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Saturday, February 25, 2023 - 06:00

The cape has two sprite layers: one that is drawn before the body and one that is drawn after the body.

If you have the character generator repository cloned, you can look at the sheet_definitions/cape_solid.json (or one of the other capes) to see how that is set up, but basically you have one sprite under "spritesheets/cape/solid" and one under "spritesheets/cape/solid_behind".

Friday, April 29, 2022 - 12:31

"In half of your post you're arguing that those assets are compatible, and in the other half you're counting reasons why they aren't..." - I'm not. You just seem to be unwilling to try to understand that one does not exclude the other. Yes, male and female bases are different. However, available assets (say, a hat) are "compatible" with both, because the positional adjustments have been made for you. No, you can't put the male sheet on the female base. However, you can put the female sheet on the female base.

"Yes, it is that simple with Eliza's guidelines."

Re-read what I said. In most cases it's not that simple, because the shape and animation of the body are not the same as the original. And so it takes more than a shift to properly adapt existing artwork.

"In Eliza guidelines all hand positions are standardized,"

That's good. Unfortunately, hand positions isn't all that's different between Eliza's bases and the originals.

"so your argument that it cannot be done, let's just say, funny."

You know, I'm not sure what you think I say can't be done. To be clear: I'm saying adapting existing assets takes more than a shift by a few pixels. Obviously modifying character bases so hand positions are the same is easy to do. That's not the hard part, and no one claims that it is.

"What's stopping me is people like you,"

How am I stopping you?

"unable to understand that I'm working for everyone here, not just for myself."

If that's the case, you may want to actually take an effort to listen to feedback, instead of throwing a hissy fit and insulting people when they disagree with you. You ask for feedback, but seem unable or unwlling to accept critcism. You do not ask if something is reasonable, you demand that things be done your way.

"May I ask, what do you think, what this topic is about?"

I think it should be about documenting best practices for making artwork compatible with LPC assets, based on what's available, what's desirable and what's achievable, with common pit falls and documented usage instructions. What it seems to be about is you determining a set of instructions and demanding they be followed to the letter, and that they be done now, if not yesterday.

"You haven't created guidelines for the lpc-characters-base (or anything else resembling a clear set of rules for compatibility)."

I haven't? Ok, it's a good thing you're here to tell me what I have and haven't done. Yes, that was sarcasm.

"And you haven't said "yes, let's do that I'll create guidelines because that's what the community needs."."

Eh... I'm pretty sure I've both said (first message dated April 10th) and done exactly that.* You need to pay more attention to what's being said, because you keep selectively missing (or ignoring?) parts of the discussion, and it's tiresome.

*Now, you're correct that they're not released yet, because we're still reviewing it and I want the run and female (at least) guides in there too before I do.

Friday, April 29, 2022 - 09:28

"You see, "I do not agree" suggests that this is an opinion. However the need of duplicated sprites is a fact, and it is also a fact that with the guidelines such duplication isn't needed." - What's not a fact is that this is the problem you make it out to be. So let's be clear. Is it annoying that male and female sprites have different offsets in different frames for no obvious benefit? Very much so. Is it a major issue? Well, not really, for most applications.

Consider headgear, which is where the issue is at its most blatent. The actual number of unique frames for headgear is small, considerably smaller than the number of animation frames available for LPC sprites (I think it's just N,E,S,W and five frames for the death animation; you might get away with flipping E and W sprites) so in practice the spritesheets are assembled by a script rather than a human from the source images. The assembled spritesheet is what is shared for ease of use, in addition to the source images. Arguably, when using the spritesheets, the correct way to handle this is to assemble the spritesheet on the fly from the few source images as needed. That is the most memory efficient.

Say you don't want to do that in code, and just want to layer spritesheets without doing offsets. You can do that, the spritesheets are available! The male and female versions might be distinct. Annoying, but only a problem if you're actually trying to load everything in memory at the same time, which is probably not a good idea either way since that is not scalable when you have more assets to pick from. I would suggest that the best way to handle it is to assemble the spritesheet of the character from base assets once when the character is generated, coupled with a cache for assets so not every access involves a disk read. That is really an implementation detail for the game engine though, and not appropriate for an artist to make decisions on up front.

A common use-case is to pre-generate the entire spritesheet, in which case it is also a non-issue.

"Please understand the difference. I don't wanted to be rude or anything." - Ok...

"Believe me, I wouldn't sacrifice my precious free time on this and offer my help for free if the community were able to produce compatible assets in the first place." - Oh.

See, that's the problem: you say it's "incompatible". It's not. It's just not as convenient for you as you like, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to point out. However, you don't have to be a dick about it.

"I beg to differ. I've already written a software that converts old spritesheets into the new one, and it works for all asset types except clothes."

Which is... pretty much all of them?

Point to consider: Eliza's head is different, which you can possibly ignore when bringing in hair and things like helmets. Then again, possibly you cannot ignore it. It's something you at least need to think about.

"I'm just waiting for Eliza to finish the guides so that I can fill up the transformation matrices for all frames."

It's not as simple as that. Some of the outlines are different; proportions of the body and the animation of the body are sometimes different. Position of hands and arms are different. Not all of it is hard, but it's not a simple offset in most cases. And if it is a matter of simply shifting things by a couple of pixels to convert all assets, what's stopping you from doing that yourself? It's actually not hard to do, and you'd be contributing something constructive!

"Plus your updated lpc-character-base is also incompatible with the existing assets, and there's simply no way to search OGA for assets that works with your bases," - LPC Spritesheet Character Generator. That's the current and curated version of spritesheets published here.

"and there's no guide for the artist on how to make their assets compatible with your bases." - Not publicly, no. And yes, it's an issue - that's being worked on. In people's spare time. Between jobs and family. Note that this didn't prevent people from making assets!

"It's a nice initiative, but lacks foresight and a way to cooperate with unfortunately"

That's the thing you keep missing: there is a way to cooperate. It starts with talking to the people involved. No, it's not easily visible, but given that it's been pointed out to you several times alreay, you ought to be aware of it by now. And yes, that's probably someting that can be improved. Feel free to make a suggestion.

Also consider this: there are several people involved, with their own time commitments, ideas and priorities. The tricky part is finding something that works for everyone. That takes time.

"Let's be clear: if you make lpc-character-bases consistent, with swapable heads, standard hand coordinates, and "shrink" it into guidelines," - That's actually fairly close to being done. I have elbows to do for the male sprite, and then guides for the male sprite are done, except for run for which we're still sorting things out. The female version can be done quickly once some organisational details are taken care of - but I'm going to finish the push/carry animations first.

"then I would use that instead of Eliza's guidelines in the spec." - Why not include both and tell people what the benefits and drawbacks of either set are?

EDIT: I don't think anyone actually uses these, so listing them is probably not actually useful, but there is also a couple completely different chibi characters: https://opengameart.org/content/alternate-lpc-character-sprites-georgehttps://opengameart.org/content/one-more-lpc-alternate-character

Thursday, April 28, 2022 - 17:13

"check this, the same helmet does not fit both base" - Again, the version from the character generator works fine (link). It's perfectly compatible if you use the correct spritesheet.

"Furthermore, lots of LPC submissions are incomplete, lacking some animations, again, a fact, which you can empirically prove (check this, see the big empty parts for the missing animations)." - Bad example, the axe, as a slashing weapon, is not animated for the cast, thrust and shoot animations, because... I don't really have to explain that, do I? Having it for the death animation would be nice, I guess, but it hardly seems essential. If anything, not having it is arguably better because then you can have it as an item drop, which works better if it isn't part of the sprite. So do try again and give a better example.

"a) compatible with each other" - As are the original character bases, at least in the sense that if you pick "male" assets, they work with the male sprite and if you pick "female" assets, they'll work with the female sprite - but that's no different with Eliza's bases.

"b) have interchangeable heads too" - The original bases are available with "modular heads", though admittedly not without issues, but those are actually being worked on.

"c) include the very much needed "jump" and "run" animations" - both of which existed for the original characters too (albeit without clothing).

"d) has guidelines." - Yup, love those. Very useful and overdue.

Monday, April 25, 2022 - 12:04

So, Eliza tags her submissions as "LPC" and puts "LPC Revised" in the title. I think that's the way to go for this, considering Eliza's revisions are a motivation and reference for the proposed style guide.

Aim for inclusion, rather than division, I say.

Wednesday, April 20, 2022 - 16:41

@Chasersgaming: "Yes, sorry, i should of said, "at least not well enough currently, that i can see""

No problem, and sorry if it came across a bit sharp, that wasn't intended. There just seems to be some misconception by some that there is no coordination at all, which is incorrect.

You're right though that it's not very visible to the casual observer, which perhaps is something to think about? Not sure what (if anything) needs to be done with that, and who'll be doing it.

"i know there are a few of you working together, and i forget that there are other places you all talk, as well as privately and i might not see conversations going on in other threads. My apoligies. :)"

Again, sorry if what I said came across harsher than intended. Also, no need to include me in the "you" there; I dabble in pixel art for my own amusement, the real work is done by other people.

Wednesday, April 20, 2022 - 14:33

"This would suggest that they would need to work together and communicate though, which is someting that doesn't seem to be happening, at least not well enough currently"

Sure that's happening. There's a lot of thought and coordination going into building out the spritesheet character generator, which is where most (all?) of the newer assets end up. Pretty much all of the LPC character assets that have been released over the last few years have been cleaned up and made available there.

"The best thing to do IMO, is for every LPC character asset created, then just post the link to whatever base is was designed for/from, either the original, revised and what ever other fork/deriative there is out there."

Indeed.

Sunday, April 10, 2022 - 06:47

@bzt: "Sorry to say, you are confused and mistaken."

Except, not really. There are differences in the male body, the colour palette and the animation. Note I don't say better or worse, just different - which makes it a matter of opinion which one is preferred. 

"Good luck adding "jump" or "run" into your game."

Oh, that's fairly straightforward: you add in the existing animations, then adapt the clothing items you want for them and share those back to the community (when you're satisfied with them) so others can benefit, or you pay bluecarrot16 a commission to do it for you. Hell, for the jump you could just use Eliza's as is, since it's the same animation except cleaned up and with some assets to get you started.

"that's the only one submission that actually has compatible heads and facial expressions,"

Except, not really.

"not to mention guides for future assets."

Yeah, that's missing at the moment. Working on it.

"All the former submissions are useless and incompatible in a real game, just try to use them if you don't believe me."

That is uncalled for. You know, people have actually made games using LPC assets and characters. You might want to do some research there before proclaiming something that ends up just looking stupid.

Seriously, get someone to proof-read your posts before submitting them, because you're coming across as rude and condescending as all hell.

"That's a TERRIBLE idea. It's not going to work, because left and right isn't mirrored sprites, and what's more it's not compatible with any of the existing assets either, not with the original LPC base, and not with Eliza's."

Of course it's going to work, as long as you have left facing sprites, you have right facing sprites by flipping them. It's been done that way since the '80s. Sure, it doesn't work as well if the sprite isn't left/right symmetric, but many sprites are and even when they're not games have not worried about this for ages. Sure, having 4 directions (or heck, having 8 directions) is better, but in terms of priorities, there are definitely more important things to worry about.

You say the existing assets aren't mirrored sprites, so then explain why the character goes from right-handed in left-facing frames to left-handed in right-facing frames (also when going from up to downward facing sprites for... some reason). The only thing I can think of that supposedly differentiates the left and right facing frames is the glare spot on the head (it's supposed to be on the left side of the sprite) and even that flips position on some frames (it's wrong on the left-facing thrust animation for the male base).

"Here's a perfect example for you about the LPC asset compatibility problem I'm constantly talking about. Look how the helmet doesn't fit to the male base on the left. This, and the missing animations for certain assets makes the original LPC asset unusable in a real game."

Care to elaborate? What "missing animations" are you referring to? Older submissions have things like "no cast/slash" or "walk only", but the vast majority of those have been filled in ages ago, but you have to know where to get the most recent version (which is typically from the Universal LPC spritesheet character generator). Where did you pick the helmet and base from? I'm asking, because the version I have (see it at https://sanderfrenken.github.io/Universal-LPC-Spritesheet-Character-Generator/#?body=Humanlike_white&hat=Barbarian_silver&sex=male&weapon=Slash_dagger) appears to be fine?

You complain that things are "broken", "missing" or "incompatible", but appear to be unaware of effort that has gone into fixing the things you're complaining about and you're dismissive and rude towards the people who have put in that work.

Now, finding the correct place to look is tricky because newer and older submissions are lumped together in the site search. The same thing is going to happen to Eliza's recent submission once it falls off the front page. That should be improved, somehow. If there are issues or misisng things, do point them out - mistakes can't be fixed if no-one points them out, and someone may just be willing to help out if you ask nicely.

Thursday, April 7, 2022 - 13:27

Sorry if the following seems pedantic, but my impression is that you're unaware of some of the history and origin of the LPC collection assets, so I thought I'd clarify a few things.

The original LPC was an art and game development contest, for which some base assets were provided by OGA. The LPC style guide and descriptions refer to those original assets. As part of the composition, some additional animations were provided, the "thrust" and "shoot" animations were added later.

After the competition, the diverse set of character bases and assorted assets were combined in a "unified LPC spritesheet", which is a GIMP .xcf file with all/many available (at the time) assets in different layers. This inspired the online "universal spritesheet generator", of which various forks exist, with Castelonia's being the most complete, up-to-date and well-maintained one. Most assets created after the universal spritesheet was created are made to be compatible with it.

Some existing animations are not part of the universal spritesheet and as a result they lack assets. This includes a grab animation, the jump animation and the running animation that were contributed later. Eliza did include the latter two in her revision, but they exist based on the original bases.

 

I'm also experiencing a sense of deja-vu. You bring up some good points: yes, the LPC assets need to be more clearly specified, it's all scattered around at the moment and things like intended frame timings, windup/cooldown/repeat frames are burried deep. It's somewhat hard to find that the 9-frame walkcycle is actually a 1-frame idle and 8-frame walk cycle. Guides and references aren't easy to find in a single location and style. The thing is, this was all discussed on the forum here a while back, with bluecarrot16, Castelonia, ElizaWy and several others contributing their input. It feels like many of the points discussed there are going to come up again, and so it's probably a good idea to dig out that thread and use it as a starting point.

Saturday, January 15, 2022 - 09:29

For the tilesets, I think it's worth looking carefully at what is actually needed. Camps, kitchens, farms, taverns and breweries can, I think, be reasonably constructed from existing assets, with perhaps just a few flavour items to round things out. Think a stag head on the wall, stacked barrels of wine with a tap.

More weapon animations (or animation variations, think slash, backhand slash, thrust all with a sword) and tool animations (especially if they don't need new animation frams but can cleverly reuse existing animation frames) would be awesome.

As for what I'd like to see: more animals! Sure, we have farm animals, some birds, a rabbit, a boar and a wolf, but wouldn't it be awesome if we had things like deer? Bears? Monkeys? I appreciate that'd be a lot of work though - and that's before considering that death and attack animations for those would be awesome too.

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