Full Version: Need Advice for Large Sprite
I'm trying to make a rather large sprite for a dragon. The body is going to remain fairly stationary for the fight, but I need the head and neck to move. I don't want to have to make a bunch of sprites for each individual position the head and neck could be in, so what advice do you guys have for how I can make the head and neck so I can easily animate the movement without a lot of extra sprites?
I'll use an amazing image as an example. We'll pretend that it's a big scary dragon whose head and neck do not resemble a penis.
Have the head be a separate sprite from the body, be sure you place the pivot point (origin) in a logical spot. [Shown in slide 1]
The head can be drawn over the body. [Shown in slide 2]
You could even put the legs on a separate sprite to animate those as well, or any part of the body. [Shown in slide 3]
Using any art program with layers, you can test how it will look quickly. For actually scripting it:
::Draw Event::
It's a crude example, but I hope it points you in the right direction.
Have the head be a separate sprite from the body, be sure you place the pivot point (origin) in a logical spot. [Shown in slide 1]
The head can be drawn over the body. [Shown in slide 2]
You could even put the legs on a separate sprite to animate those as well, or any part of the body. [Shown in slide 3]
Using any art program with layers, you can test how it will look quickly. For actually scripting it:
::Draw Event::
CODE
draw_sprite(dragonBody,0,x,y)
draw_sprite(dragonHead,0,x+headOffsetX,y+headOffsetY)
draw_sprite(dragonHead,0,x+headOffsetX,y+headOffsetY)
It's a crude example, but I hope it points you in the right direction.
Hm...
I considered doing the SNES thing and making his neck a series of circular sprites so they could all move independently, but I thought it might be a bit cheesy, though... this is a game based on an MSPaint stick-figure comic that I draw, so the graphics are supposed to look simplistic and stick-figury... yes, it's a word, I just created it
So, what do you think, make a bunch of circles for his neck each with its own movement, or make the neck as 2-3 sprites with that many pivot points instead?
I considered doing the SNES thing and making his neck a series of circular sprites so they could all move independently, but I thought it might be a bit cheesy, though... this is a game based on an MSPaint stick-figure comic that I draw, so the graphics are supposed to look simplistic and stick-figury... yes, it's a word, I just created it
So, what do you think, make a bunch of circles for his neck each with its own movement, or make the neck as 2-3 sprites with that many pivot points instead?
The pivot point thing would probably be easier but the rope of sphere things could still look pretty good. In the end, it all depends on what sort of things you would need the dragon's neck to do. The ball rope seems to be more flexible (due to having more sections) but as you said, it wold look a tad cheesy. Just pick the method that would work best for the situation.
For what you want to do, I say just a few pivots would work out better.
ok, I think I'll go with a few short sections with pivot points and see how it does. thanks for the advice.
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