taking damage might be useful, but it can be reflected with a red overlay or something like that as well. We don't necessarily need a "I took a hit" animation.
- Death/defeat
Similarly, not really necessary for enemies. Typically enemies just "fade away" when being defeated. This is not necessary and completedly optional.
- Basic Attack
- Spellcasting Special Attack
At least Basic Attack is obvious. A special attack isn't really all that necessary.
- Optional Auxiliry Action (just a slot for an additional attack or atypical feature. many monsters won't use this slot but it's available if needed)
I'd argue this would be the "Special Attack". Not sure what else would fit this category.
4-directional attacks would be nice, but isn't necessary.
I think overall, people just haven't been as interested in making enemies. Personally its the same for me. I haven't even theorized much on how much non-human enemies I would want anyway, but it is something I need to explore more.
Its kinda hard to set a standard with an open format. The best thing to do is to probably commission a few extra things. See if anyone is interested in taking commissions for LPC style enemies and making them larger.
"Is this fair and lawful?"
There is no clear information on this at this time. Like I said above, I still subscribe to the belief that this is pattern-recognition algorithm, not derivative assets. Once the courts settle this matter, that is presumably what OGA will follow, whether its pro-AI art or against.
In terms of simple things like rotations, though, that's pretty clear. If its your work and your alterring it, well, there's no real problem there. Using AI to "enhance" an image by making it larger is probably pretty safe. Same with rotations. Rotations I have noticed can be really tricky with programs like aseprite. For me this is one of my biggest issues; rotating an asset to get a different angle of a sword, for example, and keep the same aesthetic, is quite annoying. Same thing goes for trying to get animations out, like having hair flowing behind a character. This is really tricky to deal with properly so I have been hesitant to push into this.
I have dabbled in AI a bit, but I am hesitant to use it for spriting yet at this time. Mostly I use it for references and concept art.
"And, even if it is, does it offend your sensibilities as an artist."
For most artists this is always going to be "no". It is artists who are primarily concerned about this, after all.
However, the line must be drawn somewhere. If you are concerned with offending artists, then you should never, ever, ever use AI art. There's literally nothing you can do that won't offend artists by using AI art at this point in time. If AI art becomes more acceptable in the future, such tensions will likely lessen, but many will still find offense that AI art is used in any way. Frankly, though, this is not the best question to be asking.
The biggest problem with this debate in general is honestly pretty simple--a lot of artists want to make money off of their art. The problem, however, is that art just isn't very profitable. It never has been, and its only gotten worse over time. And its not because of AI generation--its because there's too many artists out there flooding the market. The best artists will still be able to make good money, but lower-end artists are going to constantly find themselves competing with one another. AI art is not good enough to replace good artists, but it can replace "bad" art, which is the main thing it does. Otherwise, AI is primarily a tool than can enhance art-related projects.
Keep in mind, there's puritan artists out there who hate anything to do with digital art. I believe that used to be a big debate as well in the past--digital art isn't "authentic" art. Those comments aren't common anymore, but they used to be.
I haven't been commenting on these threads, but my take is basically this:
IDK if it would be considered "fair use" or not, but I still don't think it qualifies as copyright infringement. Its basically like an artist looking up a reference and using that to create something inspired by it. It would only infringe on the copyright if the asset is too similar to the original asset. I know the argument is "they're taking existing art, editing it, and mixing it with other things", but I don't think that's actually what's happening, nor did the existing court cases that came out make that argument.
The courts basically said AI art "prompts" are like making a commission from an artist. Its the artist's interpretation of what information you give them, and by default, the artist in question owns the copyright. However, only humans can own copyrights. For AI generated art, the "artist" in this case is the algorithm, not a person. As such, AI generated art without much human input cannot be copyrighted.
By starting with the assumption that this is like a commissioned work, they're already somewhat setting the narrative of where their thinking lies here.
Even though that is my stance on AI art, we will see how the courts decide this, and I do have one more comment...
I have no sympathy for any companies claiming "yeah we're not using copyrighted assets" and they actually are. That is blatantly lying and is a potential criminal offense. In such a case they'd be better off not saying anything than outright lying about it.
Oh, one other thing:
"evolving" an image I think _would_ qualify as being derivative. Because you're using that image as the starting point. The algorithms are created by scanning existing art and putting that into the algorithm, but its starting from scratch normally. It starts with a blank canvas and simply follows the algorithm. Evolving art, however, starts from an existing artwork and applies the algorithm over it. That is a much different situation.
I just noticed this now. I was a bit concerned by the layout, I thought you were providing the downloads without simply linking back to the sources. But no, this looks good. You're describing each item, saying who makes it, and the download links actually go to the pages where the extensions are. That's fine, though I do think maybe the Download link should say "Go To Website" instead.
https://opengameart.org/content/expanded-universal-lpc-spritesheet-idle-...
Finally released this. I finished all LPC Revised assets. Eliza's LPC Revised doesn't have the legacy Cast, Thrust, Shoot, or Down, and Legacy Slash on LPC Revised is outdated. On top of that, some assets were missing from Eliza's combat animations, so I had to finish all of these things to get them up.
For now, the clothing assets are not mapped to the "Male" animations yet. LPC Revised only has "Masculine, Thin" and "Feminine, Thin" which are equivalent to "Teen" and "Female" respectively. As such, although "Teen" and "Female" have clothing assets on idle/run/jump/revised combat/sit, the "Male" assets with the thicker body do not at this time. The exception is Overalls; bluecarrot already did Overalls, so I just finished those assets as well. In theory I can use the Overalls to finish the pants assets, but I want to move onto other things for now. Eventually I will do them, though.
All right, I finally purchased the mega pack. Hope that helps a bit.
I haven't updated this in a while, but after a couple months of not doing much I finally came back to working on finishing this up. My intent is to finish off the LPC Revised conversions before I do the big release I had planned.
Out of all the LPC Revised assets, everything has been implemented except the following:
The only reason I haven't finished Cardigan yet is because the sleeves have a "cuff" pattern on them. The sleeves for the regular shirts (which I already finished) are pretty generic, so I was able to easily just map all layers over the sleeves and past them over all styles.
I just finished up the Heater Shield, along with _all_ patterns, including the patterns that previously were unfinished. That PR hasn't been merged yet, so those assets aren't yet available on the ULPC.
I'm planning to finish the Combat frames for the wings next. All other frames are mapped, its only the combat animations I have yet to finish at this time. I'm hoping to finish this stuff up within the next month or so, after which point I'll drop a full relaese on OGA for all this.
I could drop in some lesser assets as separate releases, but I feel like I really do want to do this whole thing first. It just makes sense because a big part of this is Eliza's combat animations. And my intent is that as more base frames get added, eventually those get added to the ULPC as well. It is, well, the "universal" LPC spritesheet generator after all, so it makes sense to truly make it universal.
By request (and with some help from Sanderfranken) the generator also now has an animation filter. You can filter assets by which assets support specific animations.
That being said, I'm also looking into other areas as well. Been heavily considering delving into FE GBA style sprites, too, which obviously cannot be released here (unless they're fully custom, of which I don't have much experience with that yet). So that might hold me back from doing stuff on OGA. But I want to go back and forth so I don't burn out on just one thing.
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