More of a Game Graphics than a mechanics question

How in the world do the devs at Nexon rotate their sprites? I tried doing it myself in photoshop. Put the axis at the base of the spear, and rotated. I got the horribly pixellated mess on top:

http://i46.tinypic.com/vzypvq.png

The legit one from Maplestory is displayed at the bottom (horizontal position). After my first failure I attempted it with all the image interpolation types (bicubic, billinear, and the other four in general preferences) but it always becomes a pixellated mess. I presume the devs don't sprite 45 degree, 90 degree, and 180 degree positions from scratch (judging by how inefficient it would be, and how lazy Nexon is at doing things in general) but I'm puzzled as to how they managed this feat.

O.o You serious?
Look at it (its not rotaded), look at any pixelated game, you have to make seperate sprites for each movement/action.

Although I do would like to know how they make the sprites for pixelated games, I know they don't take that much time after you get good at it but I doubt they really make them all from scratch.

You're never going to be able to recreate the quality of the in-game sprites by rotating other sprites; it's always going to be a pixelated mess.
The reason for this is actually quite simple. Nexon isn't creating sprites by using other sprites.

You're right in assuming Nexon doesn't hand-craft sprites for each individual angle, but you need to take that step one further.
Unless they don't mind being incredibly inefficient, they aren't hand-crafting any of the sprites.

It's more likely than not that all of the in-game graphics begin as either vector or hand-drawn images which are then automatically converted into sprites. This means that any rotations can be done before lowering the resolution, allowing them to avoid any distortion.

I initially thought it was more of a fail on the part of Photoshop's image interpolation algorithm (because it also consistently messes up 90 degree to 180 degree rotations on sprite work when it has no excuse to).

However, I have another question: what about just 45 degree to 90 degree rotations? Maplestory weapon sprites I've looked at so far are mostly at 90 degree (or multiples), 45 degrees (or multiples) (with the exception of 1h sword ones, which have alternate 'side view' sprites). Also there're the odd standing animations with something like 120 and 140 degrees. Considering just these three positions however, would it be possible to build a 90 to 45 or 180 to 45 degree algorithm?

And what about somersault kick? I always wondered how they rotated your sprite when doing that skill.

Also I have doubts as to whether they actually use vector graphics, vector graphics tend to become anti-aliased (but retain high quality) when zoomed out of. MapleStory sprites almost always have consistently black lines with little to no sign of anti aliasing (with the exception of the colors inside).

The graphics are probably vector without any anti-alias, so you get the pixel art feel and retains gets the ability to edit them. Then exported for game.

Personally I was under the impression that weapons were some kind of 3D.

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Originally Posted by Haseo

However, I have another question: what about just 45 degree to 90 degree rotations? Maplestory weapon sprites I've looked at so far are mostly at 90 degree (or multiples), 45 degrees (or multiples) (with the exception of 1h sword ones, which have alternate 'side view' sprites). Also there're the odd standing animations with something like 120 and 140 degrees. Considering just these three positions however, would it be possible to build a 90 to 45 or 180 to 45 degree algorithm?

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An algorithm to do what, exactly? I don't understand what you're trying to do.

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Originally Posted by Haseo

And what about somersault kick? I always wondered how they rotated your sprite when doing that skill.

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Somersault kick only has two different character frames during the actual attack. One looks to be the "float" or "fly" animation while the second is one of the weapon swing or stab ones. The first has been flipped 180 degrees while the second has been turned 90 degrees.

Rotating a sprite to any multiple of 90 degrees should be pretty trivial. Hell, Microsoft Paint has done it for over a decade, no problem.
Photoshop is just over thinking it.

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Originally Posted by Haseo

Also I have doubts as to whether they actually use vector graphics, vector graphics tend to become anti-aliased (but retain high quality) when zoomed out of. MapleStory sprites almost always have consistently black lines with little to no sign of anti aliasing (with the exception of the colors inside).

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I have no idea how efficient converting to a raster version of the images would be, but they can always clean up any sprite versions and add those solid lines.
Since they're converting to relatively simple images anyway, they probably don't even use anti-aliasing.
I'm more of the opinion that the images begin as hand-drawn anyway. Just presented vectors as an option since I know that's how some developers do/did it.

It's just highly unlikely that they're hand-crafting any of the sprites in the game.
It takes too much time.

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Originally Posted by Viaje

An algorithm to do what, exactly? I don't understand what you're trying to do.


Somersault kick only has two different character frames during the actual attack. One looks to be the "float" or "fly" animation while the second is one of the weapon swing or stab ones. The first has been flipped 180 degrees while the second has been turned 90 degrees.

Rotating a sprite to any multiple of 90 degrees should be pretty trivial. Hell, Microsoft Paint has done it for over a decade, no problem.
Photoshop is just over thinking it.


I have no idea how efficient converting to a raster version of the images would be, but they can always clean up any sprite versions and add those solid lines.
Since they're converting to relatively simple images anyway, they probably don't even use anti-aliasing.
I'm more of the opinion that the images begin as hand-drawn anyway. Just presented vectors as an option since I know that's how some developers do/did it.

It's just highly unlikely that they're hand-crafting any of the sprites in the game.
It takes too much time.

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not so sure about that, however something to think about would be transparency, spriting transparency manually is nigh impossible (referring to when they make wings or weapon effects) and i don't see why they'd use one method for equips and a different one for other equips, so something like vectoring it, turning it, spriting it and minimizing it.

as for flipping something 90 degrees being "easy" it's the only thing in which the computer doesn't really have to "think" or add anything to the picture, since pixels are a grid, and this doesn't mess with that grid.

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Originally Posted by Viaje

It's just highly unlikely that they're hand-crafting any of the sprites in the game.
It takes too much time.

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You have to realise there is a team of artists devoted to things like this. Also Nexon AM takes a lot of their stuff from Korea. So I wouldn't say highly unlikely, more highly likely that they duplicate each sprite, adjust it to the angle/state they need it in and then clean it up by hand.

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Originally Posted by XTOTHEL

You have to realise there is a team of artists devoted to things like this. Also Nexon AM takes a lot of their stuff from Korea. So I wouldn't say highly unlikely, more highly likely that they duplicate each sprite, adjust it to the angle/state they need it in and then clean it up by hand.

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I'm well aware that the art in Maplestory is done by more than one person, but efficiency is still efficiency.

It does take a while to do the sprites manually, but when that's your job, you just have the time to do it. (it's only like 100 per weapon anyway, and recolours are pretty near free - nearly all the 'special' skill animations are just ripping frames from the regular 1h or 2h animations anyway, they don't add new animation frames cause then they'd have to update every equip the character could wear)

There is a fair amount that can be copy pasted but ultimately I would guess they're hand-tweaking the results on every frame that's rotated differently. Like looking at my PSB, there's horizontal (used standing), 45 degrees, and around halfway between those. They only need to be finished for one quadrant (0 to 89) because after that it can do a perfect 90 degree rotation, so the actual frames would be 0, 20, 45, 70, and that's it.

With regards to skills, how do arrows work? I was playing my mercedes a while ago and realized that the arrows seem to have multiple angles of rotation for when they target monsters vertically from you. How does that work?

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Originally Posted by Haseo

With regards to skills, how do arrows work? I was playing my mercedes a while ago and realized that the arrows seem to have multiple angles of rotation for when they target monsters vertically from you. How does that work?

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If they're vectorized, you can rotate them at any angle without any pixelation.