An Update on the C1 Spriting Project
Written onAs many know, my biggest project at the moment is updating the sprites and body data files for all of the standard six Creatures 1 Norn breeds. I started this project towards the end of last year, and planned on having the baby males complete for beta testing back in January. I’m a tad embarrassed to say that I’m still working on the baby males after all this time! However, those who know what goes into creating a breed know that there are hundreds of individual bitmaps to manipulate and coordinates to carefully set in the body data files. I could have cut this project into something small by just making changes to a few bitmaps. However, I just had to make this a lot more complex! How so?
- Better Body Part Shapes: Some Norn breeds have oddly shaped body parts, due to accidental clipping or missed pixels. The Ron Norn suffers from this problem the worst, especially when combined with the out-of-order bitmaps in certain positions. Norn breeds will still have their own unique shapes: Body parts have not been templated, except in extreme and rare cases. In other words, I have not simply recolored a single image for each breed: I’m still using every individual breed’s images and manipulating each one to ensure it resembles the correct body part without any strange edges.
- Body Position Fixes: Although only seen in a handful of poses for a couple of breeds, there are some bitmaps with swapped positions. This was what happened with the original C1 Grendel, which appeared to look down when the Grendel was reaching (and trying to look) up. The male Purple Mountain Norn is a breed which will greatly benefit from this element: When looking up high, the head position is not lined up with the neck! Body data (.att) files will also be redone to ensure that all body parts line up correctly.
- Improved Colors: Noticed any oddly colored green or pink parts on a Norn? This was the main reason I wanted to embark on this project! Along the way, I was also rather unimpressed with the color schemes of some of the newer breeds. Expect to see more uniform color schemes for Purple Mountain Norns, Forest Norns, and Ron Norns! They will still be easily recognizable, only with toned down color schemes. Previously, one could find pink, purple, blue, lime green, yellow, and brown all mixed together! Certain other issues are being improved, such as the removal of some pure white or pure black pixels, which would then be transparent. Norn eyes will be vastly improved.
- Standardized Bitmap Sizes: Many who play Creatures 1 know about the floating pixels that sometimes show up in certain breeds, particularly mixed breeds that include Purple Mountain Norn and/or Forest Norn sprites. The issue here lies with the size of the individual bitmaps: Leave too little space, and the image ends up wrapping any pixels near the edge to the opposite side. Not something that will ever break the game, but certainly not something conducive to a cute Norn! In the process, I decided to standardize all bitmap sizes, across all breeds. This is more of a shortcut for myself, especially when it comes time to setting up the body data coordinates. However, this should improve the way that mixed breeds appear, if only slightly.
It’s a tedious process, and one that requires a lot of patience! I’m nearing the end of the bitmap creation process for the baby males. My next step will be to create the sprites, which is just a matter of importing. The body data files will take some more time, as every body part requires its own coordinates to be defined. Expect to see a beta release to test out with C1 baby male Norns next month! I know I’ve said that in the past, yet I really want to get this project moving much more quickly and give something back to the community!
Oh man I can’t wait! If I knew more about spriting I would of tried to start the process myself. The main thing that bugs me is some of the norns keep changing their eye color from the side view to the frontal view..I never noticed it when I was little..but it irks me alot now. I know its a bit of a silly thing to be bugged about, but all the same :>. I hope this goes well for you!
Ah, I think I know what you’re referring to! Does this happen with your male Purple Mountain Norns? Norngirl created a fix for this, which is available on her Web Site. Scroll down to the very bottom, just above the list of downloads, and you should see a fix for both C1 and C2! I’m certainly going to make sure this improvement is preserved with my update!
Anyone is welcome to post about the little things that irk them: I’m trying to be very thorough, but I definitely want this update to be something that fixes as many things as possible! Sneak peak: I’m planning on making elders look less tired (with droopy eyelids) and a little more happy in old age, while female Purple Mountain Norns will have their bright makeup palette toned down to something a bit more natural! This last drastic change might be an option: I can include both standard female PMN heads and this toned down variety, since some might still prefer the originals!
Oh wow thanks! This has a lot of nice things on there! Granted, I don’t really play Creatures 3 because I don’t like the 3Dish look to it. Still! Thank you! I mostly breed Purple Mountain Norns for they are my favorite, so thank you :> I’m pretty sure it only happens the Purple Mountain Norns unless for some reason there was some genetic..weirdness which seems like it wouldn’t happened but who knows!
Toning down the PMN lipstick? I’m all for it!
Sara: It’s all in the sprites. There are some pretty horrific issues that were never resolved. “Horrific” in my view because an errant pixel drives me nuts. Ha ha!
ArchDragon: Awesome! I’ll likely hold a poll to make sure I’m not going against the majority, but I think the female Purple Mountain Norns will be much more liked with a more natural appearance! I still plan on giving them colored lips, though they’ll be much more blended. And that blue eye shadow is probably going by the wayside… The 80s are over! Ha ha!