Animated Vg Sprite

Hi ive posted this tutorial on a couple sites and got some pretty good feedback so with out further ado here you go:

Title: Animated Video Game Sprite

Basics:I am going to be using Photoshop CS2 and ImageReady CS2 for this tutorial so if your using an older version u can try to follow along but since ive never used any otherr version i can't really help if you run in to a problem. First and foremost u have to have in mind wat videogame sprite you want to make...For my first tutorial i'm going to use the ever popular Super Mario...now for most of my sprites i like to use Panelmonkey.org as my resource for sprites. I like panelmonkey because their sheets come prerendered plus they have a nice selection of backgrounds. For this tutorial i will be using the following:
sprite sheet:

background


Step 1
Open up your background. Now it may be indexed so wat i do to fix that is i hit Ctrl+a to select the whole image and then Ctrl+c to copy it. Then open up a new window and paste(Ctrl+V) the background on the new window. Now you should have 2 layers: the background layer (which should be white) and layer 1(your background)


Step 2
Open up your sprite sheet and look around it for a sequence you would like to use for your animation. I'm going to go with a simple walking sequence.

This is going to be kind of short since the walking sequence only has 3 sprites to it but itll look longer as we near completion.

Step 3
Now for the actual building of the animation...grab your rectangular marquee tool (press M once) and make a selection over the first sprite of your sequence..in my case the standing mario.

Once the first sprite is selected hit Ctrl+C to copy the sprite. Then paste it on to your background and move it to a suitable location.

The first part of the animation is done.

Step 4
Repeat step 3 for each of your sprites and be sure to locate each one correctly (for example mario is going to be walking so i have to put the next sprite a little to the right so it doesnt look like he's walking on air).

make sure each sprite is in its own layer.


Step 5
Now that you have your sprites all set you are now ready to move on to imageready so hit Shift+Ctrl+M. Now in your first frame you want to have only your first sprite visible so click on the eyes in your layer window on every layer except your first sprite and the background. This will be your first frame.


Step 6
Duplicate the previous frame (click the button just to the left of the trash can on the animation window)

and make it so that only the second sprite and the background layers are visible.

Repeat this step for every sprite in your animation. You must be sure that there is no delay between the frames of your animation.

Step 7
Once you have all your sprites and frames in order you're pretty much finished. So go to File>Save Optimized As and save your work.

If done correctly you should have something along the lines of this:


With Some Practice you may even be able to make some thing like this:

although its not perfect seeing as how im still kinda new to Sprites. but this is my best sprite to date.

feel free to leave any comments, tips, and/or problems you have on this and ill try to be prompt in replying/helping.

 

I love this tut as you can see . -rep

 

w00t my first rep holy crap thanx dude

 

mario runs too fast and it's choppy.
Simple tut though, I thought anyone could figure out how to do it for 1 sprite easily. o_0

 

I never used imageready i didnt like it so i didnt know how it worked.

 

Nice tut

 

thank you very much

 

Not too shabby mate

Pretty intuitive, but it's always nice to have a resource you can look to for help

 

nice tut ...for ppl how r new to this ....

 

i will try this one out for sure awesome

/EDIT here is my reslut

 

nice tut, i might try to do something like this later on.

 

Nice tut i'll post result when i do it

 

nice tut, ill have to try it later

 

what if ur object nedes to go up a slope?

 

I love it man