Player Sprite upgrade (-> Gen 5)

[EikoBiko]

Let's make the player sprites match the BW style!

 

Yes, I'm aware this would require a lot of reworking assets! So I've already started to help. I've created these assets for male/female overworld sprites:

 

 

Additionally, here are some proposed changes for the profile sprite:

 

 

Proportions are better (left arm no longer reaches all the way to below knee), character is more determined, etc. Here are some currently existing clothing items in action:

 

 

We could also use a masking system to help prevent this:

 

 

This:

 

Plus this masking texture... would allow this... (Alternatively, each hairstyle could have a "hat" variant.)

 

I haven't done female profile sprites yet, but they are doable for sure.

 

Here's the base sprite:

Edited January 26, 2023 by EikoBiko
extra image

[BrandonBraune]

The sprite has already been updated, it looks more colorful and better animated, they even added a nose, your idea is good but I see it as far from being implemented since all the existing cosmetics of the game since 2012 have to be completely modified.

[IIZapperII]

I would like to see all the sprites remodeled to 5 gen, it only remains to see how possible it's to make that real without losing Darkshade in the attempt 👉👈

[EikoBiko]

1 hour ago, BrandonBraune said:

The sprite has already been updated, it looks more colorful and better animated, they even added a nose

Since when/where can I see that?

 

19 minutes ago, IIZapperII said:

I would like to see all the sprites remodeled to 5 gen, it only remains to see how possible it's to make that real without losing Darkshade in the attempt 👉👈

Darkshade doesn't have to do it all on their lonesome. I've already done 12 of them for the male profile. :]

[Darkshade]

The style we use was chosen because it's the most visually cohesive among all of the games we currently/will support - this was a deliberate decision.

 

Also hot take but I think Gen 4s visual style also looks much nicer than Gen 5s.

[EikoBiko]

7 minutes ago, Darkshade said:

The style we use was chosen because it's the most visually cohesive among all of the games we currently/will support - this was a deliberate decision.

I don't doubt there was a level of deliberation, but your artistic skill has definitely grown in the last decade, at which point Unova wasn't available. (I still remember when everyone was a color swap of FRLG characters -- can you believe the vanity thread was made 10 years ago as of next month? Just wild.) It seems we're at odds on this front, but I believe there's still a good number of people prefer the look of gen 5, with some good reason. The sprite style accentuates the body more (hands and feet more separated from the body in the over world, which can really help make the sprites seem more dynamic.)

 

The magnified profile shots aren't stylistically much different between Gen 4 and Gen 5, but I feel the player profile sprites in PokeMMO at least could use some updating from what is currently being used.

 

Would be nice if these assets were exposed to the community like the UI sprites so people could make asset swaps, but I don't know if that's in the cards at all.

[caioxlive13]

46 minutes ago, Darkshade said:

The style we use was chosen because it's the most visually cohesive among all of the games we currently/will support - this was a deliberate decision.

But you know if Gen 5 sprites are compatible? just in case of any crazy people would want to do a mod with all sprites and skins updated to gen 5.

[EikoBiko]

16 minutes ago, caioxlive13 said:

But you know if Gen 5 sprites are compatible? just in case of any crazy people would want to do a mod with all sprites and skins updated to gen 5.

I don't know that it's even possible to edit player sprites currently. I'd be willing to attempt it though if it becomes possible.

Most head items will only need to be made 1 pixel less wide, which is simple enough. The rest of the body items will probably need to be hand made. But there aren't a ton of shoe or glove items, so those shouldn't be much of a hassle. Mostly just top/bottoms.

Edited January 27, 2023 by EikoBiko

[BrandonBraune]

2 hours ago, EikoBiko said:

 

I know my comment doesn't matter much, but I like the sprite style of the 4th generation more, the one of the 5th generation couse looks like a bomberman sprite, in that case if they worked on a change of sprites it would seem perfect to me once and for all things are done right and the same sprite is rendered but multiply the pixels x2 to give more details to future cosmetics but I see it as unnecessary

[EikoBiko]

2 hours ago, BrandonBraune said:

multiply the pixels x2 to give more details to future cosmetics

Doubling the resolution of the sprite would make the player sprites look extremely out of place with the rest of the world, since nothing else exists at that resolution.

Edited January 27, 2023 by EikoBiko

[BrandonBraune]

26 minutes ago, EikoBiko said:

Doubling the resolution of the sprite would make the player sprites look extremely out of place with the rest of the world, since nothing else exists at that resolution.

I understand your doubts, But let's not confuse resolution with pixels, and pixels with bits, since before each pixel was given a bit, (because the gameboy screen only had 160 x 144 pixels) and since pokemmo is a modern emulator that can emulate a image of 32x32 pixels at original size on a device with a screen of 1,920 x 1,080 pixels maintaining the resolution of the normal sprite, it is even possible to represent a sprite in 3D maintaining the resolution size of the sprite of the original trainer. the pixel art in pokemmo is by taste and not by necessity.

[EikoBiko]

5 minutes ago, BrandonBraune said:

I understand your doubts, But let's not confuse resolution with pixels, and pixels with bits, since before each pixel was given a bit, (because the gameboy screen only had 160 x 144 pixels) and since pokemmo is a modern emulator that can emulate a image of 32x32 pixels at original size on a device with a screen of 1,920 x 1,080 pixels maintaining the resolution of the normal sprite, it is even possible to represent a sprite in 3D maintaining the resolution size of the sprite of the original trainer. the pixel art in pokemmo is by taste and not by necessity.

Alright, let me rephrase: rendering player sprite at twice the pixel density as all other character sprites would make the player sprites look extremely out of place with the rest of the world, since nothing else exists at that pixel density.

Anyways for fun (and demonstration), here's a comparison of Hilbert in Gen 4 and Gen 5 styles:

 

Edited January 27, 2023 by EikoBiko

[Darkshade]

5 hours ago, EikoBiko said:

Would be nice if these assets were exposed to the community like the UI sprites so people could make asset swaps, but I don't know if that's in the cards at all.

It isn't; sorry.

I don't mean to brush you off, but we have no plans to make the player sprites 'mod-able'.

 

There likely are some players out there (yourself included) who might prefer the style of later generations - just as there are some which might prefer the style of earlier generations.

Because a majority of our supported games use the current style, and the majority of the available NPC characters we're able to load also exist in the current style (some characters from Emerald aside), this one was chosen.

In this sense, B/W is an outlier, but the sprite style is not significantly different from our current style that it looks out of place (again something we had considered at the time of us upgrading from the previous art style).

 

The only way I could see us handling this request is to have a separate set of vanities which use a different style displayed depending on the current game you have loaded, but this would double the work required to create each vanity, as we'd then need another set of sprites for each supported style; this isn't really feasible due to not only the work involved, but also because it would double the file size of our character asset library, and require double the testing to ensure it all worked correctly.

 

I can appreciate your desire for things to be visually consistent (I noticed your post above pixel density, and that resonates with me a lot), and it's something that I'd certainly like, but this is the compromise that was chosen at the time, and I still believe it to be the best choice for the art direction of the player characters today.

 

[Bestfriends]

4 hours ago, Darkshade said:

It isn't; sorry.

I don't mean to brush you off, but we have no plans to make the player sprites 'mod-able'.

 

There likely are some players out there (yourself included) who might prefer the style of later generations - just as there are some which might prefer the style of earlier generations.

Because a majority of our supported games use the current style, and the majority of the available NPC characters we're able to load also exist in the current style (some characters from Emerald aside), this one was chosen.

In this sense, B/W is an outlier, but the sprite style is not significantly different from our current style that it looks out of place (again something we had considered at the time of us upgrading from the previous art style).

 

The only way I could see us handling this request is to have a separate set of vanities which use a different style displayed depending on the current game you have loaded, but this would double the work required to create each vanity, as we'd then need another set of sprites for each supported style; this isn't really feasible due to not only the work involved, but also because it would double the file size of our character asset library, and require double the testing to ensure it all worked correctly.

 

I can appreciate your desire for things to be visually consistent (I noticed your post above pixel density, and that resonates with me a lot), and it's something that I'd certainly like, but this is the compromise that was chosen at the time, and I still believe it to be the best choice for the art direction of the player characters today.

 

Even though sprite design is not my forte, I would like to thank you for making our sprites. Generation 4's Sprite models look just right in my opinion because they are not too chubby and not anorexic. Generation 4 looks like a healthy body weight.

 

Spoiler

Throughout the years, your work has been amazingly put together. Seeing what you come up next is quite an exciting experience for me as a player. I wish you all the best with continuing your works here on PokeMMO!