Major Trouble from Lack Of Spriters

[iamgoofball]

Guys with Ausops announcing that he's taking off 5ever after Christmas, we're only going to have 1 active spriter, and that's wjohnston.

With the amount of contributors we have, 1 guy trying to handle every sprite request is going to fuck us in the ass so hard we'll be feeling the codersprites for years

I highly expect the volume of sprite requests being leveled at wjohnston alone causing him to burn out, and end up taking off with us having NO active spriters.

We got a few options on how to fix this.

1. Make Ausops (and also wj) train new spriters before he takes off past christmas.
2. Use the large excess of patreon money we have to pay a spriter to join the project.
3. Use the patreon dosh that isn't going towards oranges's retirement fund to pay a spriter to teach community members to sprite
4. let all of our spriters go and return to OpenSS13 codersprite level

I'm gonna bump this topic every day and spam it in OOC, the IRC channels, and 9gag until we take one of these 4 actions.

We have a serious problem here folks, let's get on top of it and get this shit fixed before we go tits up and end up with no active spriters.

[Deitus]

i'd be willing to learn if someone made a guide simple enough to get through my thick skull

[Helios]

Sure. How hard could it be?

[Wyzack]

I feel like paying some of the contributors to the project and not others would cause drama and resentment. I'll take the codersprites

[LiamLime]

There is very little learning involved with spriting and a heck of a lot of practice. Using the tools in Photoshop, Gimp or Paint is easy enough. Making colour palettes, colouring pixels, importing and exporting things, etc. All of this is easy to learn and easy to do. The hard part is making things look good. Some of that can be taught, but there is just so much of it that you really can't become anywhere close to proficient by learning alone. And if Ausops is leaving in 10 days, then that is not enough time to teach anyone anything.

TGS survived fine for years without dedicated spriters. It'll survive with community contributed sprites again. Just don't let maintainers use the "PULL REQUEST DENIED BECAUSE PROGRAMMER ART" excuse. That's essentially the only thing that could actually hurt TGS - if code contributions get artificially reduced because sprite contributions are reduced.

Also, while there is probably a few 100 bux in the patreon account, that is by no means enough to pay anyone. If you want someone to work full time, they'd probably want 100 bux minimum per day.

[Deitus]

There is very little learning involved with spriting and a heck of a lot of practice. Using the tools in Photoshop, Gimp or Paint is easy enough. Making colour palettes, colouring pixels, importing and exporting things, etc. All of this is easy to learn and easy to do. The hard part is making things look good. Some of that can be taught, but there is just so much of it that you really can't become anywhere close to proficient by learning alone. And if Ausops is leaving in 10 days, then that is not enough time to teach anyone anything.

TGS survived fine for years without dedicated spriters. It'll survive with community contributed sprites again. Just don't let maintainers use the "PULL REQUEST DENIED BECAUSE PROGRAMMER ART" excuse. That's essentially the only thing that could actually hurt TGS - if code contributions get artificially reduced because sprite contributions are reduced.

Also, while there is probably a few 100 bux in the patreon account, that is by no means enough to pay anyone. If you want someone to work full time, they'd probably want 100 bux minimum per day.

if ausops or someone could just make a very very basic tutorial giving the bare bones i could MAYBE put out something that looks halfway decent, sounds like a neat passtime anyway

[Nienhaus]

Pay me to sprite please.

[TheNightingale]

I did some Pokémon spriting in the past (it was a legitimate pastime!), so I could probably handle recolours (Syndicate-coloured versions of normal gear, for example) if someone sends them my way. I was never any good at spriting from scratch, though, so that's best left to someone more competent.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

Pay me to sprite please.

*inserts money into disc drive*

[Nienhaus]

Pay me to sprite please.

*inserts money into disc drive*

I only accept money through floppy drives.

[RedMcCloud]

I actually do pixel art as a past time and for a game I'm working on. I'm down to sprite things.

[Thunder11]

I did some Pokémon spriting in the past (it was a legitimate pastime!), so I could probably handle recolours (Syndicate-coloured versions of normal gear, for example) if someone sends them my way. I was never any good at spriting from scratch, though, so that's best left to someone more competent.

I don't think all that many people ARE good at spriting from scratch. Anything I try to do that way ends up looking like shit, so I usually chop up existing sprites and use the pieces as a base to start from.

[John_Oxford]

I'm slightly above pure shit at spriting:

All the sprites from my piskel (http://www.piskelapp.com/) account
(majority are from gunsmithing threads, viewer discression advised)


supposed to be a ce only rifle multi purpose everything tool, incomplete though


light weight deathsquad armor (or baysec armor)


CSEW-1. Crew Served Explosive Weapon. Big ass rocket launcher.


Heavy(er) deathsquad armor


flight recorder black box (orginally for sscm)


assault carbine, orginally for LLA's PMC, Perseus.


bullet press (for gunsmithing)


pancor jackhammer


c20-r disassembly gif'


shitty grenade launcher concept



CNC machine and console


energy katana, similar to the ninjas but red.


pulse c20-r. gunsmithing


stetchkin disassembly gif

'
double barrel diassembly gif

I'd be more than happy to become a dedicated spriter, but i've been told by several people these are sub-par sprites. So, if it meets your standards, i'd be happy to help.

[Incoming]

If someone actually offered to update the entire game's spritework for detail and consistency and then hang around enough to do spotwork on new stuff down the road I'd say that's something worth paying for.

At the same time though, I don't think anyone could offer the fat stacks to make such an offer palatable.

[oranges]

talking about patreon dosh as if there is actually any money there is funny considering we're actually below the level of funding to even sustain the servers right now.

[LiamLime]

talking about patreon dosh as if there is actually any money there is funny considering we're actually below the level of funding to even sustain the servers right now.

There's also the merch store that brings in bux, ads brought in money and that sizable one-time donation.

[oranges]

so we have a small bank, but we're eating into it.

[TechnoAlchemist]

i make some sprites

[LiamLime]

so we have a small bank, but we're eating into it.

Probably. There is however still the reserve revenue source from ads, which could fund the servers by themselves.

[Zilenan91]

Irregardless, we do need more patreon donations no matter how we got about it.

[LiamLime]

What TGS would need is to have more individuals donating less money each. As it stands, TGS is essentially funded by one person. And while.

But paying a buck a month for this game is too much for some people, because they are cheap as fuck and have no ability to determine value.

[Nienhaus]

But paying a buck a month for this game is too much for some people, because they are cheap as fuck and have no ability to determine value.

Or don't have jobs.

[LiamLime]

But paying a buck a month for this game is too much for some people, because they are cheap as fuck and have no ability to determine value.

Or don't have jobs.

You do not need a job to donate a dollar per month.

It's fine if you don't want to donate. It's not my job to convince anyone to donate, but there is no monetary excuse you can use. Because the asking price is ONE dollar.

[onleavedontatme]

We'd have more money if MSO would sell cat ears to donors.

Paying people to sprite sounds like drama though because inevitably everyone else contributing sprites/code/sounds will wonder why they arent getting paid.

Also my girlfriend can sprite but has sporadic interest in doing so

[NikNakFlak]

Those sprites aren't bad John_Oxford. Some of the shading and outlines is horrific but damn that is a good start.
I'm pretty shit at spriting too. I can usually puke something out that's pretty nice and I'm great at editing sprites but making new ones is pretty hard. I find making the shape of something to be the hardest with the coloring being pretty down for me at this point. Maybe I'll get gud if the need really arises. Either way, It's not a big deal. We've had pretty much zero spriters before and the world didn't end so who cares.

[imblyings]

Lack of spriters really isn't an issue. Just don't deny pr's because of codersprites as mentioned above. Sprites can always be updated, keeping around coders with the code knowledge and enticing them to continue contributing is the hard part and also one of the greatest and most unique assets that tg has.

It's also not really that hard to start spriting, there are tutorials out there by people with skills far beyond the sum total of skill found in ss13 communities.

[newfren]

People asking ausops for a tutorial should probably check out the stickies in the spriting subforum to see the guide he's already written.

[NikNakFlak]

Ah yes, who could forget the "How to sprite a shiny rubbery dildo" the guide.

[Cik]

well someone has his priorities in order.

[420weedscopes]

i mean i'd sprite something if any of you fucking nerds ever actually asked me but noooooooooooooooooooo
gotta go straight to wj
suuuuuuuuuuuure
it's not like there are five spriters in coderbus but only wj gets pinged!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Cheridan]

i can sprite

give me money

[newfren]

guys look spriting is so easy I just made a hairball sprite.

feel free to credit me when you use it coders.

[imblyings]

https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... 438#p13438

updated with a non-dildo/watering can guide.

Along with the guides linked (the most important part), this is the extent of help one can realistically expect, everything else comes down to practice.

[NikNakFlak]

Basically how every spriting/art guide feels to me