Human Sprites: What can be improved?

Incoming · Post by **Incoming** » Sat Jan 02, 2016 8:37 am #144265

So there was some discussion today when the lizards came back to sybil as to why some players prefered playing lizards more.

Among the more predictable answers there was one that came up a fair bit I didn't really give too much consideration before:

Lizards just have much more detailed sprites.

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The basic human sprite for tgstation has changed very little in recent times. The versions every human uses has remained essentially dormant since April of 2013.

These, or different shades of these, are the current human sprites. Does anyone have any ideas on how they could be improved upon? Either directly or through optional new layers added to them in the same fashion as all the bits found on lizards. Although not pictured here, hair considerations are also entirely possible.

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A quick reminder of things we can't do easily:

*Add to the sprite's size around the torso/groin: Every uniform/undershirt/underwear in the game relies on the assumption that males (of any race) happen to have the same grouping of pixels on their torso and that women look only vaguely different (and again with consistency between races in terms of the "shadow" of the icon).

*Intricate tattoos or scars: There's just not enough space on their body for anything like that. Very basic and broad shapes are about the extent of what's possible here.

And one thing I will never do:

*expand the dixel

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disclaimer: I'm not saying these sprites are bad, or that anything HAS to change, I'm just curious if people have any ideas

newfren · Post by **newfren** » Sat Jan 02, 2016 9:50 am #144273

More over the top hairstyles would be neat. Like Mohawks and shit, something that's noticeably different from the 100 different short hair variations we have.

TheNightingale · Sat Jan 02, 2016 11:35 am

Remove the dixel and the nipples on the default sprites.

imblyings · Post by **imblyings** » Sat Jan 02, 2016 1:22 pm #144302

give humans the choice of one round-start augmented body part

and none for lizards

Zilenan91 · Post by **Zilenan91** » Sat Jan 02, 2016 1:31 pm #144306

The problem I have with the human sprites is mostly around the face. None of the face is really well defined and it just doesn't look very good. I'm honestly not sure how it'd be improved either.

Lumbermancer · Sat Jan 02, 2016 1:44 pm

They are fine, leave it alone. You can put in fat sprites if you are so bored.

Wyzack · Post by **Wyzack** » Sat Jan 02, 2016 4:31 pm #144334

Simple tattoos and scars using the framework Rico implemented would be nice

cancer_engine · Sat Jan 02, 2016 7:39 pm

Humans look very scary without hair. It would be nice if they didnt look so scary.

IcePacks · Post by **IcePacks** » Sat Jan 02, 2016 9:42 pm #144360

fat sprites

fuck all your stupid erp tatoo bullshit i'm not going to grab a magnifying lens to spot miku's clit ring

Incoming · Post by **Incoming** » Sat Jan 02, 2016 10:13 pm #144364

ironically the pull that gave us these spessmen sprites was the same exact one that removed fatsprites. Though these two things aren't actually connected.

ShadowDimentio · Sun Jan 03, 2016 2:12 am

The head should be a little bit more circular instead of the horrifying oval shape it is now.

cancer_engine · Sun Jan 03, 2016 3:01 am

ShadowDimentio wrote:The head should be a little bit more circular instead of the horrifying oval shape it is now.

bro, those are ears

Super Aggro Crag · Sun Jan 03, 2016 3:44 am

Return fatsprites

Incoming · Post by **Incoming** » Sun Jan 03, 2016 4:31 am #144445

SAC please I already have a hideous pipe dream in datum antags, we'll get to that one afterwards.

ShadowDimentio · Sun Jan 03, 2016 5:35 am

I GUESS YOU COULD SAY THEY'RE BOTH ~INCOMING~ FEATURES

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

DrPillzRedux · Sun Jan 03, 2016 4:31 pm

Different jaw shapes for one. Also humans look like they have no chin. It looks like they all have a double chin from the side.

Super Aggro Crag · Sun Jan 03, 2016 5:31 pm

give humans some sexy 6 pack abs shading

Takeguru · Post by **Takeguru** » Sun Jan 03, 2016 9:02 pm #144579

imblyings wrote:give humans the choice of one round-start augmented body part

and none for lizards

I like this one.

If this goes though, head augs should be a bit more noticeable on the sprite because that'd be the one chosen 90% of the time

Zilenan91 · Post by **Zilenan91** » Mon Jan 04, 2016 2:45 am #144624

No chest augs because mass alien immunity fucking sucks and I forget what head augs do.

Nienhaus · Post by **Nienhaus** » Mon Jan 04, 2016 3:27 am #144628

Zilenan91 · Post by **Zilenan91** » Mon Jan 04, 2016 3:28 am #144629

The dudes a bit too ripped but I like it.

Nienhaus · Post by **Nienhaus** » Mon Jan 04, 2016 4:04 am #144630

WJohn didn't like that I didn't use the 6 original colours.

Nienhaus · Post by **Nienhaus** » Mon Jan 04, 2016 4:29 am #144637

Spoiler:

Incoming · Post by **Incoming** » Mon Jan 04, 2016 5:51 am #144642

I'm digging it. Keep in mind the way human sprites work is that they have specific icon_state racial skintones. Which is why it's good to use the existing colors, because it means you can just replace the template skin colors with the colors of the various shades of skin we have.

Remie Richards · Mon Jan 04, 2016 7:15 am

Gosh that... that looks worse by quite a ways.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Mon Jan 04, 2016 8:39 am #144646

How about we don't do this?

RedMcCloud · Post by **RedMcCloud** » Mon Jan 04, 2016 1:10 pm #144671

Steelpoint wrote:How about we don't do this?

No, we do it. Here and now. Yes, right now, yes, here. No questions asked.
None.

Anyways, Nienhaus, all the shading on the sprite looks like ASS. I like how the shoulders are a little larger and the head is more natural looking, but goddamn not every fuckin' muscle needs to be perfectly defined on their goddamn abs.

Spoiler:

Cheimon · Post by **Cheimon** » Mon Jan 04, 2016 1:39 pm #144678

If the guy has weird muscles, so should the gal. Otherwise it's just weird and inconsistent and the abs look weird anyway.

Nienhaus · Post by **Nienhaus** » Mon Jan 04, 2016 3:35 pm #144693

RedMcCloud wrote:Anyways, Nienhaus, all the shading on the sprite looks like ASS. I like how the shoulders are a little larger and the head is more natural looking, but goddamn not every fuckin' muscle needs to be perfectly defined on their goddamn abs.

Spoiler:
Also notice that I am writing literately for once.

Don't ever assume my human sprites are serious. Not really all to interested to make a whole new human sprite.

imblyings · Post by **imblyings** » Tue Jan 05, 2016 4:22 am #144854

Spoiler:

it would require a lot of reworking, female clothing sprites mostly

but really, it's 32x32, there's not much room for improvement in the first place unless there's a massive change in art style

iamgoofball · Post by **iamgoofball** » Tue Jan 05, 2016 4:31 am #144860

we should implement the male version of your sprites since those fit on the normal clothing build imo

cancer_engine · Tue Jan 05, 2016 4:48 am

imblyings wrote:
Spoiler:
it would require a lot of reworking, female clothing sprites mostly

but really, it's 32x32, there's not much room for improvement in the first place unless there's a massive change in art style

I dont like it. I want spessmens to be average looking, not super models.

Incoming · Post by **Incoming** » Tue Jan 05, 2016 5:03 am #144866

iamgoofball wrote:we should implement the male version of your sprites since those fit on the normal clothing build imo

To be clear it's not hard to modify the pixels female outfits take off, it is only a problem in that mutant races females either need to be redone for that bodyshape or I'd have to start tracking female outfits by race.

The fact that that female sprite doesn't have space between the legs IS a problem though, because no uniform currently defines a color for that gap. That COULD be fixed, but then we'd have to generate special version for males that readd the gap for their sprites. I'm also not so sure about men and women having radically different outlines, because that lends itself poorly to disguises. There's very little wiggle room between "barely noticible" and "exceptionally different" on a 32x32 sprite.

So yeah, a lot of work, but probably not in the ways people are thinking.

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The blue parts are new missing bits on that female sprite, the red bits are new added bits. Looking at this I see we'd also need to start tracking female versions of shoes, socks and gloves if we used these. It would be a LOT of work. Blue is 'ok' red is 'fatsprites level challenge'

Remie Richards · Tue Jan 05, 2016 7:55 am

Again, let's just not do this, because the sprites are fine.

Incoming · Post by **Incoming** » Tue Jan 05, 2016 9:26 am #144892

I was more looking for little things yeah, and even then only if people thought there was a big need for it.

Nienhaus · Post by **Nienhaus** » Tue Jan 05, 2016 6:57 pm #144975

Let's just resprite all of ss13 guys, it can't be /that/ hard.

LiamLime · Post by **LiamLime** » Wed Jan 06, 2016 4:58 pm #145166

Remember when we wanted to go to 64x64 sprites?

Incoming · Post by **Incoming** » Thu Jan 07, 2016 1:11 am #145241

technically we could make just player sprites 64x64 and then just render them at half scale, it would just look terrible on 1x (and probably on any other scale level too)

danno · Post by **danno** » Mon Jan 25, 2016 8:03 pm #148912

it's a bad idea to change the female sprite to anything with a different silhouette from the male one, imo
both for ease when creating new clothing and because sometimes you shouldn't be able to tell who someone is just from a quick glance
if you want to change the sprites, you're gonna have to think of something really good, otherwise the ones that are already in are just too functional to be changed

is there any reason in particular that 64x64 sprites can't be a thing
i dont remember

WJohnston · Post by **WJohnston** » Mon Jan 25, 2016 8:43 pm #148922

Yeah, because there's like 20,000 sprites to redo.

That's a pretty good reason.

danno · Post by **danno** » Mon Jan 25, 2016 9:04 pm #148925

once you do the basic necessary shit the rest is optional innit
item sprites and stuff could be done over time
something I did for a different byond game was have a larger, more detailed sprite for an item in your inventory, but if you dropped it on the floor it would have a smaller sprite to give everything a better sense of scale and whatever
for that effect, most of the 32x32 sprites could just be reused
a lot of stuff in ss13 could benefit from that

it's probably too much of an effort for anyone to care but w/e now you'll dream about it

Random Players · Tue Jan 26, 2016 5:30 am

danno wrote:it's a bad idea to change the female sprite to anything with a different silhouette from the male one, imo
both for ease when creating new clothing and because sometimes you shouldn't be able to tell who someone is just from a quick glance

Want to point out that since items (padding to go feminine-normal, 'magical' corset to go normal-feminine) could be made to change the silhouette easily I believe code-wise, by the same logic we shouldn't have the long hair sprites that stand out massively.

danno · Post by **danno** » Tue Jan 26, 2016 5:38 am #149048

what I meant was that anyone who is making an effort to disguise who they are shouldn't be identified so quickly at a glance
anyone who is doing that probably has a mask or something similar to cover their hair

Random Players · Tue Jan 26, 2016 5:47 am

Which is my point. We could probably easily make craftable items (Bedsheets+wires for both? Pick on click) you apply to your jumpsuit to do the change.
I'm not saying respriting wouldn't be a issue, I'm just saying that the disguise factor shouldn't be seen to be as big a issue as it appears to be seen.

Amnestik · Post by **Amnestik** » Tue Jan 26, 2016 5:56 am #149051

Let dudes choose dick size

But only if they're BYOND members ;^)

Incoming · Post by **Incoming** » Tue Jan 26, 2016 6:45 am #149064

Females already do have a different silhouette, it's just very subtle and doesn't appear with loose fitting clothing (read, exosuit slot).

danno · Post by **danno** » Tue Jan 26, 2016 6:58 am #149065

which is gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay

confused rock · Wed Jan 27, 2016 8:55 pm

Beards are all really ugly

Thu Jan 28, 2016 12:11 am

The unloved rock wrote:Beards are all really ugly

nah

ThanatosRa · Post by **ThanatosRa** » Thu Jan 28, 2016 11:42 pm #149758

Time to look all shifty and nervous then state "fat sprites" before bolting off.