Lesson 7
Smooth Outlines/AAing

First we have our sprite. I am going to use a ball for this lesson.

Yes it looks very cruddy, but dont worry...it will look better...besides you will be using your own sprite.

Now, we are going to add an outline for your sprite. Simply use black to go completely around your sprite. Like so:


Okay so now it looks like a cruddy sprite with a horrible black outline...ugly. So...we have to fix that. Check out this step. Add darker shades of the color near the black outline:


Yes its looking bett...nvm its not looking better...it still has a jagged edge. So how do we fix the outside? With a simple thing you SHOULD already know. Anti aliasing...check it out:


Now, you can add a lighter shade of AAing to the outside of the sprite to make it look better:


And you can even add a darker shade:


Your assignment is to present me with a sprite without an outline and then i want you to use this tutorial to add a smooth outline to it.

Good luck!
-CMR-

Credit: Chessmasterriley

un-outlined sprite, a disk:

i edited an old orb of mine, besides you guys never did teh orb tut... >_>

nice job sk8
silent it needs to be outlined and smoothed

awww i missed one yinly olittle spot, i resubmitted it.. much better

yea i know... im outlining it, smoothing it and AAing it right now.

and... fin!

Not to call your bluff CMR but you never use aaing on sprites as when you put them over a background it looks very very bad:

AAing is only used when you have a background and not a transparent one and "sprite" implies transparency. Still a fairly decent lesson except I much prefer Artisan's.

Here is mine:


Is it right?

yes but if u dont recall there is a function in gm which allows u to set the alpha...called sprite_set_alpha_from_sprite...look it up...you can pixel aa for any background

Hello,
I AAed a little old smiley :)

Hope I did it correctly.

Gaming4JC
Edit : nvm, I need to fix it the hosting people made the transparency all wierd or something...

Edit Again:
Wallah!



Once again, I hope I did it right...

well cmr didnt do that, he put the correct AA on a white backround. and besides, outside AA is more for pixel art and less for sprites

edit: oops! i saw a flaw in mine, heres the corrected version:

I don't have GM any more but I suppose the majority of the forumites use it here anyways so I will take your word for it. The aaing of sprites thing wasn't that big of a deal I just wanted everyone to know that if you are doing sprite work for someone and they ask for a transparent sprite and you give them aaing you are in deep trouble.

@silent_sniper: If you read the CMR's tutorial he uses the words "sprite" continually and never the words "pixel art"

Anyway the whole thing's not a big deal I'm just trying to reiterate to people when and when not to use aaing. Sorry if I was rude.

Ian is fairly right. You shouldnt AA outside of a 'sprite' this is where a technique called sel-out can be used, however I think the tutorial is meant to be describing the technique of anti-aliasing as oppose to with transparancy.

My Ferrari wheel:


I didn't put shading/dithering and such because what we should train was AA'ing so...

aaing outside of a sprite is FINE! Look at tons of 2d games of today...THEY ARE ALL AAED!!

yea, but they dont go to a color brighter than the outline, look at mlss, it has grey AA on the outside of everythingwith an outline, because all the colors your eyes will pay attention (during gameplay) to are bright and vibrant!

I think i might have gone a bit over board with aaing but now I at least know how to do it. :)

Hello again,
So what CC to you have on my smiley? :(
Please let me know if I did it correctly :D

Gaming4JC