Spirited Sprites - Graphics pack with 8-directional NPCs and animals

[Krutzelpuntz]

Spoiler: Original Post: • show

Hey y'all, I've been drawing sprites for this game for years, but never really released anything myself.
I contributed to Wickham's Graphical Enhancement Project back in the day, and have a few sprites in the base game now, and did all the sprites for Night's Character Designer. Still working on that one, once in a while.

Anyways, I decided to share some of what I have made up to now, currently I'm working on making animals and NPCs in 8 directional sprites, and I'm interested in what you guys think.

Also, I noticed "Galgana's creature sprites" has a few animals with w after the name, does that enable winter version sprites?

I will update when I have more to share, I hope to have a complete graphics pack one day. Enjoy!

Description:
Spirited Sprites is purely a graphical mod with focus on realism and esthetics.
A large portion of the pack is adding 8 directional sprites to the game, both NPCs and animals.
All animals are completely remade with 3d references, while NPCs are based on the original game sprites.

Installation and Use:
Unpack in truetile folder and overwrite all.
Alternatively unpack somewhere else, and copy over the files you want.
Copy over wanted files from Spirited Sprites Optional folder. Note the truegfx images need to be copied to the right folder.

Use "a-SS-summer.bat" and "a-SS-winter.bat" to change back and forth from snowcovered graphics.
Press F9 in game to update graphics.

Content and old changelog:


8 directional animals preview:




Changes has been made in released versions.

Old Preview Changelog:

ter-walls - added a few pixels length to support t-juctions.
ter-prepsoil - new tilled soil sprite.
ter-kotacamp - flipped to fit general lighting direction.
ter-ground - new ground sprite.
ter-gcmoss - new moss ground sprite.
ter-cellar - changed perspective to be top down.
ter-road - changed colors to fit new ground.
gui-horizon - new sprite.
it-skis - new sprite for 8 directional movement.
cur-facedirs - reduced size, as 8 dir. sprites make facing easy to read.
cur-pcdirs - same as above.
ter-firepla - Changed colors and contrast.
flo-heather - New sprite for heather. Shown as large patch, instead of small plant.
ter-ypine - new sprite, fits the spruce trees better in style.
ter-bunk - rotated to fit fallen direction east-west.
Dog changed to look like an Elkhund instead of a Buhund.Recolored reindeer sprite.
Started to convert animals to black outlines, as is looks a bit better when sprites are recolored in-game, and increases contrast between sprites. Not sure about this though..
Included wrong wall files. Fixed.
Minor changes to several sprites.

Old Changelog 1.2:
All animals are now included.
remofire - reused my old sprite from Wickhams G.P.
embers - new sprite to fit burt out fire.
suna stove - new sprite for greater difference between the two.
Pine tree, same as the tall version, but shortened. Included as default.
blood - new sprite, less saturated.
Bird tracks made by Galgana - for black grouse, hazel grouse, capercaillie, raven, eagle owl, goshawk and mallard. Thank you!
Tall spruce and completely new pine trees that fits the style better. (optional)
8 directional player characters in 8 directions. (optional)
Snowcovered boulder and evergreen trees. (optional)


Spirited Sprites 1.3.1:

Fixed typo in .bat file. Thank you paulkorotoon!

Npc - all npcs included, same ones as we know and love, now in 8 directional sprites.
Included .bat files as per suggestion of Galgana, to change between snowcovered trees and bloulder + hare winter fur.
Plants - Barley, nettle, sorrel and river reed - More pronounced outlines, and experimenting with multiple plants for plants where it makes sense to grow more dense.
Fire - New sprite in pixel art style.
tahtitaivas - Added northern lights to loading screen. (optional)
logo - added Spritited Sprites logo to main screen. (optional)






Terms of use:
The animal sprites are created by me, and you can use them for what ever you want.
Everything else (with a few exceptions) is derived from the game sprites, and can be used for what ever you want, as long as it is ONLY used to mod UnReal World. (As per the terms stated in truetile readme)
Feel free to contact me if in doubt.
Credits are appreciated, but not necessary.

Due to forum file size limitations, I had to part the zip file in 3. Alternative downloads:

Google Drive
OneDrive

NB, you have to be logged in on the forums to download from the underlying links.

[Galgana]

Wow, these are amazing! Congratz on sharing these critters! I'm really gonna be looking forward to seeing them in action for my next adventures in unrealworld.
Lots of love especially for the plumage on the flapping birds.

Regarding the alternate sheets in my sprite revamps: they won't do anything unless the user manually changes the file names to replace vanilla sprites.
It's possible to automate the necessary renamings through use of bat files. This method can be seen in action with Buoidda's Crafts, which has summer and winter versions of trees and the hare.

Another method for setting up seasonality is to separate summer and winter versions under different mod folders when using Weathereye's Mod Loader.
I hope the explanation below is clear enough to show how I use the mod loader to manage seasonal replacers:

Spoiler: show

• PNGs for summer and winter sprite sheets must have names identical to the target vanilla files
• load order priority given to winter versions, as in: put the winter folder at the bottom of modlist.txt
• rename the winter folder in order to activate changes whenever appropriate for the playing session
• press F9 to re-draw tiles in-game

The file structure would look something like this:

Code: [Select]

Unrealworld directory/
-Mods/
--modlist.txt
--ReAnimals/
---files/
----truetile/
-----pngs here (summer coat)
--ReAnimalsWino/
---files/
----truetile/
-----pngs here (winter coat)
And the modlist.txt file can have a load order containing:

Code: [Select]

+ReAnimals
+ReAnimalsWin
Keeping the winter folder name as ReAnimalsWino will prevent winter sprite changes from being applied because the name does not match ReAnimalsWin, which modlist.txt is looking for.
After renaming the folder, hit F9 to reload tiles in-game.
You won't need to deal with the hassle of quiting and restarting the game in order to see the changes because the modloader will be ready to update the sprite replacers.

[Krutzelpuntz]

Thank you for the comprehensive answer and compliments.
I don't think it is something I'll be planning to use, but I hope we can get more options build into the game for sprite variations in the future. Like winter, male/female, young, dead/sleeping and stuff like that. I wish we could make variations to ground tiles. All tiles really. Just like how the portraits work.

I added an elk bull and capercaillie to the gifs, truetile comming soon.

By the way Galgana, would you be cool with me using your waterspirit as a base for an 8 sided NPC? I like it much better than the original one

[Galgana]

I feel pretty confident about winter sprites becoming implemented some time this decade.
At least with deciduous trees there's already some alpha-blending going on to simulate dropping and growing in their leaves.

By the way Galgana, would you be cool with me using your waterspirit as a base for an 8 sided NPC? I like it much better than the original one

And yeah, go ahead!

Hmm, now that I think about it, IIRC unlike the case with the vanilla water spirit being just a slightly edited copy of npc-eman, Forest Maidens simply use npc-ewoman.
There's a quest dialogue that describes them having hollow backs, though I can't remember ever witnessing the spirits face away from my player character. It certainly is a detail that makes supernatural encounters rather spooky.

[Krutzelpuntz]

Hmm, now that I think about it, IIRC unlike the case with the vanilla water spirit being just a slightly edited copy of npc-eman, Forest Maidens simply use npc-ewoman.
There's a quest dialogue that describes them having hollow backs, though I can't remember ever witnessing the spirits face away from my player character. It certainly is a detail that makes supernatural encounters rather spooky.

I've never actually experienced the spirits in the game, but any information about the visual descriptions would be very appreciated. I'd love to see the quest dialog you are referencing.
Shame about the female spirit, would be cool to have a separate sprite for that.

Updated to animal preview 2, with new sprites for cow, bull, capercaillie and elk bull and dog.

[Galgana]

I've never actually experienced the spirits in the game, but any information about the visual descriptions would be very appreciated. I'd love to see the quest dialog you are referencing.

At the moment I don't have on hand the lines about the Forest Spirit. I do remember something about how he can change his size at will. It would be funny to have alt versions of the sprite where he's as high as a little gnome or a giant (like the preview pics of the URW v3.30 graphics update).

Forest maid:

Spoiler: show

Forest maids are pretty and secretive otherworldly forest folk who may sometimes appear to favoured wanderers, especially these days. Pretty maids in pretty dresses, that's what they look like, and what they let be seen is a real delight in the night.

I truly met a forest maid last year while working in the woods. Sleeping under the open sky I woke up one night to a pretty maid standing next to my campfire, smiling at me. Then she came and snuggled beside me. I was mesmerized by her beauty, and soon fell asleep again.
When I woke up, the fire was out, and she stood in the distance asking me to follow. It was still dark, but I went, following her far from the campsite. Suddenly she turned and I saw the backside. It looked all hollow or barklike. I startled and she just disappeared among the trees.

Waterfolk:

Spoiler: show

Spirits of the water can appear in many forms. They may dress in reeds and grass, and their voice is always bright, like a woman's. The oldest and mightiest lake dwellers are bowed long-bearded gaffers. The younger ones often appear as graceful men with reddish skin, big brown eyes and long black hair. Oh, but I'm quite sure you will recognize the spirit of the water when you meet one.

Upon meeting spirits of the water, however it happens, do nothing but wait and observe. They rarely say a word, but their appearance reveals how things are. If they look gentle, or wear decorative clothes, it means they are pleased with you and good fish catches shall be given. But if they look gloomy then it's misfortunes and hardships to be feared, or sacrifices best to be performed.

[Krutzelpuntz]

It seems I'm still very limited in what I can do for the forest spirits. Thank you very much for finding those texts. Would be cool to expand on the graphics of spirits, they have some very cool descriptions.

I snuck in a tiles release containing terrain, and a few plants. It just got updated to 1.1. See the preview picture. I'm keeping a changelog in a spoiler, if anyone's interested.
Feedback is welcome, I'm not sure if the ground is too dark. I like it as it is normally, but when it is further darked by the game in some areas, it gets a bit too dark maybe..?
It can cause tracking to be a bit harder.

+ a new preview update on the animals pack

[Krutzelpuntz]

New update to the animal preview.
Didn't update the gif, but the new animals are hare, hazel grouse, lynx, pig, ram, sheep, raven, ringed seal, snake and squirrel.
It is soon done, only needs rodent, swan, tufted duck and willow grouse.
Hope you enjoy. I have not seen most animal sprites in game, as it is a often very difficult to test for them, but I hope there are no issues.

[Bert Preast]

These look jaw dropping, well done sir.

I would point out that you haven't done the snake yet, although to be fair most players never get to see one.  Also, rodents?  They must be even rarer than snakes, I don't recall ever seeing one!

[Krutzelpuntz]

These look jaw dropping, well done sir.

I would point out that you haven't done the snake yet, although to be fair most players never get to see one.  Also, rodents?  They must be even rarer than snakes, I don't recall ever seeing one!

Thank you, I appreciate it.
Make sure you got the latest preview pack, it seems to all be there for me.

[Galgana]

I drew up some track revamps in case you wanted to include them in the spirited sprites. They're mostly birds since I happened to remember I changed the ones for the capercaillie in my resprite set.

• row 1: black grouse, hazel grouse, capercaillie
• row 2: raven, eagle owl, goshawk
• row 3: mallard, kuikka, beaver (OOPS misattribution: the attachment was originally uploaded with Fark's)

_{(The search engines probably think I'm some sort of talon fetishist based on how long I spent trying to find photo refs for some of these )}

[Krutzelpuntz]

I drew up some track revamps in case you wanted to include them in the spirited sprites. They're mostly birds since I happened to remember I changed the ones for the capercaillie in my resprite set.

• row 1: black grouse, hazel grouse, capercaillie
• row 2: raven, eagle owl, goshawk
• row 3: mallard, kuikka, beaver (OOPS misattribution: the attachment was originally uploaded with Fark's)

_{(The search engines probably think I'm some sort of talon fetishist based on how long I spent trying to find photo refs for some of these )}

Love it, they have a lot of character. I'll add them in the next update. Thank you very much for the contribution.
I added double tracks for the mallard and loon, so they fit in better. I don't know if the single set tracks where on purpose though.

[Galgana]

I added double tracks for the mallard and loon, so they fit in better. I don't know if the single set tracks where on purpose though.

My rationale was that the foot shapes for waterfowl make moving on land a clumsy affair, though I will concede that ducks get by just fine for waddling.
I have to admit, I hadn't pulled up videos in the loon's case. Now that I did have a look (example), the placement of their legs further back on their bodies actually calls for for a dragging track similar to the seals' between splayed parallel footprints.

[Krutzelpuntz]

My rationale was that the foot shapes for waterfowl make moving on land a clumsy affair, though I will concede that ducks get by just fine for waddling.
I have to admit, I hadn't pulled up videos in the loon's case. Now that I did have a look (example), the placement of their legs further back on their bodies actually calls for for a dragging track similar to the seals' between splayed parallel footprints.

Yeah, I think it would be something like this.

It's pretty funny by the way, never knew they walked like that!

[Krutzelpuntz]

New update, all animals are done and included in a combined pack.
NPC's will join them there one day, but progress is slow and tedius. Once you make 20, you really just want to be done soon..

A few other things has been included. Check out the optional stuff for player characters, tall trees and winter covered trees and boulder.