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• Webmasters: Tutorials: Sprite Bases - Intro The cutting and pasting of different sprites to form a new pose is done for many reasons. When character creators want to give a character new moves, he or she may cut different body parts and put them together to get the new pose that they want. For sprite editors, the character you're making may have a head like Ken, but a body and clothing style like Cody. For this, cutting and pasting comes in handy. Also, there are so many sprite edits out there that a new pose can hide the fact that it's a simple sprite edit and add to the illusion (and the dream) that your favorite company has made a game with this character in it. The original parts The original sprites and the new frankensprites That is an example of what can be done by cutting and pasting parts from a single character. Notice that I cut at the points where the body bends (joints) like shoulders, elbows, knees, neck, etc. If you cut in the middle of someone's limb, you must make sure that it's going in the same way or have good enough editing skills to make the entire limb look like it's going the right way. Step-by-Step: New Captain America jumpkick I did this with Paint Shop Pro 7, so the terminology that I use is from that program. Sure, some of you are using Photoshop, but I'm sure you can follow along with what I'm saying. I don't have another program that takes screenshots, so I can't show you snapshots of my working in PSP7. Once I do, I'll provide them to help with this tutorial. (3) Pose: this is VERY important. If you want the sprite to be taken seriously, you really need to pick a pose that fits the character. If the character is from a video game, try to pick a pose that looks similar to his/her original game pose. - Overused Sprites For those who are new to sprite editing, I'm going to warn you about what we call Overused Sprites. People have been editing sprites for a long time and there are some sprites that have been used A LOT. It's okay when you are making a whole Mugen character and need to use every frame of your sprite base that you can. But, if you're just making an edit and not a character, then you need to avoid certain sprite poses. Many people hate it when you use these poses. Here are some examples of such sprites: - Transition Sprites If you don't know what a Transition Sprite is, start playing a fighting game. Do a move that has a lot of animation frames and pay close attention (if you can play in slow-motion or frame-by-frame, then do that). Did you notice the few frames in-between the fighter's standing animation and the actual move? That's what we call Transition Sprites, where the character shifts from standing to attacking. You'll find a lot of great poses there... like the ones to the side... - Sprite Thievery I'm going to warn you right now... DO NOT USE OTHER PEOPLE'S SPRITE EDITS AS BASES UNLESS YOU HAVE THEIR PERMISSION!!! DO NOT USE SPRITES FROM MUGEN CHARACTERS!!! You might not think that you're going to get caught, but you will. Chances are, someone who's on the message board that you post them on knows the person that you ripped them off of. A lot of sprite editors use a technique called Frankenspriting where we cut and paste parts from different poses and sprites to make an entirely new base... but we usually say anything about it. But you'll find out if you're foolish enough to rip off an edit. And, for crying out loud, don't take sprites from a Mugen Character's SFF file. Many creators add sprite edits to existing characters for new moves. Steal from an .sff file and you might get caught by using one of those custom frames of animation. Do you realize how many people have been caught using sprites from Evil Ken? No one likes sprite thieves. They're one of the most hated groups in Mugen and you don't want to join them. If you do, you'll become an outcast and die alone and unloved. Do yourself a favor and don't be lazy... - Bad Poses Eeeeewww... That's all that I have to say on the subject for now... I'll probably update this later. Have fun... unless you're a dirty sprite thief. - Written by Prime Op

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