Development work for 2D Game Project

For my art I will be using low resolution pixel art as in low res the pixels will become more visible therefore which will make the game more 8-bit which is the style I was kind of going for with my sprite.
I have explained how I create sprites here I used this method to also create a moving animation for my sprite I used the same sprite but I slightly tilted the head forward and tilted the cloak backward so it looks like the sprite is moving forward and then I animated the cloak to make it seem like it is flowing in the wind. This will most likely be around 8-10 frames each frame will have a different cloak movement and all together I hope they will all come out as a movement motion. To add more detail I tried to add the highlight on top of the cloaks head to move a tiny bit to make it look like the hood is moving while the spirit is floating in the air.

After I had created the moving animation I went on to creating the jumping animation. To make it look like it is jumping I made the cloaking thinner as if the head was rising and the drapes were following it. The ends of the drapes will flap in the wind but no flow so it looks like a high jump. During the making of this I didn't like how the lines were smooth I wanted them to be pixel like so I tried to use the pencil tool instead of the brush and it had satisfying results as the lines were cleaner and also more pixel looking with the minimum pencil size of 1. I also added a crease at the bottom of the hood and made him face up to add more detail to the jump. I was thinking this should be 5 frames long as the jump is pretty fast in-game.

This frame it starts the jump. The body of the cloak is thinner than the idle animation as the cloak is getting dragged through the air the higher it goes the thinner it will get to a certain extent while it is getting thinner the cloak will also flow at the edge of it.

After I had completed the sprite gifs I then went on to do the background for the levels that were being made by my fellow group member. he requested that he would need outdoor scenery as well as indoor objects as well. Since this game was about avoiding light I would make no sense having it day light outside so I had this in mind while making the outdoor objects so I created silhouettes of objects instead like this fence. For the fence I tried to have the image tessellate so it could be repeated for the whole outdoor room. To do this I had to make sure the end of each image that touched the sides would fit with the other side. I didn't really pay much attention to detail as it was just a silhouette some lines were a bit to thick however I didn't really mind as this image would be in the back and in the dark so it would be hard to noticed and also players would be to concentrated on trying to get past the level to noticed as the sprite moves quite fast. If I had to go do this again I would create more time for myself to make things perfect however time was not on my side as most things had to be done by a deadline and I was kind of behind as planning took longer than usual.

 Here in a silhouette of a lamp post one with the lights on and the other with the lights off, the reason for this was because I wanted the have our designer to switch the lights on and off as one of the points of our game was to avoid light so I was thinking this was a nice addition to the start of our game. However we seemed to have had problems with putting this image on construct as the png file would create this distorted black color around it which messed up the image; we decided to not put this in because of this and we had no way to fix it.

The design of the lamp post of based on the lamp posts used in Victorian times as the design of it gave a strong image of it being a lamp post which produced light. Giving the player the impression that you were to be wary being around it. Pretty disappointing it could not be placed in to our game because of some faults.

 This cobble stone wall is meant to represent the inside of the walls and floor while on the surface it was meant to be a clean marble finish. The tarmac was a darker colour than the stones itself as well. I tried to avoid touching the edges with my drawing as these were meant to be placed next to each other so if i had them touching the sides I would have to make them go on to the opposite side as well just so it would look right.

 I placed holes in these decaying wooden walls to show that the house was breaking. I also tried to add cracks in the wood planks as well to try suggest that the planks itself were not going to hold and were being crushed.

 These 3 brick walls are for the bottom level of the basement where you are to find your coffin and complete the game. The two holes in this wall are meant to be together so is they were to be on top of one another they would form a massive hole however if they were put on the side of each other they would not and the other images of the walls were put on the top of it then it would look like just one small hole.

 One of the reasons why I created three images for this wall background was so that the wall would become my interesting as the wooden decaying was just a single image and looked really plain and boring so by adding three images the wall has more interesting features.







These two gifs are made in the same way I created the sprite. I wanted this haunted house to have a story of the sort to why it was abandoned and I feel like this gif of the wall shows why. Their is a creature living in the basement. The spirit could of be possibly killed by this creature which is why the coffin with it's body is inside and he could be going back in to retrieve it back.

The coffin is animated to show that it is being opened. The idea was for the coffin to be opened and then the player was meant to jump into the coffin to go rest or go back into its body; whichever the player wishes to perceive it.

My Sprite

My task for this project is to create a sprite from scratch so first of all I had to do some research into sprites and how they are made and how I can try to get that look, for the look I was going for which is pixel art I used a program called Graphics Gale which is a pixel art program where you can create clean pixel lines. Later I switched to Photoshop as it was easier to use.
















This is the character I created, it is a little spirit. I created some concepts for my spirit however I have chosen this one as it seems it will be most fun to make and I like the feel just the floating cloak with eyes it gives a mysterious look. To create this sprite I went on to Graphics Gale to create the initial design but then when I had to animate it I had to export the file and imported it in Photoshop.

 After I had imported it to Photo I had to create different frames for each layer I was planning on using, I was planning on using 4-6 frames as this was just a simple sprite with a flowing cloak. I saved the file as a .tga as as .tga files can be opened up in most image editing software so I can easily access this file from most software.

I removed the second patch near the bottom of the cloak as it got in the way of my animation and I thought it looked a bit to busy as well with the creases down there so I thought it will be easier to removed the patch instead of having it in the way and trying to animate that as well flowing with the cape, it saved a lot of time.
When creating the sprite I had to consider the cloak and its creases when it would flow in the wind, I also added a patch near the top instead just to add a bit of character to it as just a plain cloak would seem boring to the player to look at. I also moved my sprite slightly up and down each frame just to give the impression that it is floating, I will try to consider the cloak going up and down as well as the cloak will widen as it is going down slightly and vise versa.

Once I had completed the first 5 frames I then duplicated them, at the 10th frame I removed the eye so then every 10th frame it looks like it is blinking as the frames would repeat, just to add a bit more detail to my sprite. On the 10th frame I had to duplicate the 5th layer so in total I will have 6 layers for 10 frames.

I had several different looks for my sprite, I first wanted to have my sprite be a cartoon like ghost like the one you see in Dragon Ball Z, Gotenk's Ghost. It was a simple design and will be do able in the 1 week I had to create a sprite. However I did not chose to make this as I would then have to animate the hair flowing and also facial expressions which I did not have the time to animate.

Another idea was a child who was out looking for ghosts but at the same time was really scared so to show this I put several scribble lines around the character to show that he is shivering in fear. I had a cartoon style in mind when thinking of these characters as for a sprite a details realistic one would not suit and will look out of place. This concept will later on become one of the enemies of the game as he carries a light source and in our game our character will die if it touches any light source