Guidance for Artisans

Artisans, formerly known as pixelists, are HabitRPG contributors who specialize in designing custom artwork for the site. They create images for pets, equipment, item drops, monsters, and any other art that the site may need.

Becoming an Artisan
If you would like to contribute to HabitRPG as an Artisan, you must follow the proper procedures. Make sure that you read ALL of the instructions on the relevant cards before proceeding.

Permissions
Before your art can be used for the game, you must give legal permission to HabitRPG to use your art. Follow the instructions on the Trello card and send your permission. It is a good idea to do this before you finish your art, because then you will not have to wait for your contributor rewards. Note that there are special procedures for Artisans who are under 18 years of age.

Claiming Requested Art
The Pixel Art Trello keeps track of the various pieces that are currently needed for HabitRPG. Go through the cards to find an unclaimed piece that has been requested. If you find one that you would like to do, DO NOT immediately begin work on that piece. In the past, this hastiness has led to multiple individuals doing the same request, which is a sad waste of energy and great art. Instead, post a comment saying "can I do [ART PIECE]?" A mod will approve or deny your request and edit the card's information accordingly, so that there aren't ten thousand wolves and ten thousand sad artists. NOTE: YOU CAN ONLY HAVE TWO ACTIVE CLAIMS AT A TIME. Some exceptions may apply.

If the mods haven't heard from you for a month, be warned, they may give a claimed piece to someone else. Before the piece is opened up again, there will be a call on Trello to find out if you are still working. It is a good idea to check in periodically to find out if you need to respond to one of these calls, especially if you've been absent from the community for a while. Also, if you're going to be really busy or go on vacation or something, just tell the mods on the Trello! They'll understand.

Doing Unrequested Art
If you have an idea for a piece of art that has not been requested by the HabitRPG mods, that's okay! But before you invest too much time and effort into it, check the Trello to make sure that the type of art you want to do is currently being accepted. Sometimes, when there is a glut of a particular type of art, it may be closed for submission of new ideas. This has happened for pets and their related images. If the art type you would like to create is being accepted, you should then go to the Pixels in Progress guild and discuss the idea with the people there. They will gladly help you to develop your idea so that it can be used for HabitRPG.

Art Guide
Below are some rules and tips to help artists quickly produce materials.

Any piece submitted, whether draft or final, should be at 3x pixel zoom.The easiest way to do this is to create your pixel art with 1x1 pixel units, and scale it up 300% after completion.

The main stylistic guideline is that art should fit in visually with the other artwork (similar sizes, pixel RPG style) and have a slightly darker border.

Canvas sizes
When creating a canvas for pixel art at 1x1 zoom, use these dimensions. Unless otherwise noted, images submitted for evaluation or inclusion should be expanded to 3x3 zoom.


 * Pets: 27x33px (the pet itself should not exceed a height of 20px within this canvas)
 * Mounts: 35x35px
 * Eggs, Potions, Food: 16x17px
 * Shop (Item Store, Armory, Costumes): 20x20 - expand to 2x2 pixels (not 3x3 as usual)
 * Bosses: 73x73px (you can go under a bit, though)
 * Characters: 30x30px
 * Random Event Monsters: 73x73px (hard limit, should skew smaller)
 * Community Guidelines Art: 115x65px
 * Backgrounds: 47x49px (for submission, expand to 3x3 and then shave off one pixel so it is 140x147px)
 * Wiki Decorative Art:  There is no defined size for this, but it should be kept to a reasonable size so that it does not distract too much from the text
 * Wiki Title Images: 600x63px
 * Wiki Forum Scene Art: 498x249px

Pets and Mounts
Pets have a maximum height of 20px, and should not extend into the colored area at the top of the template.

Mounts need to be submitted in two parts so that they may be layered with the character. One layer should contain the head and any relevant foreground parts, such as wings, and the other should contain the body. The following is an example with the base dragon mount's head and wing in one part and body in another:

Shaners  made the following templates for pets and mounts that can serve as the bottom layer when working then hidden before export. The pet template also indicates the maximum height. You can work at this size and then export at 3x without any anti-aliasing or interpolation.

Character Sprites
New items for characters (eg. hair, accessories, armor, weapons) should fit within the same sized canvas as a character sprite (30x30px working canvas at 1px zoom). The image should have a transparent background with the item positioned within the canvas the way it should be placed on the character. The following image may be used as a guide for item alignment:

Layers
The character's final image is compiled by code that places the various item images on top of each other. The order in which the layers are placed would be a good thing to keep in mind for item compatibility.

The order of the layers from bottom to top:
 * 1) background
 * 2) mount-body
 * 3) back accessory
 * 4) skin
 * 5) armor
 * 6) collar
 * 7) head-outline
 * 8) hair-base
 * 9) hair-bangs
 * 10) mustache
 * 11) beard
 * 12) helm
 * 13) head accessory
 * 14) flower
 * 15) shield
 * 16) weapon
 * 17) mount-head
 * pet

Pets and Mounts
After your claim for a pet or mount has been confirmed, you can make the 'Base' color version, corresponding to a Base Hatching Potion. The colors in this version should reflect your idea of what a basic version of that creature would look like, but you should differentiate it from what the other color versions will look like. Once the base version has been approved on the Trello, you can begin to make recolored versions of your image for each of the other hatching potions. Recolors have some standard features that you should include, as described in the table below. Recolor palettes for Gimp were created by Leephon, and can be found here.

Hair
Below is a rough guide to hair colors with hex codes.

Submission Format
When you are submitting pieces, make sure you:
 * use the .png file format


 * expand the piece to 3x3 pixel zoom


 * give the piece a transparent background

If you do not do this, it can be difficult for others to assess your art, and your art cannot be implemented in HabitRPG.

Pixels in Progress Guild
While you are working on new art, first place the image on an image hosting service, then post a link to the Pixels in Progress guild. The guild members will offer feedback to help make your art the best it can be, and enable you to redraft the work as needed. The guild is a friendly and supportive place, and users are asked to follow the list of etiquette rules posted there.

Pixel Art Trello Board
When your art is finalized and ready to submit, place the image on an image hosting service, and then post that link to the Pixel Art Trello board as a comment on the appropriate card. The art will then be given final comments and submitted for integration into HabitRPG. Artisans must have a Trello account to post comments on the Trello boards.

In order for pixel art to be integrated into HabitRPG, the artisan must give HabitRPG legal permission to do so. If you have art that you would like to submit, please follow the directions on the permissions Trello card. When HabitRPG has the art and your permission to use it in hand, a blacksmith will then insert the files to the appropriate place.

Nomenclature
The names of image files need to be consistent within each category, so examine existing image names in that directory as part of your process. The standard for file names is category-object-descriptor-index.png (using dashes or underscore). Object, descriptor, and index are optional depending on whether the category folder name would make the object name redundant or if there are no variations requiring a descriptor or index (i.e. no colors or multiples). For example, the third blonde beard option is named beard_blonde_3.png.

Keep in mind that all the art files should be zero indexed, but zero means none of that option, so don't use 0 as your file name index.

Integrate art into the GitHub repository
The following video explains the spritesmith system and how one should commit new images to the repository.



GIMP
GIMP is a free, open source image manipulation program that some artisans use.

Use an existing image
Warning: Please avoid using existing images, and be creative (or at least be 100% sure that the image can be modified and commercially reused, which is not the case in the following video!)

In this video the following tips are shown:


 * Search a reusable image on Google.
 * Scale an image.
 * Add alpha layer to remove the background color.
 * Change colors with posterize and contrast.
 * Pixelize an image.
 * Set half-transparent pixel to black.
 * Draw a border around the image.