Difference between revisions of "Create Art"

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* [[Portrait Tutorial]] - A guide on how to draw unit/character portraits by Kitty.
 
* [[Portrait Tutorial]] - A guide on how to draw unit/character portraits by Kitty.
 
* [[Armour_Tutorial]] A tutorial on how to shade metallic armour by LordBob.
 
* [[Armour_Tutorial]] A tutorial on how to shade metallic armour by LordBob.
* Sgt. Groovy's vector workshop - Tips and tricks for drawing with Inkscape.
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====Vector Art====
** [[Z-order tricks]] - A few methods for faking overlapping shapes.
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Sgt. Groovy's vector workshop - Tips and tricks for drawing with Inkscape.
** [[Variable-width strokes]] - How to make the strokes vary in width, like being drawn with a flat-tipped pen — no tablet needed!
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* [[Z-order tricks]] - A few methods for faking overlapping shapes.
** [[Shaped gradients with Gaussian blur]] - How to make gradients in other shapes than linear or radial.
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* [[Variable-width strokes]] - How to make the strokes vary in width, like being drawn with a flat-tipped pen — no tablet needed!
** [[Smooth shading in vector]] - The basic vector techniques for smooth shading, employing Gaussian blur and clipping/masking.
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* [[Shaped gradients with Gaussian blur]] - How to make gradients in other shapes than linear or radial.
** [[Vector Inking]] - Vector techniques, including mouse-only, for inking your sketches.
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* [[Smooth shading in vector]] - The basic vector techniques for smooth shading, employing Gaussian blur and clipping/masking.
** [[Making portrait art in vector]] - A complete tutorial for making Wesnoth unit portraits in vector graphics.
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* [[Vector Inking]] - Vector techniques, including mouse-only, for inking your sketches.
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* [[Making portrait art in vector]] - A complete tutorial for making Wesnoth unit portraits in vector graphics.
  
 
=== [[Terrain|Terrain Graphics]] ===
 
=== [[Terrain|Terrain Graphics]] ===

Revision as of 21:26, 30 January 2012

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 lossless 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 data/core/images under the main data directory of the game, 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 user data directory. The game also supports JPEG images, although 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 (no longer maintained) 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).

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

Vector Art

Sgt. Groovy's vector workshop - Tips and tricks for drawing with Inkscape.

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.

Animation


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