Sticky X/Y Sprite Project

[Layell]

Here is some stuff for today

Mega Scizor got some added greys that can be passed along to shiny version so the claws aren't light green in some areas. I did not do the same for the wings because the shiny version of regular scizor has the fun green line wings, and that seems to because it is transparent.

Medicham just has some light fixing and I made the leg shading at the back similar to the regular sprite.

 

[Falgaia]

-mega scizor stuff-

Thought I'd apply it to the most recent version of Mega Scizor I posted up for convenience sake.


Aside from that, I finally returned from my trip out of town I took yesterday, and with that, I made a presentable draft of
Gogoat
Old:

New:

Primary edits include:
-Horns thickened
-Fourth leg now visible on both sides
-Head rotated to match the angle of the torso
-Side pattern remade based on in-game
-Leafy foliage spruced up
-Hopefully made the mouth bearable to everyone here at long last

So yeah, hopefully this guy's cool by now, but if not, shoot me some comments and critiques and I'll try to get to them hopefully by tomorrow.

In other news, I just got a Charizard in-game, and am heavily considering trying to beat Charixard's wings into place due to their insistence on being super-weird. So yeah. EDIT: Already starting to regret this decision, but the gears are already in motion, so there's no turning back... +[

 

[Layell]

Oh did I mention I also cleaned up a few sections of Mega Scizor so let me FUSE THE TWO VERSIONS TOGETHER!

 

[Snivy101 (Chris White)]

IMO, I think mega areo should have a band new sprite made from scratch instead of it using regular areo's gen 5 sprite. I kind of think it would look better if it used its gen 3 pose.

I just dont think that pose is working for it but maybe its just me.

I agree. There really aren't any Mega Evolutions that could use an edited BW sprite.

 

[S0L1D G0LD]

I agree. There really aren't any Mega Evolutions that could use an edited BW sprite.

I made one with a gen four sprite, if it helps. Oh, but blastoise and venssaur use edited bw sprites, no?

 

[Snivy101 (Chris White)]

I believe the 96x96 limit applies to animated sprites as well as non-animated sprites - that Yveltal is too big.

...and this is my 100th post, apparently.

Actually there are some sprites that do that in the Animation. Tornadus's 2nd form's sprite breaks it in the animation.

 

[Typhlito]

Its not just the size. Its also because that yveltal is too good of an animation compared to gf's gen 5 style if that makes sense. Think that sprite was mentioned before a while back if Im not mistaken.

And also, I finished up boo boo keys front animation! Didnt finish the back yet or made their rare animation but its getting there. The keys are a bit tougher than I thought to move right since its a geometrical shape but I think I got it. (and lucky enough the front keys match the back keys so the back animation should take much less time than the front) Anyway, here it is.

 

[Layell]

of all the floaty mineral mons I found the one that goes horizontal the most is Solrock

It goes left 4 pixels and right 4 pixels and moves a pixel each frame for regular loop, this might be a good indicator for the length of Klefki's movement.

Oh and the Gen VI: DS-Style 64x64 project at Pokecommunity hi you guys have permission to use the sprite here.

 

[princessofmusic]

Legitimate Username I kind of agree with some of what's already been said about Amphy. It seems awkward for the hair to be divided into different sections that move individually. Could you weigh in on what it would be like to animate the hair as a single mass?

Wobblebuns It's a well-done sprite, but I don't think that it suits gen 5 style well enough. The pose is too dramatic, although that isn't really your fault, as it's how the Sugimori art is drawn. I do like this palette better.

Typhlito I forgot to save the points that arose regarding Klefki on irc yesterday, but here they are again summed up:

• The big ring/circle around the outside looks deformed as it moves
• The range of movement is too far horizontally
• Consider a "key jingle" for the rare animation
• The keys also look slightly curved/deformed as they swing
• The swing to the right is much less dramatic than the swing to the other side, which looks unnatural

 

[Legitimate Username]

Alright, I'm absolutely sick of everyone wanting Mega Aerodactyl to be replaced, because I've been hoping with all my heart every single time that it's NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. Everyone has their opinions on how the sprite SHOULD look, and I highly doubt anyone has even taken a second to consider exactly how difficult an animation it would be.

Let's take a look at this here.

Notice how the wings move. See how complicated that motion is? It requires THREE DIFFERENT SPRITES FOR THE WINGS in order to make the motion work. In case you couldn't tell, let's look at the same thing at one fifth of the speed.

What does this mean? It means that if we scratch sprite a new Mega Aerodactyl, it will require scratch spriting TWO EXTRA PAIRS OF WINGS. And that's a task that's certainly easier said than done. Making sure that they fit together to make a nice, smooth animation would be difficult beyond belief, and a bunch of sharp claws sticking out from them sure isn't going to make it any easier.

The current Mega Aerodactyl sprite is a simple pixel over of the original, with the only changes to the wings being that they're somewhat sharper (more shaped like a hang glider) and they have their signature spikes added on. Drastically altering the pose is a great way to waste a whole lot of time trying to get the wing animation to work when it can be several times easier just by adding the changes to the extra frames of the old sprite's wings. It sure won't be easy, but it'll still be a massive step down in terms of difficulty. After all, we're lucky that Aerodactyl goes through minimal changes after Mega-Evolving. Failing to use that advantage when working with what could end up being one of the most frustrating animations makes absolutely zero sense.

I'll admit that Mega Aerodactyl's increase in size is actually a claim worth noting, but considering what a poor job sprites do of showing scale (lots of Pokémon that are supposedly the same height are at noticably different sizes, Joltik wouldn't be any bigger than a speck), I think that it's really not worth the trouble.

So basically, I'd really appreciate if everyone would shut up about changing Mega Aerodactyl, because every time that happens I get scared that it will actually be changed and this already nightmarish animation job will needlessly become about twenty times more difficult. On a similar note, to whoever ends up animating Noivern, I sincerely wish you good luck, because it's not going to be an easy job.



On a completely unrelated note, princessofmusic, what you described about animating Mega Ampharos's hair is what I originally planned before deciding that doing so would be the "lazy way". In other words, it's totally doable and not that difficult. However, I doubt it'll be an improvement, and it'll certainly be a while before I get the chance to work on it. Sorry in advance for whatever delays end up occurring.

Also, the key ring on Klefki looking deformed is just the perspective changing as it sways left to right. I think it'll look less like a deformation if it's more extreme, or you could potentially remove that entirely (seems like a less good solution though).

EDIT:

For instance, compare the changes between Mega Garchomp and Regular Garchomp. Due to the lack of silhouette change, it's a fairly lackluster Mega Evolution transition, and it just doesn't feel as epic as say Mega Manectric/Alakazam/Scizor. Some pokémon like Absol can get away with it for this reason as well, as their silhouette changes are drastic enough to feel like a new Pokémon I feel personally that the sprite edits are a nice stop-gap for the time being, but I do feel they need to be completely scratched/reposed/whatever eventually, most likely after everything else has been done and the project is wrapping up.

I plan on making Mega Garchomp more distinct when I get the chance, the pose should definitely be more firm and upright. But that's low priority. Also, the current pose (as shown in the screenshots) is MUCH better than the pose in the official artwork, that one is just kinda goofy and weird.

Mega Lucario also strikes me as totally fine as it is, there are literally no structural changes and the pose works completely fine.

 

[Kyleo]

On a completely unrelated note, princessofmusic, what you described about animating Mega Ampharos's hair is what I originally planned before deciding that doing so would be the "lazy way". In other words, it's totally doable and not that difficult. However, I doubt it'll be an improvement, and it'll certainly be a while before I get the chance to work on it. Sorry in advance for whatever delays end up occurring.

I feel at the minute the hair doesn't flow naturally behind it's back, as it only shifts vertically in one clump. I'd say split each individual strand of hair into vertical strips and move each strand up and down separately so it looks like a consistently changing wave.

 

[Falgaia]

Alright, I'm absolutely sick of everyone wanting Mega Aerodactyl to be replaced, because I've been hoping with all my heart every single time that it's NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. Everyone has their opinions on how the sprite SHOULD look, and I highly doubt anyone has even taken a second to consider exactly how difficult an animation it would be.

Let's take a look at this here.

Notice how the wings move. See how complicated that motion is? It requires THREE DIFFERENT SPRITES FOR THE WINGS in order to make the motion work. In case you couldn't tell, let's look at the same thing at one fifth of the speed.

What does this mean? It means that if we scratch sprite a new Mega Aerodactyl, it will require scratch spriting TWO EXTRA PAIRS OF WINGS. And that's a task that's certainly easier said than done. Making sure that they fit together to make a nice, smooth animation would be difficult beyond belief, and a bunch of sharp claws sticking out from them sure isn't going to make it any easier.

The current Mega Aerodactyl sprite is a simple pixel over of the original, with the only changes to the wings being that they're somewhat sharper (more shaped like a hang glider) and they have their signature spikes added on. Drastically altering the pose is a great way to waste a whole lot of time trying to get the wing animation to work when it can be several times easier just by adding the changes to the extra frames of the old sprite's wings. It sure won't be easy, but it'll still be a massive step down in terms of difficulty. After all, we're lucky that Aerodactyl goes through minimal changes after Mega-Evolving. Failing to use that advantage when working with what could end up being one of the most frustrating animations makes absolutely zero sense.

I'll admit that Mega Aerodactyl's increase in size is actually a claim worth noting, but considering what a poor job sprites do of showing scale (lots of Pokémon that are supposedly the same height are at noticably different sizes, Joltik wouldn't be any bigger than a speck), I think that it's really not worth the trouble.

So basically, I'd really appreciate if everyone would shut up about changing Mega Aerodactyl, because every time that happens I get scared that it will actually be changed and this already nightmarish animation job will needlessly become about twenty times more difficult. On a similar note, to whoever ends up animating Noivern, I sincerely wish you good luck, because it's not going to be an easy job.

I actually brought the reworking idea up to Layell on irc yesterday, and honestly I think it'd be better to rework the sprites and animations for the Megas like Aero/Garchomp/Lucario etc as the very last thing we do. I currently see the existing sprites as being ok, but in terms of a Mega Evolution, I can't help but feel they're be somewhat lacking. For instance, compare the changes between Mega Garchomp and Regular Garchomp. Due to the lack of silhouette change, it's a fairly lackluster Mega Evolution transition, and it just doesn't feel as epic as say Mega Manectric/Alakazam/Scizor. Some pokémon like Absol can get away with it for this reason as well, as their silhouette changes are drastic enough to feel like a new Pokémon I feel personally that the sprite edits are a nice stop-gap for the time being, but I do feel they need to be completely scratched/reposed/whatever eventually, most likely after everything else has been done and the project is wrapping up.

Also, call me crazy, but I was honestly thinking of attempting Noivern whenever I eventually decide to learn animation. I have a good vision for what I want him to do, my only barrier is my lack of any animation skills lol. Maybe someday when I'm feeling particularly suicidal...

princessofmusic Dragalge's coming soon, don't worry. I needed to do Skiddo and Gogoat before the time passed and I forgot, because I knew I would otherwise. As for the head, the previous head was angled too far to the right. Considering the original looked pretty similar to the ingame model, the head angle being so drastic in the backsprite seemed a tad odd to me. However, I could try to add in a pixel or two of the eye instead of just the eyeshadow. Not sure how well that'd work though. But yeah, hopefully I'll have more good work coming shortly. +)

 

[Typhlito]

On a completely unrelated note, princessofmusic, what you described about animating Mega Ampharos's hair is what I originally planned before deciding that doing so would be the "lazy way". In other words, it's totally doable and not that difficult. However, I doubt it'll be an improvement, and it'll certainly be a while before I get the chance to work on it. Sorry in advance for whatever delays end up occurring.

I said it not to long ago but like with cincinno (and I guess you could look at mega luc's tail/mega absol's "wings" as examples too) Instead of moving the hair pieces as a whole, make it move at an angle while having their base move only slightly since that would make it look much more natural. The base would only shift when you want the mass of hair to move in some shape or form. Stretching the hair to make it slightly thicker and thinner might work as well. Maybe having it bounce like cincinno to showcase its hair would be better as well.

I'll get klefki fixed up hopefully today or tomorrow.
Edit: Instead of making a new post, I'll post the new version of klefki here. So I followed your advice and made klefki's horizontal movements less extreme and keeping its ring still expect in the rare animation. Followed what LU said about trying to make the ring movement more extreme there since it wants to jiggle its keys. If your good with this version, I'll go ahead and make its back animation when I get the chance.

ah noticed its gold key move weird so I'll fix that tomorrow

Edit 2: Also, what lu said about areo makes complete sense. So that would probably mean is if anyone ever decides to make a new areo, they would have to make the wings in at least 2 separate poses. The same should be done to the current areo (and flecthinder/noivern) too though if we really want to just stick with what we have.

 

[Legitimate Username]

I believe this is a proper palette swap. In order to create this, the lightest shade of pink had to be valiantly sacrificed in order to keep this at the fifteen colour limit. It will be missed.

Regarding Mega Aerodactyl, it was my plan for a long, long time to edit the spikes onto the extra frames of the original's wings when the time came to animate it. Being able to edit the spikes onto the old version's wings three times is much more manageable than three scratch spriting attempts after all.

Also Typhlito, I liked Klefki's animation better when the ring part went all distorted, it really added an extra level of depth. Now it looks a bit too stiff. To (mis)quote past me: "I think it'll look less like a deformation and more like a perspective change if it's more extreme." It's still fine without that though, it's absolutely gorgeous either way.

I remember a while ago I was saying how the new Mega Scizor sprite was great but still needed some work. Since then, a lot of changes have been made, and I'm now finding it a challenge to find things that need to be fixed with it. I'll try to have a (likely imperceptibly) updated version soon.

 

[Typhlito]

Also Typhlito, I liked Klefki's animation better when the ring part went all distorted, it really added an extra level of depth. Now it looks a bit too stiff. To (mis)quote past me: "I think it'll look less like a deformation and more like a perspective change if it's more extreme." It's still fine without that though, it's absolutely gorgeous either way.

Thanks. But should I put back its moving ring then? Some say yes while others say no. I'll just hold off on the back and start florges then until we agree on what version we want.

On other news, its been a while since anybody has touched mega kanga. Using its gen 5 sprite looks kind of boring since it has literally no changes to its body. So think using a different pose for it is in order. (not to mention its sprites are are not on the chart so nobody could fix it)

 

[Falgaia]

On other news, its been a while since anybody has touched mega kanga. Using its gen 5 sprite looks kind of boring since it has literally no changes to its body. So think using a different pose for it is in order. (not to mention its sprites are are not on the chart so nobody could fix it)

It's on my to-do list, actually. Aurorus comes first, however, and Dragalge comes even before that. It's coming for sure, however.

Speaking of my to-do list, I finally have some progress made on something I called over two weeks ago. Now I just have seven more of these suckers to go through.
Gourgeist (Super-front only)
(I've been listening to a lot of Justice recently ok)
Old:

New:


I editted this guy quite a bit, so lets hit up the list, shall we?
-Outlines fixed
-Angles smoothed/sharpened where need be
-Eyes now both more subtle and 100% more creepy due to convenient hair shadowing
-Pumpkin now less awkward-smile-to-get-a-baby-to-laugh, more elementary-school-art-student's-first-attempt-at-pumpkin-carving
-Colors edited a bit (more about this below)
-Added additional shading where it looked flat.
-Arm hair now displayed in full Gumby excellence
-L'oreal, because that hair is worth it

So, about those colors. I recently discovered that Mr. Sugomori likely had no interaction with the texture artists for Gourgeist, or, at the very least, they worked off of a prototype build. As a result, the in-game model has some relatively different colors for our haunted gourd friend, and so I have no idea what the colors should be for it. More than likely, I think we should probably stick with the ingame, as I feel most of the Pokemon community is more familiar with the ingame model than they are with the Sugomori art at this point, but since we've used the official art so much in the past, I wanted to get this cleared up before plowing ahead to the next seven sprites.

Also, yes, Dragalge's coming up next. I would have done him last night, but I all but fell asleep at my computer when I sat down to work on him. He should come soon, however.

 

[seleccion]

I'm working on mega aerodactyl, using the original aeordactylsprite . This is my progres, what do you think?

 

[BlackTiger]

I'm working on mega aerodactyl, using the original aeordactylsprite . This is my progres, what do you think?

Very nice!
You can also do animation back?
You're really good!

 

[Legitimate Username]

I'm working on mega aerodactyl, using the original aeordactylsprite . This is my progres, what do you think?

So basically what you did was take the BW Aerodactyl animation and edit the spikes onto every frame? Just wondering, that's how it seems you've done it. Aerodactyl is probably the easiest sprite where you can get away with this, so it certainly works.

Anyways, I love it (it's better than how it would look if I animated it), but if I were you I'd hold off on continuing for now. First of all, you're editing a VERY old version of the Mega Aerodactyl, it's pretty much outdated. That being said, there's no guarantee that the current version is the finalized one, and it would suck to have to redo it again should more changes occur (actually the shape of the wings has been bothering me lately). Also keep in mind that there are other changes, namely the differing shape of the tip of the tail and the pointier nose. You may already know about that but haven't gotten to it since this is a work in progress though (like the wing spikes haven't been added either, but that's more obvious).

Also, here's Mega Scizor.

There were many minor changes, such as making the claws sharper and a lot of the general proportions more accurate. I think that the one most worth referencing would be the palette change. For the most part, this was just fixing simple errors and a few RGB values that were slightly off as compared to the BW Scizor sprite. However, the light gray parts of the armour were changed to a darker gray, which I disagreed it. While the darker gray was a much better fit, the lighter shade is precedented in the original BW sprite, and colours of both formes are shown to be the same in every reference image. I changed the shading so that it's more of a shine rather than a major colour, which I think works better.

I think I figured out the best way to improve Mega Ampharos's hair (since OBVIOUSLY I can't take EVERYONE's requests, and it'll be literally impossible to satisfy everybody nonetheless). Not that it'll likely happen anytime soon. I just figured people may want to know, for the reasons stated within the parentheses of the sentence before last.

EDIT: Just fixed up this a little.

 

[CoolStoryBrobat]

Dang, and here I was after all this ninja'ing, deciding to make a comeback like "OH hey guys I came up with an Aerodactyl sprite revamp!" (I was actually in the middle of editing the RSE sprite for it then I decided to look at this thread since the last time I did, and that idea's now out the window lol) What I did notice though, was if by any chance that idea comes back into play (It most likely won't and in which case you can disregard the rest of this post), if you used the RSE Sprite as a base, you can kinda get away with using it and the Emerald Sprite to compensate a little on the animation. By that I mean:

Cause if this is used aside from having to draw an extra set of everything else with spikes on it and animating it all together, you at least have the wings in their "end" frame, and then just have to draw the wings in their "between" phases for each frame. This sounds extremely hard as is to begin with, and I'm kinda getting out of pocket here anyway; haven't made any major contributions in months and have pretty much just done not much more than peeked here every now and then. So yeah, I'mma hush now before Legitimate Username strangles me with a phone cord at the suggestion of this. Good work and hats off to all you guys though, solid progress has definitely been made throughout the course of this entire project

 

[Legitimate Username]

Shoot, I've really been too harsh lately. Schoolwork may have been stressing me out a little too much lately, and my tendencies to have strong opinions and not being afraid to defend them them (even when I probably should!) certainly hasn't helped. This post was definitely release of frustration that's been bottled up for a while. I'd like to apologize to anyone who thinks I've been too brutal with my thoughts. (Special mention to Branflakes325, sorry for being so obnoxious about Aegislash before, I just want to let you know that I absolutely love how it looks now in case I haven't expressed that clearly enough.)

Anyway, I made some fixes to this.

So my original intention behind the hair animation was to do whatever I could envision would have the fewest complaints about it. Because honestly, it was obvious from the start that getting everyone 100% satisfied with it would be nigh impossible. With all of the suggested changes, I decided that there was no chance of me getting to all of them, so I just decided to roll with whatever edits I figured would get the minimal negative feedback. There are also some outline errors, but they'll take somewhat longer to get rid of.

EDIT: aXl, I did in fact miss that comment. I believe Branflakes included that due to it being on the official artwork. However, I'm not really sure either what sort of lighting could cause that highlight, and it doesn't show up on the in-game model, so I'll remove it when I get the chance.

Ridaz, I may have already said this, but any of the "weird" moving is more or less intentional. My first draft, which I never bothered to upload, had the hair moving as if the only force acting on it was Ampharos's bouncing up and down. While in theory that would make sense, it actually ended up looking pretty bad. It just looked like a stretching spring rather than hair. The way it's animated now is as if an external force is acting on it, as if the wind was blowing on it. The "wind" lifts up the first chunk of hair, then passes on to the second, and then the third.

One of the other reasons it looks weird is because the motions I explained above are relative to the moving head, not to the stationary "background". I did the best I could to smooth it out, but sadly, getting it to smoothly match up to BOTH isn't possible.

 

[Falgaia]

Shoot, I've really been too harsh lately. Schoolwork may have been stressing me out a little too much lately, and my tendencies to have strong opinions and not being afraid to defend them them (even when I probably should!) certainly hasn't helped. This post was definitely release of frustration that's been bottled up for a while. I'd like to apologize to anyone who thinks I've been too brutal with my thoughts. (Special mention to Branflakes325, sorry for being so obnoxious about Aegislash before, I just want to let you know that I absolutely love how it looks now in case I haven't expressed that clearly enough.)

Anyway, I made some fixes to this.

So my original intention behind the hair animation was to do whatever I could envision would have the fewest complaints about it. Because honestly, it was obvious from the start that getting everyone 100% satisfied with it would be nigh impossible. With all of the suggested changes, I decided that there was no chance of me getting to all of them, so I just decided to roll with whatever edits I figured would get the minimal negative feedback. There are also some outline errors, but they'll take somewhat longer to get rid of (I'll edit them into this post if I can, Thursdays are when I have the most free time).

It's cool, man. We're all friends here.+)

As for Mega Amphy: I'm not sure if you ever caught my previous comment, as I had edited that post some three+ times with additional comments about various things, but Mega Amphy has this weird line of highlight on the bottom sections of his tail and his backsprite's hair. It looks a tad weird as it stands right now, as if its trying to be reflected light, there's not a lot of it there. I'd recommend either removing the minor highlights on those sections or doing something else with them to make them seem more necessary. Other than that, Mega Amphy looks great now, and I look forward to seeing it in PS!.

 

[Ridaz]

Anyway, I made some fixes to this.

So my original intention behind the hair animation was to do whatever I could envision would have the fewest complaints about it. Because honestly, it was obvious from the start that getting everyone 100% satisfied with it would be nigh impossible. With all of the suggested changes, I decided that there was no chance of me getting to all of them, so I just decided to roll with whatever edits I figured would get the minimal negative feedback. There are also some outline errors, but they'll take somewhat longer to get rid of (I'll edit them into this post if I can, Thursdays are when I have the most free time).

Hmm.. The hair is moving in weird way. It's not moving in a fluid way as MegaAmpharos goes up and down kinda like it's moving in directions it shouldn't at certain times. The hair-tail has this line that's bugging me. Not sure if this is fixable.

 

[BenTheDemon]

I cannot stress enough that these sprites are amazing, and the sprite artists are doing great things for the community.
However, every time I look at Talonflame's sprite the point on the top of its head just looks a little short to me. I've posted pics to show what I mean.

 

[Snivy101 (Chris White)]

I made one with a gen four sprite, if it helps. Oh, but blastoise and venssaur use edited bw sprites, no?

Well Snivy we aren't done with Helio completely, although once the chart says it is ready for animation you are free to take it!

I'll put your name to reserve it too.

Quany and I also did some edits

Quany made the eyes clearer and I made sure the colours were correct.

Also Snivy for when we can start animating this, you might want to animate the shiny version and then get it recoloured to the normal so the colours don't mess up. If anyone also feels that there are some edits that need to be done I recommend using the shiny version so colours can match.

Is it ok for me to start animating?