Rendering Game Sprites
by Robert Fletcher

For those of you who don't know a Sprite is a 2D image/Set of images used in games rather than a 3D charecter. Sprites were really big from the late 80's to the mid ninties at which time 3D acceleration was Introduced, and systems could now manage fully 3D charectors. So why use sprites you ask well alot of games dont need fully 3D charectors prefering speed over looks (saying this sprites can look very nice if you make them properly). Any way this isnt a why should I use sprites tutorial it presumes that you know they are what you want to use in your project


When making Sprites for a game you should always make sure that they all are rendered at the correct angle for the game so that they all fit in and look consistant and that they all have a nice clean 1 colour background that you can use as a transparency.

For those of you thinking Sprites???? 3D Rendered?????, Its a very nice way of creating game Graphics for things like RPG's and RTS games. Any way you wouldn't be reading this if you wernt into this kind of thing So lets Begin.



Step 1: The Basics
1.Create you Model to the highest standard you can dont worry about slow rendering you will only have to do it once.
2.set up you lighting, this should be soft and neutral so it will fit in in a wide variety of scenes.
3.Press F8 and add a new world and alter the colour sliders to your desired background color(Transparency colour in Game/Application), Make sure both sliders are exactly the same.



Step 2: The Camera.

Make a Mesh/Circle and centralise it on the Charecter/Object and parent the camera to it
CTRL-P. This Keeps the camera at a set orbit around the sprite making it easier to position the camera
when producing your sprites

Now press F10 and set up as i have done below, Green Highlight is up to you and Red
is Essential


KEY
1.The Desired Size of the Sprite

2.Desired File Format (dont use Videos and if you use JPEG make sure the Quality is 100)

3.Always use 100% it saves you time

4.KEY Tells Blender to give you a clean transparent Background when AntiAliasing
Example have you ever seen those web gifs with the white spotty outlines, they forgot to press the KEY button ;)

5. The OverSample/AntiAliasing differs from model to model do a few test stills and then
choose

Decide on a camera angle, Select the camera and press F9 and select ORTHO to remove any dementional scaling because this will cause the sprite to look warped eg. the head will look much bigger than the body from certain angles.
Now rotate the camera into position as i'v done below. You can use the Len(lens size/Zoom) Property in the Cameras Editbuttons to get a nice fit around the sprite, But make sure that you leave enough space for limb movement, because it will
look silly if parts of the sprite disapears in motion.

Your camera angle should look something like this depending on what game you are using

Note make sure the camera angle is correct otherwise sprites will look out of place



Step 3: Animation
Sprite animations are usualy shot from the front the back and both sides, An easy way to achieve this is bt using a circle which you added above, and rotating it around the model in 90 degree increments (For total accuracy press the N button and change you Rotation angles there.)



Have Fun

Angel7 Signing off

Sorry, but I couldn't get the annimation, but originally, she was annimated