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Pak64 Sprite Upgrades

Started by Phileksa, August 20, 2012, 11:59:40 PM

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Phileksa

Sorry I've been away for like, ever and a day.  To be honest, while I enjoy creating sprites for games like Simutrans, sometimes I become frightened.


It's not of the community, although that's a part of it.  I grow more afraid of recognition.


I have my reasons, but unlike most people, recognition tends to make me feel embarrassed or terrified.  Think of it like a case of extreme virtual stage fright.


One project I had worked on earlier was to begin making trains that have fixed colors in to player color trains.  I did an experiment using an old tool I had thought I lost, and determined I can finish them faster than I could with the big expensive paint programs.  I should not be surprised as the program in question, "i.Mage," was designed for use on game sprites.  It separates them in to 256 indexed colors, allowing me to "palette cycle" the colors.  This permits changing all the pixels of one color to another with a couple clicks, and thus swapping out some colors for one player color or the other pretty quickly.  As a side effect of this process, I can make all the pixels one color without losing any actual graphical information ... though why I would want to do that is beyond me.


Since I'm unlikely to ever finish anything I started, perhaps other people would join me on such a simple overhaul.  Just load some sprites, make them 256 color indexed sprites, select a few colors, make them player colors, and save them.  Then run the results by someone for approval.


I tried researching and adding historical locomotives.  The search and work were interesting, but overwhelming as well.  I can tell you about many United States locomotives, and I can even find tons and tons of information on the U.S. locomotives.  But I'm absolutely lost when it comes to European ones.


I do live in the United States.  I love games like Simutrans because I love trains and virtual logistics systems.  And Simutrans even works well multiplayer, which is very nice indeed.  It's the multiplayer that really got be to resume working on the game ...  :-[


I will, of course, submit occasional sprites I've edited.  One such sprite might be the BR01b-SK, which I made in to Player Colors.  But I must admit it looks a bit odd in blue.  Although, it looks great in purple!


I might have to put some more thought in to this.


A good portion of why I like player color locomotives is for ease of identification, especially in multiplayer games.  I also like updating terrain sprites to show land owners as well.  It might save only a couple clicks, but that makes the game a little smoother to play.

Ters

There are indeed some vehicles I've been missing player colors on, so I appreciate the work. However, it might not be necessary to turn the entire vehicle into player colors if that's what making the BR01 look strange. Changing just the red stripe and wheels might be too little, though.