i have a problem when i want to start making a game i need good graphics but i suck at making good graphics and its not fun to start programming if u dont have good graphics. i was also curious if anyone knows of a site that has ripped tile sets of snes games

To get some sprites you can try downloading spriteLib and as the name suggests, it''s a sprite library with a collection of sprites ready for anyone to use. I cannot remember what site u can find this on try, www.spritelib.com (i don''t Know). But don''t worry about not being able to draw good graphics, I cannot eithe, but what the hell ! we are programmers and not artists If you have a creative friend you could get them to create graphics for your game. I empathise with you because this is an area of game development that really gets me stopped. Whenever I have a really cool idea for a game I am let down becuase I cannot draw the proper art work for it. But don''t give up.

Hope everything works out.

Dark Star

I hear ya man! I have no artistic talent either. I used spritelib for one of my games before (do a yahoo search for ''game programming'' and you''ll find a link to it). Another way to go is to search the net for free 3D meshes that various artists have posted. you then use 3D Studio (or any free modeler) and render them to 2D (if you''re making a 2D game) and use those since they are free meshes. Ripping graphics from SNES games isn''t good because #1, they aren''t yours and no one said you could use them (unlike free meshes). #2. If you make a really cool game, you can''t give it out to anyone for fear of being sued. I dunno, my personal favorite way of getting graphics is to download free meshes (there are thousands) and render them to 2D using 3D Studio. Cheers!

It's funny, I am going through the the exact same thing. I having been coding business apps for years, and now I want to start writing games on the side. Unfortunately, my artistic talent is less than stellar, and I am not willing (or able) to pay for art in my game. On the other hand, I always insist on using original content in anything I do (so spritelib is out). So here's what I am doing about it.

1. I went to a local book store and looked through the art section until I found a book that looked interesting. I forget the exact title, it's something like "How to draw comic hero's and villains" <- or something like that.

2. I read the book (cover to cover) and began drawing a face using the techniques described in the book. Each time, I was trying to draw a "Superman" style face. Well the results were pretty funny. My first picture looked more like Fat Bastard off Austin Powers, my second picture ended up being a woman (which actually didn't look too bad), and my third attempt almost looked like Duke Nukem.

3. I studied each of these pictures and tried to understand what went wrong. The most noticable problem is definately the eyes. They looked like someone just dropped an eyeball right on the picture. The ears and nose on each of these pictures also need some work. (Ok, I know, there isn't much of a face left after you take the eyes, nose, and ears)

4. I then started to focus on the problem points, I started drawing eyes only. I started by drawing an eyeball (basically a circle with two circles inside of each other). Then I followed the path of the eye to draw eyelids over the eyeball. And guess what, I made a pretty realistic looking eyeball on my first try.

5. My next step is to continue this process of drawing faces, I will then move on to creating entire figures. At the rate I am going, I should be able to draw some pretty cool figures in about a month (mind you they won't be commercial game quality, but they will be good enough to put in my first game).

6. As far as coloring goes, I plan on scanning the images into my PC and coloring them in MSPaint (pixel by pixel).

With any luck I should be able to complete my first game in a few months. Sound effects should be somewhat easy to simulate, but an original music score is something I am afraid I will never be able to do on my own.

Anyways, I hope these ideas will help someone out there.

I have posted examples of this on my web page at www.borngamer.com. Check them out.

borngamer

Edited by - borngamer on June 19, 2000 11:22:42 AM