New Gani Tutorial!

[Fulg0reSama]

Hey guys, I'm proud to present to you all "The Manual of Ganis"

This is a very heavily detailed document with plenty of pictures on how to use GraalShop.

I have done a lot of work on this and I hope you all will find some use of it.

I thank all of you for inspiring me (Even If you have no idea how) to make this.
I hope this peaks many peoples interests, and perhaps take some time to learning such a fun part of graal development. Patience is a virtue but it's very rewarding with a good imagination.

Effects Guide included by Daisuke Tornova (darkcloud667).
The Bird displayed in the Tutorial created by Aeko (Clockwork) (I am aware it is Maloria's ownership, but was told that it wouldn't be minded it's display in a tutorial. If there is an issue please let me know.)

I'm currently working with a friend to have this put onto a website for you all to use, unless someone else wishes to do this then I won't mind as long as it can be used to help anyone out.

Anyone who runs a server, I encourage you to take a copy of this for the sake of development progression.

[Tigairius]

I like the tutorial, but it looks like a lot of bias personal opinions are contained herein.

For instance, I find this entire paragraph rather unnecessary:

What will happen when you use sprite grid feature, you will make a bunch of x and y cuts like you can manually; but the only problem with this feature is that most if not every single graphics artist you will gani for is not going to make a sprite sheet where they make it grid-able like gridding requires. The reason a graphics artist wouldn’t be caught dead making their work to accommodate this feature has two reasons behind this, firstly because they usually have no clue about how ganis work which is a slight shame and secondly is because sprite sheets are usually very broad fields that the graphics artist see as their playground and will usually make it so it’s easy to understand towards their perspective, I mean they try their best towards accommodating to others perspectives but it never works out usually, So it is generally best to try to assume that they didn’t think about it and do it by hand anyways. Now all of that aside let’s go back to the sprite menu one more time shall we?

I personally very rarely experience graphic artists not willing to properly grid their sprites, and those graphics artists who won't shouldn't be working in the field of sprite development.

GaniShop is not a unique program and almost any game you work for will require your spritesheet to be in some organized fashion. In fact, I require most of my graphics artists to make a "sprite guide" to follow in which every other sprite has a different background color behind it and the size of each row x column of the sprite is written somewhere in the graphic.

I don't mean to sound so harsh, but I don't think you should speak for all graphics artists when you say "graphics artist wouldn’t be caught dead making their work to accommodate this feature," because it's simply not true and gives graphics artists a bad name of being uncooperative.

I'm a little disappointed that the grid feature was skipped since it can save you tons of time if used properly.

[Fulg0reSama]

Originally Posted by Tigairius

I like the tutorial, but it looks like a lot of bias personal opinions are contained herein.

For instance, I find this entire paragraph rather unnecessary:


I personally very rarely experience graphic artists not willing to properly tile their sprites, and those graphics artists who won't shouldn't be working in the field of sprite development.

GaniShop is not a unique program and almost any game you work for will require your spritesheet to be in some organized fashion.

Yeah, I had a feeling this would come up.
I don't mean to personally biase but a lot of times ganiists do have to work around problems like this. I've seen them in all shapes and sizes and formats, the purpose towards what I wrote was simply to say that you will need to be able to work with what you got.

I'm also fine with any edits made towards this, I just wished to disclose the information of the program with a bit of more detail towards what everything does. I did make this for anyone who is completely new to the program.

[nullify]

+1 rep
-1 cool points for .doc

[Fulg0reSama]

Originally Posted by Tigairius

I don't mean to sound so harsh, but I don't think you should speak for all graphics artists when you say "graphics artist wouldn’t be caught dead making their work to accommodate this feature," because it's simply not true and gives graphics artists a bad name of being uncooperative.

Okay I'll admit that was a bit of fault by saying that, But truly most graphics artists won't.

Originally Posted by Tigairius

I'm a little disappointed that the grid feature was skipped since it can save you tons of time if used properly.

I "skipped" the grid feature because of the fact it's a very rigid feature and I wouldn't advise it towards beginners with barely a clue. What is the difference in time saving in changing the index of the sprite and change the value of the x and y of where the sprites are drawn versus gridding out all the sprites, Which btw may not even get all cut anyways?

I never said to completely avoid it, I more or less stated it's rather best to avoid its use if you want to do your work with more clean sprite cutting.

[cbk1994]

Originally Posted by Fulg0reSama

What is the difference in time saving in changing the index of the sprite and change the value of the x and y of where the sprites are drawn versus gridding out all the sprites, Which btw may not even get all cut.

The amount of time saved can be enormous. Photoshop and Fireworks can both show a grid on a document if enabled to make it easier for the artist. I've had to cut up a sprite sheet which was 8x12 before (which was fortunately in a grid.) Imagine doing that with the graphics thrown around in the file in random places.

[Tigairius]

Originally Posted by Fulg0reSama

Okay I'll admit that was a bit of fault by saying that, But truly most graphics artists won't.

This is absolutely 100% false.

However, my primary criticism is that it's important, when teaching aspiring developers, to teach it the most efficient way in order to prevent poor habits from appearing in the development community. It's my opinion that if graphics artists submit a sprite sheet to a ganier and it's not properly gridded, then the ganier should send it back and ask for the proper graphical standard of sprite sheets to be implemented before performing any gani work.

Either way, you've clearly spent some time on this and I'm really happy to see this kind of effort being put fourth in our community.
+Rep

[Fulg0reSama]

Originally Posted by cbk1994

The amount of time saved can be enormous. Photoshop and Fireworks can both show a grid on a document if enabled to make it easier for the artist. I've had to cut up a sprite sheet which was 8x12 before (which was fortunately in a grid.) Imagine doing that with the graphics thrown around in the file in random places.

That's my point.

Using the grid feature is alright in its situation (which is even why I took the time to discuss its use) but most of the time it just doesn't seem necessary at all to do so when doing it by hand assures its use. I'll just leave it up to the preference of whoever reads it.

Originally Posted by Tigairius

Well, my primary criticism is that it's important, when teaching aspiring developers, to teach it the most efficient way in order to prevent poor habits from appearing in the development community. It's my opinion that if graphics artists submit a sprite sheet to a ganier and it's not properly gridded, then they should send it back and ask for the proper graphical standard of sprite sheets to be implemented before performing any gani work.

Either way, you've clearly spent some time on this and I'm really happy to see this kind of effort being put fourth in our community.
+Rep

Thanks tig. I spent at least a week on and off the document, and because of your helpful criticism I may go over and revise it sometime. The reason towards my graphics comment mainly is that I was also speaking mostly out of my own experience towards the work. Your criticism doesn't go without its merit and I appreciate it.

I won't give up after releasing this, If I need to add more to it I will. Please do not forget to suggest to me what else I need to add, But do remember everyone this is made for beginners use.

I only forgot to mention I'm going to add new formats of the document up since I know not everyone likes .doc's

.txt and .pdf and whatever else I can do I guess

If anyone wants to add it to any other format please do so.

[MattKan]

Awesome, but... I was wanting to learn how to make ganis and all, and it's a bit strange that the same day I decide to try you post a tutorial thread...

:0

[adam]

pdf version, for those who like single file documents. Used open office.
Good work.

+rep, finally somebody I haven't repped recently!

[Fulg0reSama]

Thanks adam.

[fowlplay4]

Also hosted in Wiki format here.. http://public.zodiacdev.com/index.php?title=Ganis

[cyan3]

In the interest of making resources easy to find, I've also put it on the Graal Bible as well.

Edit: http://wiki.graal.net/index.php/Crea.../Gani/Tutorial

[SlikRick]

+rep

Thanks Flame

[papajchris]

Im impressed that everyone in the community jumped in and quickly made the information accessible to everyone via pdf, wiki, bible, etc.. So +1 to everyone mentally