Sprites (like the Salamander) are primarily done in very simple bitmapping programs like Paint; it's all in the technique of the artist, not in the programs he or she uses.
The Salamander does appear to me to be made in Paint.
You sure seem to be taking an interest in graphics lately. Do you want to get into making stuff like this? I hate it too when I don't know where to start getting into something, so I'll write how I got started.
Actually, I think I misinterpreted your posts; as I'm reading them over, I now see you're not wondering how you could make these. You're really just wondering how they were made.
Well, I was going to secret it anyways because of length. You could read it if you're interested.
Click here to view the secret text
×First of all, in Paint or some other simple bitmapper, you want to zoom in to max (which is 10x on Paint; click on the tiny bit of empty space right under the 8x. It's a secret), and turn on the grid if need be. Then start working.
An easy way to learn how to bitmap sprites is to pick something to start with (say, the eyes), and make three shades in the palette for the color you want it to be. Then just start making it pixel by pixel, trying to use all 3 shades of that color. continue on with the rest of the sprite. Your products will look strange at first because you probably picked bad shades to use and weren't good with guessing where to use each shade, but you'll get better with experience. But it won't be for a while until you can make anything really good. You might even just want to start with 8-bit looking images.
What I did was at first I tried really hard to make sprites with no experience. It wasn't easy, and I gave up. But I came back to it every now and then when I worked on various things that required me to make bitmaps; DROD stuff, my Super Mario World hack, programming, etc.. It's been a few years since I first seriously tried to make sprites, and now I'm finally able to slowly but surely make decent 16-bit images.
Once you're good at creating sprites and working with shades, drop the "3 shade" rule for a "however many shades you need" rule.
Then you have to make sprites for each direction. Flip and rotate the image you have to get whatever directions you can make out of it. And directions you can't make or that look no good need their own sprites to be made. As a caution, make sure the diagonal ones are about the same size as the others, because it's very odd when your character grows 30% in length every time it faces a diagonal direction.
After you make all the frames, if you want to make overall adjustments to the sprites you made (are they a bit too colorful? Are they too dark?), that's where programs like GIMP and/or Paint Shop Pro come in, which have adjustment features like Colorize and Saturation Balance. These programs are really meant for working with photographs, but they can do some things to sprites without ruining them.
By the way, this is just for sprites (small things, and stuff that moves). If you want to make stuff like Jutt's Sandstone and Basalt styles, those appear to have been made through different methods. The obstacles like the trees/rocks appear to have been drawn on a tablet PC (i.e. one with a touch screen). The rest look like they were big and difficult sprites to make. Some of the floor styles look like patterned photos.
For enemy sprites to work in DROD, you have to have 8 tiles: U, UR, R, DR, D, DL, L, UL (and optionally another row for an animated frame, such as blinking). Each tile is 22x22 pixels. 192,192,192 (C0C0C0) is the transparent color.
To make style graphics is very complicated and I don't think you want to try it yet because it's very frustrating trying to tell the game where you want your graphics to be used.
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Also known as ExpHP everywhere else.
[Last edited by Kwakstur at 01-23-2009 07:32 AM]
