Hi,
I was just wondering what is the best way to create sprites and sprite sheets for ios? I have Illustrator, Photoshop and SpriteHelper. I was thinking about making a vector character with limbs on different layers (octopus btw)
and then making adjustments as needed and then using Photoshop to colour. Is this a good idea?
Sorry I know this isn’t directly Corona related.
Thanks [import]uid: 26289 topic_id: 10889 reply_id: 310889[/import]
Hey there,
Don’t worry - questions don’t have to be strictly Corona related - honestly I prefer seeing some that aren’t 
I personally use Photoshop and it works well, although I’ve heard that some people really like Sprite Grabber. (I don’t use it so cannot comment.)
Peach 
[import]uid: 52491 topic_id: 10889 reply_id: 39771[/import]
SpriteGrabber isn’t going to help on the art side of creating spritesheets. That’s a code module to help with, well, the code for spritesheets.
A very useful tool for creating the spritesheet images is Texture Packer. Another similar tool is Zwoptex, but I haven’t personally used that one. [import]uid: 12108 topic_id: 10889 reply_id: 39780[/import]
Really nasty stuff:
http://www.garagegames.com/products/spriteworks
[import]uid: 12704 topic_id: 10889 reply_id: 39789[/import]
Thanks for all the replies. I haven’t had time to work through the suggestions yet but I will do over the next couple of days. Will report back.
Cheers [import]uid: 26289 topic_id: 10889 reply_id: 40063[/import]
I am a happy user of TexturePacker Pro for building the spritesheets and SpriteGrabber for bringing the sprites in life inside my game.
http://developer.anscamobile.com/code/spritegrabber-spritesheets-two-lines
Actually, some months ago I tried to work with Zwoptex and the native SDK sprite functions but I wanted something easier/quicker for everyday use. Back then, there was nothing else available so I wrote SpriteGrabber for having the advantages I describe in the module frontpage.
Good luck with your games! [import]uid: 7356 topic_id: 10889 reply_id: 39951[/import]
I was looking a Spriteworks as an option and it looks great. Unfortunately it isn’t an all in one solution. I would still need a 3D modeling program and I am on a budget. Anyone got any suggestions for that? What about Photoshop to Flash. Does anyone have any experience with Flash animation and exporting it to SpriteSheets? [import]uid: 26289 topic_id: 10889 reply_id: 40196[/import]
There is lot of free 3d models and you can buy them on turbosquid. [import]uid: 12704 topic_id: 10889 reply_id: 40197[/import]
If you’re looking for a Flash spritesheet solution check out Spriteloq. http://www.loqheart.com/spriteloq/ The ansca guys just ran a promo so you can get it included with a Corona Pro license.
Since you’re on a budget you might want to look at SWFSheet as well. I’m the developer of Spriteloq so I’m biased towards it. I think if you check out SWFSheet and Spriteloq you’ll find Spriteloq will save you a lot of time. If you have any questions, feel free to email me at support@loqheart.com [import]uid: 27183 topic_id: 10889 reply_id: 40221[/import]
Spritesheets…i’ve been looking at these.
I still don’t quite understand them though.
Still learning! [import]uid: 61600 topic_id: 10889 reply_id: 40460[/import]
Ha there is no shame in self promotion Don and it looks like a great program. Actually this looks to be right up my alley, i’ll give it a test run.
Thanks to everyone for the replies. Wicked. Just out of curiosity (secretly another question hiding in this topic) can you use anything else, apart from sprite sheets, for animation? I’m talking Corona and iOS dev in general. [import]uid: 26289 topic_id: 10889 reply_id: 40917[/import]
You could draw each frame with individual images, or if you use vector graphics, draw each frame with code. [import]uid: 58455 topic_id: 10889 reply_id: 40937[/import]
I just got TexturePacker pro today, for 20 bucks it’s great. It will create a .lua file after you hit “publish”. It’s got some quirks, like you have to set all the drop downs each time you open it and the full screen vs window acts funny sometimes but otherwise very solid.
You just hit open sprite, and put stuff in there and it autoplaces it and then when you publish it pushes Lua code out to a whateveryounameit.Lua file which you can just call with a “require” statement in Lua.
I’m almost a month into Corona from no programming experience whatsoever, so I figured if my dummy butt can do it, a person who even has some programming experience can do this stuff!
-Nick [import]uid: 61600 topic_id: 10889 reply_id: 40940[/import]
I use Blender3d to render my animation into individual images, and then ImageMagick command line tools to stitch into a sheet and set the transparent color. Here are my shell scripts that create my sprite sheets (FYI, I’m not using $4 anymore but have been too lazy to change the script :-))
Get ImageMagick here and follow the MacPorts instructions. It downloads and builds everything for you. Command line is the way to go…no point, click, drag, drop, etc. for every sprite. One command from a prompt builds all of your sprite sheets.
http://www.imagemagick.org/script/binary-releases.php#macosx
sprites:
#!/bin/sh
sprite RedGlass 32 32 1 images/RedGlass true
sprite BlueGlass 32 32 1 images/BlueGlass true
sprite GreenGlass 32 32 1 images/GreenGlass true
sprite iPhoneIcon 57 57 1 Icon
sprite iPhoneIcon 114 114 1 Icon@2x
sprite iPhoneIcon 72 72 1 Icon-72 sprite:
#!/bin/sh
montage render/$1/\*.png -tile x1 -geometry $2x$3+0+0 $5.png
if ["$6" = "true"]
then
mogrify -transparent '#000000' $5.png
fi [import]uid: 58455 topic_id: 10889 reply_id: 40737[/import]
I also just purchased TexturePacker Pro today for $20 bucks via PayPal. Couldn’t be easier to purchase and reasonably priced. It takes a little bit of fumbling with to figure out, but appears to do what we need it to do for creating SpriteSheets and generating .LUA code.
I have spoken to the tool author to see if there are any tutorials out there (eg YouTube) but nothing so far. The manual documentation (which is on their website, not included with the purchase download) is pretty dry reading. But within a couple hours my buddy and I were able to work it out and get some stuff on screen… which is always rewarding! [import]uid: 74844 topic_id: 10889 reply_id: 45210[/import]