Indexing Sprites

[RedYoshi]

Indexing Sprites

Hey guys, today I'm going to show you how to index your sprites and later inserting them into your ROM.

Materials Needed (Method I use)
-Irfanview
-Microsoft Paint
-Unlz-Gba
-A sprite

Part 1 - Indexing the Sprite

So in this tutorial I will be using a YOSHI sprite. :D

So here we go, first of all make your canvas in paint 64x64

Once that's done you need to make sure your sprite can fit in that space if not try re-sizing it.

So once you have your sprite you just copy and paste it onto the blank 64x64 canvas. Now save your image as a PNG.

Now that thats done it's time to index it!

So to index it you open up Irfanview and open up your image.
Now go to IMAGE and click on DECREASE COLOR DEPTH.

Once you're there select 16 COLORS (4 BPP), and click on OK.
(4th-pic)

Now you have your sprite indexed!!:D

But WAIT!! There's still that white background!!

All right so now go to Image->Pallete->Edit Pallete.

Now keep this in mind, the first color on the pallete entries is TRANSPARENT.

Now let's change that color, so double click on that and you'll get this color selection screen, so now choose a color and save your image. Your sprite will look a little bit messed up if you had a black outline or something like that.

So now open up PAINT again and open up your image and edit any errors on it and add your transparent background color.

Congratulations you have indexed your sprite and it is ready to be put in the game!

But wait a minute!! What if you don't know how to add it into the game??? No worries, I'll show you how!

Part 2 - Putting it into the ROM.
MAKE SURE THE SPRITE YOU ARE REPLACING IS BIGGER OR AS BIG AS THE SPRITE YOU ARE INSERTING INSERTING OVER A SMALLER SPRITE CAN LEAD TO YOUR PIC LOOKING ALL MESSED UP WITH SOME UNWANTED PIXELS.


All right, so now that you have your indexed sprite it's time to open up UNLZ-GBA.

So do that and search for the images in 667-1441 (POKEMON SPRITES - FIRERED)

All right so now you look for a Pokemon which is meaningless to you or you don't want in ROM and simply OVERWRITE it.

Note: I still don't know how to add them over the 25 empty slots

So go to IMPORT and click on your Indexed Sprite then simply click on WRITE TO ROM and tick all the boxes and then click on OK. In this case I will overwrite IVYSAUR.

There it is! It's in the ROM now! So now go ahead and test it!

If you did this correctly it should appear in the game.

Congratulations! You have successfully indexed your sprite and put it into the ROM!

RESIZING YOUR IMAGE
Well this shouldn't be too hard, really. But anyways if you have a huge sprite such as D\P sprites and you want to insert them to your game then you'll need to re-size since you can only use 64x64.
With D\P Sprites this should be easy heres what you need.

-Sprite (Indexed or not)
-Irfanview

Well first of all open up your sprite in Irfanview and then goto Image->Resize Resample. One there you disable "PRESERVE ASPECT RATIO" and thne where it says "Set New Size" just set the width and height to 64. There you have it, your sprite can now be inserted to your rom. But It may look a bit...pixelated so you may want to edit it a bit and then insert it.

I will also be releasing a few sprite packs (indexed) but not in this thread.

 

[Darthatron]

Good post. I get several PMs a week asking how to do this. When you get the 15 posts be sure to post some images, to help the newbies. :)

 

[Hellsing]

Good post. I get several PMs a week asking how to do this. When you get the 15 posts be sure to post some images, to help the newbies. :)

Hehe..one of that was me wasn't it?
Anyway I really needed this tutorial, good for n00bs like me. But if my sprite DOES have a black outline, do you still have to edit the transparent colour, or can you just fill the background with the transparent colour?

 

[RedYoshi]

There we go, finally posted some pics, now it should be a little bit easier to understand.

 

[Night_Blue]

Thanks
This really helps
I used to make them smaller in paint but they messed up there
Now to add pokemon with less problems

 

[RedYoshi]

Hehe..one of that was me wasn't it?
Anyway I really needed this tutorial, good for n00bs like me. But if my sprite DOES have a black outline, do you still have to edit the transparent colour, or can you just fill the background with the transparent colour?

You will want to edit the transparent color or else the background (when you insert it) will still be there. If your outline was black and you didn't edit it then that will be gone once it's in the rom. So you'll have 15 other colors you can use in your sprite so you can try to edit one of those colors to something fairly similar to black.

 

[Murkrow]

hi all something to ask...i resized an image into 64*64 and then reduce it into 16 colours using irfanview. Then i changed the first colour in that palette (which u define as the transparent colour) under the "edit palette" option into a definite colour i.e.green. So why does my image have a weird green outline now? What else must i do?

 

[RedYoshi]

hi all something to ask...i resized an image into 64*64 and then reduce it into 16 colours using irfanview. Then i changed the first colour in that palette (which u define as the transparent colour) under the "edit palette" option into a definite colour i.e.green. So why does my image have a weird green outline now? What else must i do?

You must either edit the pallete with a color you aren't using to black and then use that color again on your outline.

NOTE: You have to use that weird green outline as your background color in order for the background to be transparent.

 

[Murkrow]

well i've done all that, but unlz-gba still sees it as having 256 colours (from the palette on the right-hand side), so i can't import it in! The sprite that i got was found on this website: *image removed* in the pokemon d/p section. Following ur instructions, i still can't make the sprite fully indexed to be imported.

 

[Gogz7314]

The only problem I have is resizing D/P sprites and making the main and back sprites use the same pallet.
Any advice?

 

[RedYoshi]

well i've done all that, but unlz-gba still sees it as having 256 colours (from the palette on the right-hand side), so i can't import it in! The sprite that i got was found on this website: *image removed* in the pokemon d/p section. Following ur instructions, i still can't make the sprite fully indexed to be imported.

Did you go to Irfanview and decrease the colors to 16? Thats the only way that it can be imported into the ROM.

The only problem I have is resizing D/P sprites and making the main and back sprites use the same pallet.
Any advice?

Well in Unlz-Gba the backpic is the shiny form of the Pokemon, so they really shouldn't have the same pallete. You'll have to seperately index the sprite with IrfanView

 

[Gogz7314]

Thanks for the reply. Any ideas on how to make the D/P sprites smaller though?
Sorry, I'm a total noob

 

[Murkrow]

Did you go to Irfanview and decrease the colors to 16? Thats the only way that it can be imported into the ROM.

yup i already did that...

 

[RedYoshi]

yup i already did that...

Well, I tried it with a lucario sprite and it actually worked, It will look as if it had 256 colors on the pallete preview thing but once you import it, it will just have the 16 colors in the pallete.

Do you get a message saying that it can't be imported? Did you add the transparent background?

Thanks for the reply. Any ideas on how to make the D/P sprites smaller though?
Sorry, I'm a total noob

You can try resizing it in paint or you can leave it as an 80x80, Index it, Fix it up and then resize the whole picture by going to Image -> Resize\Resample, once there go to the box where it says "Preserve Aspect Ratio" and disable it, then where it says "Set new size" and set them to "64 x 64". Now depending on how big the sprite is it might come out a bit pixelated.

 

[Xaivier]

Im having a problem, When I get my pokemon added into the ROM (everything works fine on unLZ) The pallet ends up messed up in-game. My pokemon, that was in tones od Green, grey, and red, ended up in tones of olive green, pink, and orange.

I replaced treeco with this pokemon.

Im fairly new with this, I screwed around a bit in the past, and I have no idea how to fix this.

Know whats wrong?

 

[RedYoshi]

Im having a problem, When I get my pokemon added into the ROM (everything works fine on unLZ) The pallet ends up messed up in-game. My pokemon, that was in tones od Green, grey, and red, ended up in tones of olive green, pink, and orange.

I replaced treeco with this pokemon.

Im fairly new with this, I screwed around a bit in the past, and I have no idea how to fix this.

Know whats wrong?

Hmm, Did you enable the "Export Pallete" option when you imported?

 

[Xaivier]

I think so, Il try again with a different sprite.

 

[Hellsing]

well i've done all that, but unlz-gba still sees it as having 256 colours (from the palette on the right-hand side), so i can't import it in! The sprite that i got was found on this website: *image removed* in the pokemon d/p section. Following ur instructions, i still can't make the sprite fully indexed to be imported.

I had the same problem. The pallette preview is messed, then when I write it to the rom, the bottom of the sprite gets all funked up. Any suggestions?

 

[RedYoshi]

I had the same problem. The pallette preview is messed, then when I write it to the rom, the bottom of the sprite gets all funked up. Any suggestions?

Might be b\c you overwrote a sprite smaller than the one you imported.

 

[Hellsing]

Might be b\c you overwrote a sprite smaller than the one you imported.

Nah, they were both 64x64.
Thanks though.