New character sprite
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And the game is still under work. 
Has anyone ideas, what would be the best way to make characters anti-aliased with the background? As someone has said, it would be a good improvement on the graphics.
I just remember, that alpha blending in AGS requires 32-bit depth and doesn't work with scaled sprites (my game has 16-bit depth). Are there any other good ideas? At least, as I have played Al Emmo's demo, the character (as well as cursors) seems to fit perfectly with the backgrounds, and it seems there is some kind of "anti-aliasing filter" used there.
Or am I just imaginating?
Has anyone ideas, what would be the best way to make characters anti-aliased with the background? As someone has said, it would be a good improvement on the graphics.
I just remember, that alpha blending in AGS requires 32-bit depth and doesn't work with scaled sprites (my game has 16-bit depth). Are there any other good ideas? At least, as I have played Al Emmo's demo, the character (as well as cursors) seems to fit perfectly with the backgrounds, and it seems there is some kind of "anti-aliasing filter" used there.
Or am I just imaginating?
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navynuke04
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As much I know about AGS, it doesn't include built-in anti-aliaser.
But if there is someone other good way to add anti-aliasing to an AGS game (640x400), I will surely use it when I figure out how it works.
Al Emmo's demo looks very good, and the way how the character is anti-aliased with the background is interesting. As alpha blending doesn't work with scaled sprites (this is due to the restrictions in AGS engine), there must apparently be someone other, good way to make anti-aliasing scripted in AGS.
But if there is someone other good way to add anti-aliasing to an AGS game (640x400), I will surely use it when I figure out how it works.
Al Emmo's demo looks very good, and the way how the character is anti-aliased with the background is interesting. As alpha blending doesn't work with scaled sprites (this is due to the restrictions in AGS engine), there must apparently be someone other, good way to make anti-aliasing scripted in AGS.
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Anonymous Game Creator 2
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There's a difference between that and anti-aliased edges. The setup option only affects the pixels inside the sprite, not on the outer edges.
The only way to get the outer-edges of a sprite anti-aliased (like Al Emmo) is to create a sprite containing a transparent alpha channel as the background and save it as a format like PNG, which supports alpha-transparency. When we first started Al Emmo, all the character animations and sprites were hand-drawn in 2D. It was appealing to have the edges anti-aliased so that the characters would blend smoothly into the backgrounds behind them. But the only effective and fast way to do this was by using 3D pre-rendered character sprites. That way, the 3D program can auto-blur the edges and save the sprite on a transparent background/alpha channel. You could do this for 2D sprites too, but it would be a lot more manual labour and the results probably wouldn't look exactly the way you expect them to, as the required level of transparency around the edges would be difficult to implement on every single frame.
Though, if you do implement this feature, the game needs to be 32-bit color depth. Also, characters with alpha-blended edges CAN be scaled down, it's just that sometimes the edges lose transparent pixels (due to the resizing process) and jagged ones take their place -- the result is a mixture of smooth pixels and jagged ones along some edges. But it's barely noticeable, really.
The only way to get the outer-edges of a sprite anti-aliased (like Al Emmo) is to create a sprite containing a transparent alpha channel as the background and save it as a format like PNG, which supports alpha-transparency. When we first started Al Emmo, all the character animations and sprites were hand-drawn in 2D. It was appealing to have the edges anti-aliased so that the characters would blend smoothly into the backgrounds behind them. But the only effective and fast way to do this was by using 3D pre-rendered character sprites. That way, the 3D program can auto-blur the edges and save the sprite on a transparent background/alpha channel. You could do this for 2D sprites too, but it would be a lot more manual labour and the results probably wouldn't look exactly the way you expect them to, as the required level of transparency around the edges would be difficult to implement on every single frame.
Though, if you do implement this feature, the game needs to be 32-bit color depth. Also, characters with alpha-blended edges CAN be scaled down, it's just that sometimes the edges lose transparent pixels (due to the resizing process) and jagged ones take their place -- the result is a mixture of smooth pixels and jagged ones along some edges. But it's barely noticeable, really.
Hey, I believe I figured it out now!
Look the pictures below and compare. The only problem still is, that the alpha-blended character (the lower one) looks somewhat darker than the original, even the edges are now anti-aliased with the background. And it didn't took very long as I did it with Adobe Photoshop...
Look the pictures below and compare. The only problem still is, that the alpha-blended character (the lower one) looks somewhat darker than the original, even the edges are now anti-aliased with the background. And it didn't took very long as I did it with Adobe Photoshop...
Yes, you're right. I haven't just found a reason, why the alpha-blended character looks darker. Maybe the "effect" would be possible to be compensated by making the sprites originally brighter (That means, using Brightness/Contrast adjustments in Photoshop etc.). At least I have to test.pass wrote:The second one does look darker. His hair looks brighter, though (and gray instead of reddish-black).
Does it looks better now?JLM5 wrote: Yes, you're right. I haven't just found a reason, why the alpha-blended character looks darker. Maybe the "effect" would be possible to be compensated by making the sprites originally brighter (That means, using Brightness/Contrast adjustments in Photoshop etc.). At least I have to test.
