Who wants to be a pal and make/find me an avatar?

[OldSchoolGamer]

Who wants to be a pal and make me an avatar? I would like an avatar of the character from the arcade game "Rastan" swinging his sword. I can't find a "Rastan" avatar and I don't know how to make them nor do I have the software to make them. It would be greatly appreciated if someone could find or make me that "Rastan" avatar.

Also, if you know of some good websites that have NES/SNES/Arcade video game avatars, please post the link.

[BeyondTheStatic]

The Google string "video game sprites database," (no quotes) produces this result, among many others:

http://sdb.drshnaps.com/

Unfortunately, they don't have Rastan, but what they do have seems pretty good. Their sprite sheets can be easily cut and pasted any way you want, and their colored backgrounds can be used as transparency masks.

There's an easy way to search a single site for specific items. Type the following in Google's search field:

site:http://sdb.drshnaps.com +"Bubble Bobble" nes

Make sure there aren't any spaces between "site:" and the site's address. You'll get results pertaining to only that one site.

I'd be willing to make some avatars for you, but you'll need to specify which game & console... or better yet, post some screenshots with the main character in different poses. I've got lots of graphics experience, and like to exercise my abilities whenever possible

BTW, have you tried Gimp? It's a really good freeware PhotoShop clone. You can easily make layers, manipulate the sprites with transparency, and do tons of other cool stuff. After you're all done, you can optimize the layers for GIF output, and make yourself some avatars. There is a low-to-moderate learning curve, but it's well worth the effort. It's a lot of fun

P.S. If you want to start making your own avatars, try some of these Gimp tutorials:

gimp avatar tutorial

If you get stuck anywhere, just give shout and I'll help you though the process!

[ReyVGM]

What you are looking for is sprites, not avatars. Just google the name of the game and "sprites" and most likely you will find such sprite. They probably won't be animated though.

But for the love of god, don't do it. No more animated avatars/signatures please. Just one is enough, two is annoying, three is... well... three is almost trolling :P

[ReyVGM]

Problem with making Arcade sprite rips is that MAME (understandably) doesn't have the option of removing backgrounds. So you would have to manually remove the background around the character with an image editor (Windows Paint works fine).
It's fine if you are just going to do that with one image, but for an animated image you would have to do that for every animation and that is very tedious and boring.

Other more specific Arcade emus, like Raine, Kawaks & Nebula, have the option of removing backgrounds, but those emus only play a few boards from specific companies.

[OldSchoolGamer]

What you are looking for is sprites, not avatars

I'm looking for sprites that animate... so isn't that called "avatars"?

But for the love of god, don't do it. No more animated avatars/signatures please. Just one is enough, two is annoying, three is... well... three is almost trolling :P

When have you ever seen me have more than one avatar signature at a time? I only insert one avatar in my signature at a time. I change the signature's avatar somewhat frequently, but I never insert more than one avatar at a time. So as long as I'm just using one signature avatar at a time, what's the big deal?

@BeyondTheStatic... Thanks for the link and offering to make avatars for me. I read the following on Wikipedia about Rastan:

The Apple IIGS version, one of the last ports to be written, was well regarded as it was the closest in matching the arcade original graphically, in terms of fluid animation, music and sound. In addition, the arcade version of the game was included in Taito Legends, a compilation of games for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, PC (2006).

So if you can find the Rastan sprite from the Apple IIGS, PS2, or Xbox port I would assume it looks very similiar to the arcade sprite. It would be cool if it the Rastan's avatar animated by taking a couple steps and then swinging his sword, or however you choose to animate it is fine too.

[ReyVGM]

I'm looking for sprites that animate... so isn't that called "avatars"?

No, an avatar is something that represents you. You can have an image of Obama there next to your name and that would be your avatar. It's only an avatar when you have it next to your name in a forum. If you have an image in your signature, then that's your signature.

When have you ever seen me have more than one avatar signature at a time? I only insert one avatar in my signature at a time. I change the signature's avatar somewhat frequently, but I never insert more than one avatar at a time. So as long as I'm just using one signature avatar at a time, what's the big deal?

I know this is going to seem personal, but it's not. You have an animated one as an avatar and an animated one as your signature. There's a reason why most forums have a KB limit on images, to avoid the abuse of animated gifs. Your Avatar agif is fine, because the animation is consistent. But your signature one is very annoying, the character keeps falling and getting up, falling and getting up, falling and getting up, ad nauseum.

I know it seems cool or novel to you because you practically just discovered about animated gifs, signatures and stuff, but as time goes on, you'll find it to be very annoying when you are trying to read up a decent topic and everyone has an avatar or signature trying to one-up each other into stabbing your eyes. That doesn't happen as much anymore due to the KB limits set by forum owners though.

You know when people are teens and they tend to wear outrageous clothes or get weird hairdos and then when they grow up they look back and think "god I looked like an idiot"? Well, eventually you'll grow out of it too :P

But don't worry, I did my fair share of avatar/signature abuse when I started too.

Example of annoyances: The Tale of "don't you feel like you want to punch one of these guys?"

Annoying Forum Post

Same Annoying Forum

So if you can find the Rastan sprite from the Apple IIGS, PS2, or Xbox port I would assume it looks very similiar to the arcade sprite. It would be cool if it the Rastan's avatar animated by taking a couple steps and then swinging his sword, or however you choose to animate it is fine too.

There are no Xbox emus, the PS2 emu doesn't let you disable backgrounds and I doubt the Apple IIGS will let you do it either. So you might as well just rip the one from MAME.

Since you at least seem to know how an animation works (lots of people don't), you could do it yourself. It's really easy.
Just open Rastan on MAME. Get to an area where there are no enemies (so you don't get interrupted), do the best you can to find an area with a clean non-black background so it doesn't combine with the character's black outline, then swing your sword and immediately pause MAME. Now, take a screenshot (F12), hold shift and press the pause button again to advance one frame and take another screenshot. Keep doing this until you have captured the entire animation.

If you did this on a clean background, or at least one with as few colors as possible, then it would be easy to remove the background and just leave the character. What's hard is removing a background of a cave or something, because there are so many colored pixels to make your life a living hell. I've had to do it tons of times, so it's no biggie.

If you get me those clean images, then I could make you the animation. But I'll only make you that one, after that, you'll learn to do it yourself. And by learning to do it yourself I mean you are just going to download a Gif Animator program,, dump the images and the program will do all the work for you :P

It's really not difficult, just a bit boring.

[BeyondTheStatic]

If you get me those clean images, then I could make you the animation.

I managed to find this. If you really want to make this avatar more than I do, go right ahead; I've got some codes to hack

[ReyVGM]

I really don't really like making sprites, I was just trying to get OSG to do part of the work so he gets familiar with how the process works and then I would do the rest. After he learns the hard part, which is just taking the right screens, then all the other stuff comes easy.

Thanks for the sprite sheet, but I still don't know what sword animation is the one he wants or where does the animation start and ends.

[BeyondTheStatic]

After playing the game a bit, it seems the walking anim just cycles back and forth between those first four frames. As for which sword, I would assume he'd want the fire sword (which is the best one, AFAIK), but it's not present on that sprite sheet.

And I agree, I think it would be in OldSchoolGamer's best interest to make his own avatars. Then he can have whatever he wants

[OldSchoolGamer]

I only want the Rastan gif made. I'm not interested in making or having someone else make other gifs for me in the future. I just want the Rastan gif made and that's all. I won't be requesting any other gifs to be made nor will I be interested in making other gifs made myself. So there's really no point of me downloading a program that can make gifs and learning how to do it. In the future, if I ever have the desire for a special gif to be made, then I will learn how, download the program, and do it myself... but I don't think that will happen because I'm not that interested in gifs.

Thanks for the sprite sheet, but I still don't know what sword animation is the one he wants or where does the animation start and ends.

The sword that he starts off with in the beginning of the game. An animation of him taking a couple steps and then swinging his sword. I'm not really picky, whatever you come up with would be fine.

I know how to take the screenshots, but I don't really know how to remove the background besides using the program "mspaint". And when using that program, I don't know how to SMOOTHLY remove the background around the edges of the sprite. Doing it with the eraser manually with the mouse, my hand shakes slightly and it messes up. And the other way I know of is using the 'line the you can bend/curve', but even that is tricky & difficult to do around the tiny edges and curves of the sprite.

Your Avatar agif is fine, because the animation is consistent. But your signature one is very annoying, the character keeps falling and getting up, falling and getting up, falling and getting up, ad nauseum.

All the gifs I use are small and they have to be small due to the size limit. I hate seeing huge avatars on forums that don't have limits and most of all I hate seeing long signatures that take up half a page. That gets annoying because they take up so much space and its annoying having to scroll past them all the time just to get to the next post. But my gifs are neither large nor long. If my signature gif is annoying to you because of him jumping and falling down, I planned on changing my signature gif soon anyway. I wonder how you must feel about Abystus' signature gif of that insect crawling around?

[BeyondTheStatic]

I won't be requesting any other gifs to be made nor will I be interested in making other gifs made myself. So there's really no point of me downloading a program that can make gifs and learning how to do it.

Sure there is. You want new avatars, and you appreciate them. You can make yourself an unlimited number of avatars if you would just apply yourself to learning a new discipline. Working with graphics is actually a lot of fun, if you were just willing learn a few things about the process

[ReyVGM]

I know how to take the screenshots, but I don't really know how to remove the background besides using the program "mspaint". And when using that program, I don't know how to SMOOTHLY remove the background around the edges of the sprite.
Doing it with the eraser manually with the mouse, my hand shakes slightly and it messes up. And the other way I know of is using the 'line the you can bend/curve', but even that is tricky & difficult to do around the tiny edges and curves of the sprite.

You can use the "Fill With Color" tool in paint to just fill/remove the same color in one batch. That's why I asked for pics with a clean background, because you can just fill that background full of white (or pink) and voila, you just removed the background.

If my signature gif is annoying to you because of him jumping and falling down, I planned on changing my signature gif soon anyway. I wonder how you must feel about Abystus' signature gif of that insect crawling around?

It's too small to be a bother really. I was going to add some delays to your signature to make it less annoying, but if you are going to change it, then there's no need.

[ReyVGM]

I don't know how the sword animation looks or how quick it is in game, but I hope this is what you wanted.

[OldSchoolGamer]

Yea the animation is fine. Thanks. Why did you shrink it though? It seems very small. Can you enlarge it please?

[ReyVGM]

I didn't shrink it, that's the same exact size you saw on the sprite sheet.

And I can't double it's size for two reasons:

1) I would have to redo everything and I don't want to.

2) The agif would turn out to be bigger than the avatar space allowed and it would be automatically resized anyways.