Difference between revisions of "Create Art"

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m (Added link to the "Armour Tutorial" by LordBob, link leads to forum post in the Art Development forum, someone with the necessary permissions should wiki-fy the forum post, I don't have the permisions)
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The following is information specific to drawing terrain for Wesnoth.  Read Frame's "Tiles Tutorial" for a good overview of how terrain graphics work.
 
The following is information specific to drawing terrain for Wesnoth.  Read Frame's "Tiles Tutorial" for a good overview of how terrain graphics work.
  
<!--Someone with the necessary permissions to upload images to the wiki should wiki-fy Mesilliac's Essay linked below. I tried but it seems standard users cannot upload images to the wiki and linking the images shows only the hyperlinks, not the images. I have linked the forum posts so that the essay would not be forgotten - artisticdude -->
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* [[Messiliac's Essay on Terrain Perspective]] - The geometry behind the perspective used for terrain tiles in Wesnoth.
* [http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?p=292683#p292683 Mesilliac's Essay on Terrain Perspective] (two successive forum posts) - The geometry behind the perspective used for terrain art in Wesnoth.
 
 
* [[Tiles Tutorial]] - Frame's tutorial describing the process of making terrain tiles in Wesnoth, and how they interact with adjacent tiles.
 
* [[Tiles Tutorial]] - Frame's tutorial describing the process of making terrain tiles in Wesnoth, and how they interact with adjacent tiles.
 
* [[How To Make Seamless Tiles]] - The tutorial is aimed at Photoshop users, but the technique is similar with The GIMP.
 
* [[How To Make Seamless Tiles]] - The tutorial is aimed at Photoshop users, but the technique is similar with The GIMP.

Revision as of 14:26, 6 January 2012

Getting Started

General Information

Graphic artists working on artwork intended for mainline Wesnoth usually meet on the Art Contributions forum or on the restricted Art Development forum ('restricted' meaning that only those users with special permissions - such as art contributors and developers - can post there). The former is a great place to post and discuss new and current mainline Wesnoth art and graphics, and the latter to see what the art development team is working on. Artists working on graphics for UMC add-ons meet in the Art Workshop forum.

Unit and terrain art is stored in the portable network graphics (PNG) format. Each frame of a unit animation, and each variation of a terrain is stored as a separate .png file in the "images" subdirectory of Wesnoth, and generally these files will be 72 x 72 pixels (the size of Wesnoth's basic hexagonal tile) with an alpha channel (a part of the file that indicates how transparent each pixel is). When creating your own images, you can test them without overwriting any game data by putting them in your userdata directory (see EditingWesnoth for details on Wesnoth's directory structure). The game also supports JPEG images, though these are better suited for story art.

To edit these graphics, you'll need some program capable of creating PNGs - some of the programs in the following list are free, open-source software, and will do the job nicely: Art Programs

If you need some inspiration, we have a Graphics Library which collects art posted on the forum. You can use this for ideas, and as a scrap heap for different parts of unit images (a technique described here).

Roadmap

A list of what's being done and what needs doing:

  • Tiles Status - A roadmap/plan of sorts for future work on terrain tiles. (outdated)
  • A list of current work that needs to be done with sprites. (outdated)

Art Tutorials

These are a work-in-progress, and describe both how to make art fit into Wesnoth's style, as well as giving some considerable tips on drawing in general. Especially useful is the External Tutorials page which lists a large number of art tutorials available on the web.

General Art and Computer Graphics

Terrain Graphics

The following is information specific to drawing terrain for Wesnoth. Read Frame's "Tiles Tutorial" for a good overview of how terrain graphics work.

These describe the system used to specify how terrains behave in game:

Sprite Art

The following are different tutorials about sprite work compiled by various Wesnoth sprite artists. These will give you the most specific-to-Wesnoth information about making sprites, and are well worth a read.

External Tutorials

The following page contains dozens of links to tutorials covering all manner of artwork, including sprite art. These were not made by Wesnoth artists, but should prove very useful for general instruction.

See Also