So first of all im using Gimp 2.8.18Once you have gimp open, click file/open, and get them sprites you want to work with.What i do once i have them opened is i minimize them all because i like to work themin there respective order. I'll pick the first sprite and work it to the last one according to the animation of the sprites.1). so i have my sprite up, now i click file/new and open a blank canvas with a fairly large size, i make it all black and put it side by side to the sprite im working with. the reason i do this is because we are going to enlarge the sprite and if you dont enlarge it and paste it onto a biggercanvas its going to look bad when we add blur, some parts of the sprite will look flat and notround. the size i used is a 500x500, it just depends on the sprite size. 2). now lets enlarge our sprite so go ahead and click image/ scale image and get your calculatorapp on your phone open, the width of my sprite is 59 so im going to multiple it by 4 59x4=236.ok im going to change it to 236 and click scale. now your sprite is big and ugly3). now lets click select/all or just ctrl+a for shortcut, then edit/copy or just ctrl+c and on the black canvas click edit/paste or just ctrl+v, now theres a little anchor symbol on the black canvasjust click anywere on that canvas to merge it.4). now click image/mode/grayscale5). now click filters/blur/selective gaussian blur. these are the settings i use, blur radius 10.00and max. delta 255 all the way turnt up lol.6). now click image/mode/RGB so we can add some color to it. then click colors/color balance and messaround with the sliders to get the color you want. you can also save your settins as a preset so you havethe correct colors for the remaining sprites. im going to make mine all purple, oh and to save it to preset just click that + symbol7). alright so now we have our sprite colored, we are almost done! click image/mode/indexedand pick the first setting and change the maximum number of colors to 64 and click convert, thats it!8). now click file/export as and chose a location to save your sprite also save it as png, click export,click export again in the small window that pops up, now lets go to fighter factory to test our imageand thats it, if you save your colors to a preset and use the short cut keys you can bang out some sprites pretty fast in gimp. another tip for you, after you export your image, close out the low res sprite you dont needanymore and click ctrl+z on your new sprite to undo everything and revert your canvas back to a blank black imageready for the next one.Im not a photo editing genius so if you see anything in this tutorial thats wrong or to improve my methodsgo ahead and post so i and you the student can get better at this
Memo said, October 20, 2016, 12:42:30 am2). now lets enlarge our sprite so go ahead and click image/ scale image and get your calculatorapp on your phone open, the width of my sprite is 59 so im going to multiple it by 4 59x4=236.ok im going to change it to 236 and click scale.-You can change from pixel to percent, so you don't have to do the math, when you choose percent write 400%. Piece of cake.Just remember to have both width and height "chained", or at least have the same values.-You should mention which resizing method you used: I see you used Nearest Neighbour.-Instead of opening two GIMP windows, you can just change the dimensions of the image and center the sprite/s.(Under Images, click on Canvas Size)By the way I'm not a student. I'm the janitor.
AlexSin said, October 20, 2016, 01:08:53 amMemo said, October 20, 2016, 12:42:30 am2). now lets enlarge our sprite so go ahead and click image/ scale image and get your calculatorapp on your phone open, the width of my sprite is 59 so im going to multiple it by 4 59x4=236.ok im going to change it to 236 and click scale.-You can change from pixel to percent, so you don't have to do the math, when you choose percent write 400%. Piece of cake.Just remember to have both width and height "chained", or at least have the same values.-You should mention which resizing method you used: I see you used Nearest Neighbour.-Instead of opening two GIMP windows, you can just change the dimensions of the image and center the sprite/s.(Under Images, click on Canvas Size)By the way I'm not a student. I'm the janitor. Hey thanks for the tip, no more calculator app! I usually dont touch the chains either just change the width and scale. Lol you are the janitor coming in here and cleaning up ha
I have print-screen the whole page, just in case it gets removed. Thanks again buddy, good and simple.
This is an OK method for a quick edit. But you get a lot of color-loss. You can see in the purple in this image is gone on the scaling up.Spoiler, click to toggle visibiltyOne suggestion would be, because the sprites are probably already paletted and use maybe 32 colors, use the magic wand (photoshop) and set the tolerance to 2 or 3. The smaller the more accurate, but the more clicks you'll have to do. Click each purple until ALL of the purple is selected. Then cut(ctrl+x) and paste (ctrl+v) into a new layer. Once each part of the spark is separated apply the Gaussian blur to each layer. Use ctrl+e to combine all the layers back into one, and save as your png or whatever. This is my attempt. I did the first image the way I mentioned, and then did it the original waySpoiler, click to toggle visibiltyYou can still see a couple problems. I didn't do the large canvas size like the tutorial says. So this is proof you NEED to do it. You can really tell at the bottom. But if you want the green and the blue, adding the few simple steps helps.
Odb718 said, November 13, 2016, 12:01:44 pmThis is an OK method for a quick edit. But you get a lot of color-loss. You can see in the purple in this image is gone on the scaling up.Spoiler, click to toggle visibiltyOne suggestion would be, because the sprites are probably already paletted and use maybe 32 colors, use the magic wand (photoshop) and set the tolerance to 2 or 3. The smaller the more accurate, but the more clicks you'll have to do. Click each purple until ALL of the purple is selected. Then cut(ctrl+x) and paste (ctrl+v) into a new layer. Once each part of the spark is separated apply the Gaussian blur to each layer. Use ctrl+e to combine all the layers back into one, and save as your png or whatever. This is my attempt. I did the first image the way I mentioned, and then did it the original waySpoiler, click to toggle visibiltyYou can still see a couple problems. I didn't do the large canvas size like the tutorial says. So this is proof you NEED to do it. You can really tell at the bottom. But if you want the green and the blue, adding the few simple steps helps.I don't mean in this an offensive way, but you said his method is OK, but your one is worse.First, did you change the background colour to black? Second, you didn't increase the image size (you already stated this)Third, You seem to be using the same colour palette that the original one had? bad ideaLastly, by separating the layers and then applying Gaussian blur is a bad idea because each separation will be outlined with what ever background you have.I hope I explained this OK.I have always wanted to make an update to P.O.T.S original post. I think Memo's method is that absolute basic and quick way to do it, but neither gimp or photoshop are the 'best' method to imitate P.O.T.S hi res effects.
#1 Yes I did. On both images. You can see it in the fact the sprite is outlined in blackish coloring. #2 I increased the scale of the image 400%, just not the canvas. I said it's important to have the extra border space like Memo says to do. I did this so users could actually SEE the negatives of skipping this step.#3 The quick example I knocked out actually used 256 colors instead of the suggested 64. (it might be fewer depending on the output number, but I didn't reduce it) I think the fact that I didn't use my own colors is what's throwing you off. But there's far more colors than the original 27.#4 You can see where the Blue and Green over lap, there's no black outline. Each layer has a clear background. The bottom level is black. The guassian blur doesn't mix between layers unless you shift click them (I think). You can see you're mistaken in the images. And if you were to completely split the sprite and composite them in game, Using the alpha channel the black would become clear giving the same results. I think the only way to get a black outline on each layer would be with a drop shadow. (which might be nice for certain sprites/fx)----This is the original image I used for my demo if anyone was interested.
so ive been experimenting with unsharp mask you can find it in filter/enhance/unsharp masksettingsradius 10.0amount 1.50threshold 0and it makes the image a bit sharper after doing the selective gaussian blurexample of something i played with todaystill not perfect compared to pots but im nota image editor expert either lol but if addedto my method i explained above you get better results.
