Some notes on making sprites in The GIMP

Where I give instructions they tend to be a bit long due to getting setting right, in repeated application, a lot of them are easier than they may appear.

  Sprite Size
  ===========

Standard sprite size is 30x30, to allow a minimum 1 pixel border around the sprite.

Working on a 128x128 base image, this means leaving 4 pixels around the edge.

Some larger objects may relax this a little, having a 1/2 pixel border, but mostly big things should use the large icon support.

  Layers
  ======

Use multiple layers for changes in poses, easily editable sections (eg patterns on a shirt), different versions, etc etc

When in doubt, add another layer

  Colours
  =======
  
Use block colours, with the pencil tool, not antialiases colours as per the paintbrush. This makes editing colours a lot easier, and you still get the antialiasing when you scale down the sprite.

Similarly, give the eraser the Hard Edge setting.

Colours on objects can thus be changed relatively simply by selecting the new colour, and grabbing and filling regions.

  Borders
  =======

Standard border around features within a sprite is 3px (1.5 on output), but may be altered if less distinction is needed

Standard border around the sprite itself is 8px (2 on output). Where the sprite approaches the edge of the tile, this may reduce to 4 (1 on output) or even 2 (half on output) in extreme cases.

  To create internal borders:

Add a new layer below the feature
Grab the By Color Select tool
Set the select threshold to 0
Turn off sample merged
Go to the layer containing the feature
Select the feature
Go to the new layer
menu->select->grow by the appropriate number of pixels
Make the background color black
menu->edit->fill with BG Color

  To create external borders:
	
add a new layer below the sprite
fill it entirely with black
grab the fuzzy select 
Set the select threshold to 0
Turn ON sample merged
make sure the sprite is visible, as it should look on a black background
select the background on the new layer. This should have everything but your sprite selected.
menu->select->shrink by 8px, with shrink from border turned OFF
menu->edit->clear

  Output
  ======
  
Final sprite output can be achieved by doing the following for each frame:

select appropriate layers for frame pose
remove any selection (menu->select->none)
menu->image->Scale Image down to 32x32
menu->edit->copy visible (this merges the layers as it copies)
paste into target image
menu->edit->undo till the image is back to full size

Note that you can normally get away with scaling down 2 frames, and using halves of those for the other 2.
Eg make a "both hands down" sprite and a "both hands up" sprite, then chop it in half for the "one up, one down" sprites


