[stella] karate frame generation

Subject: [stella] karate frame generation
From: "Andrew Davie" <adavie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 20:49:28 +1100

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Past postings on [stella] dealing with a fighting game, and animation for
same, prompted me to have a quick play around with generating suitable
2-colour frames within a 48x48 pixel grid.  I'm half tempted to do a karate
game myself, having done one yonks ago it's quite appealing.  I am inspired
by the BIGTWO demo, which allows freeform movement of two 48x48 sprites over
the screen.
I thought I'd share with the list the results of reducing a line-art karate
animation to a suitable size for 2600 display, and invite comments on the
suitability of the results.  I think the important thing is to keep
animation happening quickly, so that the chunkiness is less apparent to the
naked eye.
The first image (karate4.jpg) shows a small selection of the approximately
100 frames I have at my disposal.  They're great for a karate game, and my
plan is to eventually process them all.  The pictures are rather grainy due
to the high JPG compression used.  I will be happy to email anyone higher
quality pictures upon request.  The method is shown step-by-step in
karate3.jpg.  First is the original frame (I chose #59 semi-randomly - it's
one of the tallest, so gives me some idea of the reduction needed to make
them all fit within 48x48 pixels).  The second frame has had the hair, pants
filled in black, and the outer edges grown by 1 pixel.  All processing is
done with PSP 5.0, and is fairly simple - about 5 minutes/frame.
The frame is then reduced to 45%, and heavy sharpening is applied.  This is
to make the grey/antialiased lines much blacker and more solid.  The process
(reduce, sharpen) is repeated.   Doing this in two stages rather than a
single reduce/sharpen produces a much more "solid" image.  The next step is
to reduce it to two colours, the results of which you can see enlarged
(400%) at the far right.  Comparing with the original, it's reasonably OK -
certainly good enough for a frame of animation in a constantly moving
fighting game.  I plan to do a dozen or so frames, just to see how they'd
look.  If there's any interest, I will post the results for stella readers
to examine.
So, what do you guys think - wouldn't it be cool to have two guys about this
size/shape beating each other to death?
Cheers
A

Attachment: karate4.jpg
Description: JPEG image

Attachment: karate3.jpg
Description: JPEG image

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