Sprites: Mack vs Chibi

[That One NPC 325]

It might sound crazy to you veterans, but I recently discovered what exactly defines a 'Mack' style sprite. I had seen tall sprites before, but I didn't know the style was called Mack.

 

So after finding out this was an entire style, I started digging around and found the Looseleaf online generator. These sprites are slightly different than the original Mack style, but they are very similar, the primary difference (contrary to what you'll read) is the orientation of the arms, and the slight sideways angle of original Mack sprites. This makes it difficult to rip Mack clothing for use with Looseleaf sprites and I don't consider them compatible as a result.

 

I have spent several days building a DIY generator using the Looseleaf parts.

 

 

I believe my current project will be the last one I use chibis for. The more I work with Looseleaf sprites, the less I ever want to have to use chibis again.

 

I'm wondering where everyone stands on sprite styles, over and above the obvious "depends on the project 🤪" sort of answers.

 

What are the pros and cons of each?

 

What have you used more, and why?

 

Which styles are most appealing to you, and why?

 

What's the community consensus, if any, on which styles they like to see most in games?

Edited February 25, 2019 by Loco Choco

[Kayzee 4,063]

Well, I don't know about anyone else, but I like the VX Ace chibi style well enough and generally I can find most any type of resource I want in that style. The MV sprite style on the other hand I don't like much at all. Those big XP-style mack sprites are pretty neat, but I don't think they fit with any of the tilesets and stuff I use and would be kind of a pain to switch to even if I could find all the resources I want. Other then that I don't find that mack-style sprites are really any better or worse then VX Ace's chibi sprites. They are a bit bigger sure, and that could be used to add more detail, but I personally don't think they really convey that much extra information you know? Like if a character has a bracelet, they both kinda have enough room to show that, but I am not sure the mack style would be any better at the chibi style for showing a character is wearing a ring for example. I mean, don't get me wrong, mack-style sprites are neat, but I just don't think they really are that different from an objective design standpoint. But heck, I still have a bit of a fondness for the 16x16 pixel sprite style used in Final Fantasy 1 though 5 to be honest. It's pretty amazing sometimes how much information you can get across with limited pixels if you try! :3

[That One NPC 325]

All valid points, and atmosphere consistency was one fear of mine when it came to them. Loose leaf sprites are very tall.

 

 

Just a quick comparison.

 

This is a body I settled for, even though it looked too much like a combination of Cloud and Tidus, when really Dart (Legend of Dragoon) inspired Seto's appearance.

 

Given more freedom when designing clothing I was able to capture a mix of Dart and Locke (which I had wanted all along) in the first round concept draft.

 

There's a major different in the amount of character and detail each sprite has in my opinion.

 

With the chibi I felt like I had to make his under garment very bright in order to make the sprite pop a bit as the lead male.

With the L.L. I was able to do it realistically, and dive into his actual character more. The only thing from his home that he has is that cape. The rest of his clothing was picked up for cheap on the road.

 

So the customization is superior even from a story perspective. I wish I had the skill to free hand clothing.

Edited March 7, 2019 by Loco Choco

[Kayzee 4,063]

Well I admit the quality of the generator parts wasn't something I was really taking into consideration. I do like the fact that the looseleaf generator has lots of different layers for outfits, where as the built in VX Ace generator dosn't, though I think some image editing could divide lots of VX Ace's outfits into smaller parts if needed. I can't really speak on how good one or the other option looks over all since that is much more subjective.

 

On the other hand, though this may be a bad example since it hasn't been cleaned up, but take a look at this:

I just took the mack sprite and resized the body a bit and it looks like a pretty decent approximation of an equivalent chibi sprite might look like I think. The details are a bit muddy because it's basically just been resized and pasted, but I think the body could be redrawn to match those proportions and it would look just as good as the mack sprite really. Even muddy, I think most of the detail is still there. Not saying this will always turn out like that, but generally to me I think most mack sprites can be redrawn as chibi and not lose all that much. But that's just my personal opinion.

 

Incidentally, I find resizing stuff to be a pretty good way of approximating how details will show through for a sprite of whatever size. Like look at the feet of my resized sprite there. The boots of the mack sprite are actually pretty complex with a few different armor plates, but a lot of the details of the boot got blotted together and ends up being a much simpler shape when I resized it. I think that would be a good place to simplify the design a bit if I was redrawing it as a chibi. Same idea, just with less plates. The gauntlet too could be redrawn with less plates to fit better. I don't think simplifying a design in such a way really changes much of the over all information the sprite conveys though. I don't think there are many details that would be totally lost on the chibi sprite.

 

But this certainly isn't always the case, and don't let me make you think it would be! There are certainly sprites I have seen that do have details that would be totally lost if they were any smaller! I just don't know if the difference between the mack and chibi sprite styles is drastic enough for many of those details to be lost.

 

But... Just out of curiosity, what if I made it even smaller?

 

 

Oh gee, look at that tiny thing! Let me clean it up just a little.

 

 

Hehe, I think that looks pretty cute... But yeah, a lot of things are missing or vague! And I probobly didn't do a very good job cleaning it up. Maybe the body should also be a bit wider and some of the details could come back, but yeah it definitely isn't the same is it? But I think it's still mostly recognizable at least. I kinda think it's neat just how much information they used to pack into tiny tiny sprites back in the day, but there isn't much reason to use sprites that tiny nowadays huh?

 

Edited February 28, 2019 by Kayzee

[That One NPC 325]

That chibi version is nice, but a lot of  the realism and detail is instantly evaporated on the chibi style. The tiny body and giant head being the biggest change in perspective that alters the entire context. It goes from a normal looking person to a miniature, cartoony sort of caricature. That's my biggest issue with MV, and why I got Ace instead. MV's RTP is very cartoony. I love the larger tile sets, but it's a steep trade-off for the character graphics we got.

 

 

Growing up playing SNES, and transitioning to Playstation, I remember finding games like Alundra and Suikoden - which had taller, more detailed sprites - and being blown away by the difference in quality and realism. No longer were these characters tiny, misshapen masses of pixels with a trademark hair style and color. They seemed more like real people, with detailed clothing. Not only that but in those games, the map graphics looked more spacious and realistic as a result.

 

I suppose finding the Loose Leaf generator brought a bit of that back for me. I really want to create RPGs that create a similar feeling of more detailed, realistic characters.

[Kayzee 4,063]

Eh, to me mack sprites are pretty much just as distorted and cartoony really. But hey, I kinda like cute cartoony things anyway. Alundra and Suikoden sprites are pretty different. If I really wanted more realism and grittyness while still not going overboard, I would probobly want something more like Doom-style sprites or fighting game style sprites or something like that. But I do get your point.

[Amysaurus 739]

Smaller chibi sprites (like VX/ACE or MV's) are great when characters don't have a lot of small details, because then you can really exaggerate the details that are there. The larger heads give a lot of room for expressions/variations in face style, although the head-to-body ratio makes them a bit of a pain for posing/animating. I generally like the chibi styles for RMMV and VX/ACE, although I'm not a fan of how the eyes look on MV's. They're a bit nightmarish. 

Mack sprites, though I'm not personally a fan of the style, are really nice when you have more detailed character designs. You have the space to draw out clothing/hairstyles without having to squeeze in or omit details, have slightly more realistic body proportions to make animating easier, and still maintain the larger head size to add expressions. It's a weird complaint, but the issue I have with Mack sprites is that they have the larger body size everywhere else, but don't have any sort of neck. I think they look fine when the characters have a scarf or hood, but the head-shoulder area on sprites without them looks super awkward to me. 

I don't really have a preference between the two styles when I'm playing a game, but from a spriting perspective, chibis are much easier to handle when you're making everything from scratch lol. 

Edited March 1, 2019 by Amysaurus

[PhoenixSoul 1,417]

I'm flexible in this regard. Actually, my main issue is the face graphics, how the VX Ace generator faces face forward whilst the RTP does not. That's my gripe, but with MV generator graphics, making angled faces is a lot easier, regardless of the sprite it is paired with, chibi or not so chibi.

 

I'm nowhere near as talented as @Amysaurus is when it comes to spriting, and the majority of her spriting is damn kyuute it makes me wish I could hug her (lolz shameless plug alert!), but even still, regardless of the style I go for, or a mix in some cases, I can handle it okay, just don't expect me to be able to remake any of the already established characters as proficiently, lolz

 

None of that really answers your question, but the whole 'depends on the project' is a big factor for me, and in fact does really come first when beginning a new one. So, there is that.

I'm currently going with a slightly modified Looseleaf style (but I do need @Kayzee's help if she ever gets back on Steam), though all the parts are separate pieces due to a specific script I am using.

[That One NPC 325]

@Kayzee You've  got me thinking about using the Loose Leaf parts to simply customize bodies, then resize them for better chibi clothing.

 

@Amysaurus Thank you for the insights.

 

These are exactly the type of replies I had wanted.

 

@PhoenixSoul How are you reconciling the sprite height in terms of your tiles? I feel they work best on MV due to how tall they are.

 

I have been working with the ripped parts in png form but many of the hairs and face area items were cut to leave the shadow over the default base skin. I actually did a few recolors of the base. So now I have to trim them myself so I can make ethnic sprites as well.

 

Another issue is Paint.Net sucks at recoloring, and it's often difficult to make backs and hair backs match smoothly. I had to do a manual recolor last night. I still make use of old school Paint for stuff like this because I find it's quicker for individual pixel work, especially color dumping on sprites.

 

I have also been pulling head accessories from Macks, and chibi sprites since the heads are relatively the same size.

 

I sort of want to make a tactical RPG with an FF Tactics style script & map system I recently discovered.

 

I drafted templates for a bunch of classes using the online generator, prior to hunting down the png files. During this process, which I consider a success, I did noticed limitations, and a serious imbalance in parts between genders. I mean women can't wear a helmet? RM seems to embrace certain RPG stereotypes.

 

I will probably redo all of the classes now that I have full control and more part options.

 

Edited March 2, 2019 by Loco Choco

[PhoenixSoul 1,417]

The only problem with OG MSPaint is the loss of transparency, other than that it is fantastic.

 

As far as tile height is concerned, I've found that only the world map tiles look tiny by comparison, but to be fair, I rarely use the world map for the majority of my projects, and with my current project, I most definitely am using region maps so the issue with tile height is mostly minimized since I also am using custom resources.

 

A lot of the face graphics don't even include helms...kinda lame if ya ask me.

 

My game will have customization based upon what the player decides, but equipment will also change both the face and sprite graphics, so class differences are going to be less apparent on the surface, though one will notice a difference in stats (a mage isn't going to do much physical damage without some changes). I am focusing more on mechanics for now with my graphics issues kinda sorta dealt with.

[That One NPC 325]

I copy the canvass, paste it into Paint.net, and Magic wand it out, lol. I do hate the mess of it but for some recolors and erasing (ripping parts) I use OG Paint.

 

I'm improving asset options slowly. Stuff that will improve aesthetic variance. I edited crude forearm bracers, and ripped a cloth belt that could probably be cleaned up a bit shade-wise.

 

I plan to trim one of the greaves into shin bracers as well. Stuff like this can improve the options, because to the trained eye, the parts become repetitive.

 

I also hate how the women sprites didn't get the nice sleeve layer options that the males had. I plan to adapt that to the female base, because it was very useful.

 

Edited March 3, 2019 by Loco Choco

[Kayzee 4,063]

What? MSPaint? Paint.Net? Come on, GIMP is obviously the superior image editing tool! Especially when you load up on cool plugins.

 

Though I am using the VX Ace generator parts for my game rather then Mack sprites, editing the images can still be a pain. I needed to really mess around with the generator images I was using to get them the way I want with the character creator script I am using. I did find a few handy shortcuts for some things. Like at one point I needed to properly crop almost all of the face graphics. I figured out though that I could drag image files over a open image in gimp and it will open it in a new layer, and I found a handy dandy plugin to export layers. So basically I could crop a whole set of images at once. And once I needed to recolor a bunch of images, but luckily they all used the same palette so I was able to make one which altered the colors I want and load it in.

 

Really though, most of the sprites I am using I am using just because I had them available. If I could I would probobly use a completely different style. Maybe Kaduki-style sprites since they are usually 8-directional and my game features 8-directional movement. I shudder to think of redoing all the generator parts if I ever switch styles though... expectantly if 8-directional sprites are used. Well likely if I ever do switch styles it will only be if I manage to captu-- er... I mean recruit a sprite artist. *pauses and notices @Amysaurus posted... starts wondering what would make good bait for an Amysaurus trap...*

Edited March 3, 2019 by Kayzee

[That One NPC 325]

 

Some of the parts I added. Bracers, shin guards, and a torso strap primarily made for the sword. I have so many items in mind. Torso sash, pirate's waist sash, oriented so a bit of the hanging cloth can be seen from under vests and jackets, a quiver,  a shield (back), etc.

 

I'm not good at spriting, so it's easier said than done but I'm taking my time with it.

 

Edited March 4, 2019 by Loco Choco

[That One NPC 325]

Finally got that pirate sash done. I think it looks great.