Amethyst

Oh, look, another update. Weird. I wonder where that came from...

[url="http://pokemonreborn.com/logs/870.html"][img]http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/pc/5/grymm.png[/img] Heather* vs. Grymm [img]http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/vs/5/heather.png[/img][/url]

Flat Irons are your friend. Friendlyfriendlifriend.

So I'm a silly person. Most of you probably knew this already, but let me just clarify for anyone who hasn't figured it out yet: I'm a very silly person. In my latest escapades, I've delayed this news post for a while- because I thought, well, I don't have much to say, so I'll just wait until I have more to say before I actually make the announcement. Then by the time I had enough to constitute a full news post, I had too much, and procrastinated it. So silly. Haha. Hee. This is the part where you guys laugh. The result here is that this is not going to be a terribly informative news post- in that most of it is just the official announcement for things already passed (it is also true that i have forgotten most of what I was originally going to post about, but we can keep that a secret) So, first up, I'd like to officially announce our new affiliates! First up, we have Quantum a friendly server on PO with their own fledgling community as well. Secondly, PokeFiends? an in depth Pokemon Roleplaying community And finally, The Atlas Pokemon League yet another young server, but currently focusing on 4th gen battling. At least pay them a visit, say hi, demand tribute bring them cookies, etc! For the Slowpokes out there, the Reborn League start time has been pushed back to 9:30 EST, one hour earlier than it previously was. I will also within the next week be declaring a close time, which I apologize for anyone who may not get their turn, but we simply cannot be keeping gym leaders up till five in the morning every night. They have lives too. In the next week or so I'll be hosting the first of a few certain contests- nothing related to Pokemon Battling, but suffice it to say y'alls may want to tone up on your image editing skills. Certain developments are queued for the site that will launch us further into- Um... Into... Into what.... Into awesomeness. That's what. Definitely forgetting something, or, seven somethings, but that's basically it for now, I guess. Silly, silly person.

[quote name='Shawn Yasumara' post='9053' date='Jan 8 2011, 02:59 PM']My favorite Pokemon to use is Murkrow.[/quote] I love you.

Wuji's misplaced from Trainer Cards [quote]Ninetales (Not Shiny) - SolarBeam - Will-O-Wisp - Nasty Plot - Psycho Shock Venusaur (Not Shiny) - SolarBeam - Leech Seed - Substitute - Sleep Powder Shandera (Not Shiny - Psychic - Energy Ball - Overheat - Shadow Ball Leafeon (Not Shiny) - Wish - Protect - Leaf Blade - Bite Sazandora (Not Shiny) - Draco Meteor - Flamethrower - Surf - Dark Pulse Urugamosu (Not Shiny) - Hurricane - Bug Buzz - Flame Dance - Whirlwind[/quote]

[quote name='Dragonz996' post='8892' date='Jan 5 2011, 06:23 AM']However if you're just doing a simple recolor (eg. editing of shirt). All you need to do is edit the original sprite and leave the background untouched, at least thats what I did.[/quote] Yeah, that may or may not be the case depending on what sprite you work from, and what you do with it. I know Knight in particular had some issues with transparency after working on the Recolor Tutorial, which is what prompted this one.

Hello again, everybody! Today, since I've seen many people struggling with this for a while now, we're going to do something actually not all that difficult, but a pain to explain over and over. What, you ask? Scenario: You just came from [url="http://www.pokemonreborn.com/index.php?showtopic=483"]5 Minute Recolor Tutorial[/url] getting yo' swag on with your newly pimped out recolored sprite, but then... But then! The white background comes along and is crampin' yo style. Such a background can be found below, as well as the end result: [img]http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s2.0.png[/img][img]http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s2.6.png[/img] Remember, this tutorial assumes that you already have Graphics Gale installed. If you don't, [url="http://gale.jpn.org/setgalefreeus.exe"]Do Something About That.[/url] I'm also assuming you've reviewed the techniques from previous spriting lessons, and are comfortable enough with those to put them to future use. This tutorial won't have any cross over though, so that hardly matters. So, to start, let's load up the image we're going to be murdering the background of in Gale. Oh, look, here's ours: [url="http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s2.1.png"]http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s2.1.png[/url] Grab the Color Selector Tool, it's that blue oval circled in the below image. You may want to double check that the Tolerance is set to 0, or something very close to that, via that drop down arrow nearby. Using the Color Selector, you can instantly choose all instances of a given color in the image. This makes it easy to select the background in an instant. [url="http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s2.2.png"]http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s2.2.png[/url] So do so. Left click the background with that tool, and you should see all the white areas light up with an outline. The Outlined area is the part of the image that will be transparent. This means that you can really make any area transparent just by selecting it with whatever means please you, be that the Rectangular Selector, Color Selector, or Magic Wand- whatever floats your boat. Once you have that, go to the Image tab up top, and choose "Make Alpha Channel". In the window that pops up, match the options to these: [url="http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s2.3.png"]http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s2.3.png[/url] Hit OK and the magic is done! [url="http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s2.4.png"]http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s2.4.png[/url] ...Wait, it doesn't look like anything happened. The background of the image as you see it may or may not change depend on some hidden settings of the image itself. It doesn't really matter. What does matter is that you should see that little "a" on the layer viewer turn black from its normal inactive grey. It's difficult to see, so I've circled it in that image. If that "a" is black, that means the image has an Alpha Channel, or transparent background. You can also click it to toggle it on or off. That's basically, it, but don't go jammin Ctrl+S and calling it a day just yet. This is one slight nuance that Graphics Gale has, and that is that it won't save the transparency of an image unless you tell it to. Go to File > Save As [url="http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s2.5.png"]http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s2.5.png[/url] Notice in the saving window, towards the bottom right, there's an option to check "With alpha channel". That means, save it with transparency. If you don't make sure this is checked through Save As, your changes probably will not be saved, so don't forget this! Successfully saved, here we are, web ready, and white background-free: [img]http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s2.6.png[/img] Total working time: Less than a minute

...There's nothing to stop y'all from asking. I think Snow does that sometimes.

The longer the journey the more sweet the nectar of the fruit that lay at the end.

So uh, we kinda already have done unofficial 1v1, and enough people have teams that I don't think we need to make it an official tourney. And further, judging from when we were playing with it, I'm not sure it's the best choice for a theme...

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. Woooooooooooooooooooooo. Party on. Excellent. Wahha. hpynwyrsvryone.

...Run, Mael. Run while you still can. As for my thoughts on the actual highlights, I'm just not going to say anything at all, because no matter what I say, one or more of the involved parties will probably have me shot afterwards...

Hail is QQing for not having much of anything. ._. It's really kinda sad considering how pretty it is in real life~ We should like, make a compilation of Hail strategies. >.>;

[quote name='Maelstrom' post='8293' date='Dec 26 2010, 12:47 AM']I wouldn't know what to get myself (and trust me i've tried- i ambled the mall with money burning a hole in my pocket and I still left with nothing).[/quote] Especially at anime conventions, this is me... unless hot topic is involved.

+AmethystStorm: Hm... Some house shoes, a pair of pants, a chain, a vegetarian cookbook, aaand Stars from here got me a copy of Alice Through The Looking Glass~ Thank you Stars~

Topic.

Cherry Mistmas to everyone! And Happy Solstice/Kwanza/..that jewish holiday that I'm not even going to -try- to spell...! Hanakuah... Chaunakuah Chanakah Chanuahka .... Dear Uxie, Blake says Hi. And he also attached this and by that I mean I attached it, without his permission. Just Blake. Hangin' out. Bein' cool. Not wearing pants. You know. Sincerely, Ame.

Update. Two districts this time, since they were both small.

Ladies and gentlemen, by popular demand, I will be writing a brief series of tutorials on how to sprite using the program GraphicsGale over the next few months. Today, we'll begin with a fairly simple, yet demanded routine- How to recolor a sprite in Graphics Gale. For example, I've taken the sprite of a BW Elite four member, who's design is pretty, but who's color scheme I simply do not agree with. You can see her below, and the end result: Firstly I'm going to assume that you already have the program installed. If you don't, [url="http://gale.jpn.org/setgalefreeus.exe"]Do Something About That.[/url] When you first open Gale, chances are you'll see a mess of little boxes hovering everywhere. With minimal difficulty, you should be able to close, open, drag, drop and dock these tool-boxes at will. In this way you can create any sort of set up you'd like. Below is mine, and I've found it to be aptly efficient. [url="http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s1.1.png"]http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s1.1.png[/url] The only tool boxes that I consistently need are the preview, the palette, and the layer. For this tutorial, only the Palette is necessary. Feel free to close any others at will. Anyway, I've loaded up my image in Gale, and my workspace is in good order, so I'm ready to begin. While this isn't terribly necessary for just recoloring, as a matter of habit, I always like to zoom in on my sprite. For precision, you know. To Zoom, click the Magnifying Glass tool from the Toolbar, and click anywhere on the image. Note that LEFT click Zooms IN while RIGHT click Zooms OUT. You can also jump to a magnification via the drop down menu of Magnification percentages nearby. [url="http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s1.2.png"]http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s1.2.png[/url] Once you're at a comfortable distance, examine your Palette Toolbox. Notice two tabs at the bottom that say RGB and HSL. These stand for Red/Green/Blue and Hue/Saturation/Lighting, and they are two different methods of color choosing. Although it may sound more complex, for our purposes, we prefer HSL. Make sure that one is active. Finally, to begin, go to the All Frames Menu, and choose Color Depth. You should see a window that looks like this: [url="http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s1.3.png"]http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s1.3.png[/url] If you choose those setting's, you'll be rockin'. Press OK. [url="http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s1.4.png"]http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s1.4.png[/url] You'll notice that the Palette selection will change as you do that. When you are in 256 color mode, you no longer have an infinite selection of color to choose from, and therefore, the Palette will reflect ONLY the colors that are actually USED in your image. This means if you change a color on the palette, it will also change every instance of that color in the image. ...Wait, what? It is through this quick and easy method that we will do our recoloring. To begin, choose a draw tool from the toolbar. I've circled them in the above image for you. I prefer the Line tool, double-circled, because it offers the greatest control, but for this particular task, the Fill Bucket at far right of the circle does well too. Ultimately, it doesn't matter, because you're not even drawing with it. With a Draw Tool, in order to PLACE a color, LEFT click. In order to PICK UP a color, RIGHT CLICK. In this case, Pick Up the color you want to edit. You'll notice that that color becomes selected in the Palette, too. Play around with the sliders below the Palette, above where it says HSL (you ARE on HSL, right?). You'll notice it'll automatically change the color of the image too. Like so: [url="http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s1.5.png"]http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s1.5.png[/url] You can move from color to color as you please. The sliders are as such: -The Top Slider changes the Hue of the given color, or WHAT color it is. You can instantly turn Blue into Red by changing the hue. -The Middle Slider changes Saturation, or HOW MUCH of a color is put into it. 0 is grey. 100 is vivid. -The Bottom Slider changes the Lightness, or- that should be self-explanitory. 0 is black. 100 is white. Some ground rules. Never go ALL the way to 0 or 100 on the Lightness. You can come as close as 1 and 99 but when you hit the top or bottom you risk image quality. The same goes for taking Saturation to 0. Those are really the only rules. I continue changing the colors of the hair, like so: [url="http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s1.6.png"]http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s1.6.png[/url] Not half bad, for a twenty second job! But I've run into a wall. See, I'm going up through the hair colors, and ignoring the darker outline of the hair, what I'm left with is the highlights. If I try and do the usual trick to the highlighted hair color, this happens: [url="http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s1.7.png"]http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s1.7.png[/url] You see, her face turns blue-grey too. The problem is, Gamefreak reused the same colors for her hair highlights as for that shade of her skin. Well, we simply can't have that. What are we to do? Click over to your trusty fill took, grab one of those many blank boxes of blackness from your palette, and paint those highlights black. Any black box will work, just make sure you're not using it yet. [url="http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s1.8.png"]http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s1.8.png[/url] Looks weird now, but keeping that particular box on the palette selected, play with the sliders (feel free to reference the other colors if you need a guiding point for numbers), and having successfully severed the highlights from the skin tone, you are home-free! [url="http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s1.9.png"]http://www.pokemonreborn.com/images/st/s1.9.png[/url] The rest of the sprite was a breeze. Some last minute-tips. When you're making a color dark, work from the darkest shade, light-wards. If making a color light, work from the lightest shade, dark-wards. Black and white, though they appear to be colorless, should never have 0 saturation. The prettiest Whites and Blacks are actually a very light/dark blue tone, with around 7-15 saturation. If you need to move a group of colors lighter, take note of the intervals between shades. So suppose you want colors A B and C to be lighter, and their Lightnesses are 10, 15, and 20, respectively. Preserve the intervals. Make them all lighter, but the same distance. So, for instance, A B and C become 40, 45 and 50. These are only guidelines. The only rule set in stone is to go with what looks good, and don't be afraid to play around with it to get there. End result: Total working time: 3-5 minutes. Feel free to post your own attempts at this here for all to see!

[color="#8B0000"]Amethyst finished the second district~[/color] [color="#48D1CC"]Amethyst posted the second distrct~![/color] [color="#8B0000"]Hey! Hey? Can Alice color it? [/color] [color="#48D1CC"]No! Therese wants to color it! Please?[/color] [color="#8B0000"]You'll just mess it up... Can I, please~?[/color] [color="#48D1CC"]Who's gonna mess it up?! Please, please, please?![/color]

Name: StormthystAme Interests: You! Wait, what? Hobbies: Drawing, spriting, game design, battling, web-design, Anime-watching, writing, drumming/singing, poi-spinning, and trying to attract way too much attention via Japanese drinking games. Likes: Pokemon! Rozen Maiden, Pandora Hearts, Wolf's Rain, One Piece, Outlaw Star, Serial Experiments Lain, Neon Genesis Evangellion, Luminous Arc, Okami, Fire Emblem, Tales of Symphonia, Baten Kaitos, Dynasty Warriors, anythingtodowithLewisCarrol, Wolfies, Raspberries, Amethyst, crystals in general, foxxes, othercutethings Interesting Fact: The average wing-speed velocity of an unladen European Swallow is 24 miles per hour.

Blake is. Heather hasn't given us an answer yet.

A number of people have come to me with ideas for tournaments, so, rather than being totally totalitarian about the process, I'm leaving it up to you guys. Standard- Just your basic OU tourney, but double elimination, and officialized. 1v1- Players choose one Pokemon, and duke it out. Round Robin as usual. Rainbow- RR, no two Pokemon can have the same color group. Mysidia War- A couple of our Mysidian members have mentioned this, but it seems we've been offered another forum war by Mysidia, 5 on 5. Up to you guys.

Two?