How To Get The Moving Tail Animation In Space Station 13

This is not a technical guide on how to practise sprites in a graphical programme, this is a guide intended for people who know how to sprite, only demand to know what exactly is needed when people want sprites washed for them. Almost sprites are 32x32 pixels. They utilise 32b colors (24b + alpha channel).

Object overview

At that place are 4 types of objects in the game:

Surface area - we won't be interested in these equally you can't see information technology ingame and wip graphics are sufficient,
Mob - humans, monkeys, cyborgs, aliens and other living creatures on the station,
Objects - machines, doors, items and annihilation else in the game,
Turf - walls, floors and space

The DMI file format

Sprites in SS13 are packaged in .dmi files. To make a new dmi file, open upwardly dream maker, select file > new and choose icon file (dmi) from the drop-down carte du jour. Write a file path for it and hit ok.

A new window volition open with a blank file. in the upper-right are two spaces for sprite dimensions. Most sprites are 32x32 pixels in size. Ane dmi file cannot hold sprites of different sizes, unfortunately.

At present right-click somewhere in the whiteness. There are two types of sprite: pixmap and movie. A pixmap is static while a movie tin be blithe and face multiple directions, that'due south all the departure. Permit's brand a picture show sprite. (New movie)

A window opens with four directional arrows and three frames for each of them, all of them grayness. Byond understands 8 directions. Y'all tin choose how many you lot wish to use beneath the sprites themselves: 1, four or eight. Yous can as well select how many frames yous wish the animation to have. If you lot're making a multi-directional static sprite, make a motion picture with 1 frame, and then no animation, but with four or viii directions, depending how many yous need. If you wish to have the sprite animated it may also interest y'all that you tin can gear up the delay in one/10 of a second above the particular frame. Okay, hopefully you'll know what to practise from hither. The congenital-in sprite editing tool is very primitive and the merely affair worth mentioning in information technology is how to utilize the alpha filter. If y'all double-click any epitome you'll become to the sprite editor, and at the right of information technology is a vertical slider, which controls the blastoff aqueduct. Likewise worth mentioning is that copying from the editor tin behave a scrap strange, past making full backgrounds despite the blastoff filter being ready. Just 'alluvion' the background with a color with an blastoff value of 0 or utilise 'import', which works fine.

Now permit'due south assume we've fabricated your sprites sprites, become back to the dmi file (the screen which showed up when you lot start fabricated the file). Assuming you lot've made a sprite, you'll run across it in the list in that location. Double-click simply below the actual sprite and a rename window should open up, alternatively select the sprite and hit F2 on your keyboard. Give a name to your sprite. This name is often referred as an icon_state, equally that's the variable name which defines it in code.

Also note that you can import and consign image files of different sorts past selecting the files yous wish to export in the editor (hold ctrl to select multiple) and correct clicking and selecting export, or right clicking anywhere and selecting import to import. DMI is like to PNG, then if you rename a DMI'due south extension to PNG information technology should work in all graphical editing software. It usually works in reverse besides. This makes recoloring quicker.

Now, hopefully that's all the information you lot need to sprite and make dmi files.

From PNG back to DMI

Hither's Errorage's video tutorial (thanks Errorage!) on how to convert your beautiful PNG file into a DMI, you can watch this or follow the guide beneath, they are essentially the same.

The commencement thing you want to exercise is download TweakPNG from here,

You then want to copy the .dmi and make it a .png.

Dmi and png files here.

Open the .png file in a photograph editing software like GImp or Paint.NET.

Png file opened.

Make any edits you want.

Perfect.

Save/Consign the file. Along with opening TweakPNG.

Rename the .png to something new and make it a .dmi.

Y'all tin then drag your .dmi file into TweakPNG.

Copy the chunk named "zTXt".

Elevate on the new .dmi and copy the "zTXt" chunk over and make sure it'south anywhere under the "tRNS" clamper.

Oh god what is going on.

Open your new .dmi to brand sure it worked.

Hey! Information technology worked!

Required sprites past object category

Now to tell you what sprites different types of items need:

Mobs

Mob sprites for the most part require four directions.
Mob sprites crave dead sprites.
If you lot choose to you lot can make a laying sprite.
If making a mob that tin article of clothing wear you can use pixel_y, Pixel_x to shift clothing on when coding the mob.

Mobs with Limbs

Humans and human species are composed of limbs - a caput, a breast, two arms and two legs.
The files are in icons/mob/human_parts.dmi for limbs that have a set color, and on icons/mob/human_parts_greyscale.dmi for limbs that can be recolored and begin greyscaled.
Limbs take 4 dirs, like full icons.
Limbs are also used as item icons in case of dismemberment.
Naming is equally follows:
- [race]_l/r_arm/leg for arms and legs.
- [race]_chest(_m/f) for the breast (m/f for male/female variants, optional)
- [race]_head(_m/f) for the head (one thousand/f for male/female variants, optional)
Extra bodyparts like lizard tails go in mutant_bodyparts.dmi

Turfs

Floors are in icons/turf/floors.dmi - Bank check the file for examples.
Walls are in icons/turf/walls.dmi - Check the file for examples.
Shuttle walls and floors are in icons/turf/shuttle.dmi - Check the file for examples.
Space tiles are in icons/turf/space.dmi - Check the file for examples.
I think these are pretty self explanatory.

Objects

Objects sprites are located in the icons/obj binder.
Items sprites are spread throughout said folder.
Item sprites for the most part crave in-hand sprites. They tin can be located in the icons/mob/items_lefthand.dmi and icons/mob/items_righthand.dmi section.
Clothing sprites are located in the icons/obj/wearable folder.
Habiliment sprites on mobs can be found in the icons/mob binder.
Clothing sprites for the most function require in-hand sprites. They can be located in the icons/mob/items_lefthand.dmi and icons/mob/items_righthand.dmi section.
Machinery sprites are located icons/obj/machines folder. Although a good corporeality of them are located in the icons/obj folder.
Door sprites are located under icons/obj/door folder.
Normal door sprite crave door_closed, door_locked, door_opening, door_deny, door_closing, door_open, door_spark, o_door_opening, o_door_closing, panel_open, welded, and elights. I advise looking over a door dmi.
Blast doors only crave opening and closing sprites and sprites for when it is open up and closed.

Contributing sprites and finding sprite requests

See here for details.

Guides For Making Sprites

https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=eleven&t=687

Contribution guides
Hosting	Hosting a server • Setting upwards the database • Working with /tg/station equally an upstream repository
Contributing	Guide to contributing to the game • Setting upwardly git • Downloading the source code • Reporting issues • Changelogs
Coding	Understanding SS13 code • SS13 for experienced programmers • Code docs • Coding standards • Getting Your Pull Accepted • Binary flags‎ • Text Formatting • MySQL
Mapping	Guide to mapping • Map merger • Guide to door access
Spriting	Guide to spriting • Resolving icon conflicts
Wiki	Guide to contributing to the wiki • Wikicode