God School: Lesson 5

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thinkslogically
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God School: Lesson 5

Post by thinkslogically » Sat Jun 15, 2013 3:09 am

Lesson Five: Editing other peopleÔÇÖs images

Welcome to lesson four! So far weÔÇÖve focused entirely on the drawing tools in GIMP and how to use those tools to get started on creating a freestyle adventure of your own. From now on, we'll also be focusing more on sprite-based artwork but there's no reason at all why you can't apply the techniques just as easily to freestyle art as well. Now, onto to today's lesson!

Today we'll be working on editting other peopleÔÇÖs images, and it will hopefully give you an insight into the process of building a sprite-based game.

Part 1: Getting someone elseÔÇÖs picture into Gimp

There are a lot of different ways to do this, but here are two of the simplest:

Method one
  • Navigate to the web page with the picture you want.
  • Right-click on the picture. Click on "Copy".

    TOP TIP: If the picture you want to copy has been resized by the forum and you want to download it in its full and original size, right-click on it and select ÔÇÿopen in new tabÔÇÖ OR click on the little magnifying glass. You can now right-click and copy the image as normal.

    Image
  • Open gimp.
  • Select: Edit > Paste As > New Image

    Image
Method two
  • Go to the web page with the picture you want.
  • Right click on the picture. Click on "Save Picture as"

    Image
  • Navigate to where you want the picture, and click on save.
  • Open gimp and select File > Open
  • Navigate to the location you saved the picture to, then press Open.
These two methods will allow you to get the picture into gimp, but now we have some actual editing to do! Here weÔÇÖll go over some of the simpler editing methods (weÔÇÖll get to the more complex stuff later on.)

Part 2: Copying a part of the picture.

Image

So here we have our intrepid goblin all set to start doing some adventuring! But we're not going to get very far if you can't move your sprite around the scene.
  1. Choose the rectangular selection tool (the box with the dotted outline) and click and drag over the part of the image you want to select. Be careful you donÔÇÖt make the box too big or youÔÇÖll bring some of the floor along too! It's usually easy enough to fix, but sometimes it's just easier to be careful.
  2. Select Edit > Copy
  3. Select Edit > Paste as > New layer. Now you have two goblins! If you havenÔÇÖt done so already, you probably want to open your Layers Toolbox so you can see what youÔÇÖre doing more easily (Windows > Dockable Dialogs > Layers OR just hit Ctrl-L).

    Image
  4. Now select the move tool...

    Image
  5. ...and move the copied layer to your desired location.
  6. But now we have another problem because IÔÇÖve got a horrible big box of wall colour that is dangerously close to blocking out my view of that ever-so-fancy hat! To deal with that, select the magic wand tool and click the wand onto the ugly background behind the goblin sprite (on the goblin's layer, NOT the background!) to select everything thatÔÇÖs the same colour.

    Image
  7. Then you simply press ÔÇÿdeleteÔÇÖ on your keyboard et voila! The background colour for that layer is now gone (transparent) and we can see all the lovely stuff on the desk again!

    Image

    Of course, now we have the problem of too many goblins...
Part 3: Deleting part of a picture.
  1. Highlight the background layer again (in the layers toolbox) to select it and draw a selection box around the area you want to remove.

    Image
  2. Select the ÔÇÿcolour-pickerÔÇÖ tool and click somewhere on the back wall to make that your main colour.

    Image
  3. Select the pencil tool, and set the size to something reasonably large (20 is fine) and colour over your selection box. Don't worry about going outside the lines - remember if you have an area selected you can only alter the things within your selection area. Everything else is 'safe'.

    Image
Voila!
Last edited by thinkslogically on Sat Jun 15, 2013 7:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

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LooksAndSmiles
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Re: God School: Lesson 5

Post by LooksAndSmiles » Sat Jun 15, 2013 3:33 am

Note 1:
On deleting (simpler than manually deleting with a pencil if you don't have to be careful of the shape):

1) Select the area you wish to delete
2) Press the delete button on your keyboard

If you were on a new layer with a transparent background, you are pretty much done. If you were on a picture with a consistent background color, like in the example above, then there are to more steps:

3) use the color picker like above
4) use the filling bucket to fill the empty area the Delete button has left behind.

Note 2:
In the example above what Thinks has basically done is that he "extracted" the goblin from the background. He did it in 2 steps, first moved the relevant part (the goblin character) to a new sprite, then removed the old one. If you want to just extract parts, you could do the following:

1) Select the part you want to extract
2) Press Ctrl + X
3) Create a new layer
4) Go to the new layer and press Ctrl+V
5) It will be a "floating selection" image, which you have to dock. This can be done by clicking anywhere on the layer if you still have the selection tool in your hand, or selecting "Anchor layer" on the layers tab, after right clicking on the floating selection.
6) Erase the unwanted parts like above.
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LAYF
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Re: God School: Lesson 5

Post by LAYF » Sat Jun 15, 2013 7:05 am

Hay Thinks... quick note... Arles was a bit late with the las assignment, so.. no one have compleated that yet :(

just info...
-Best regards LAYF

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thinkslogically
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Re: God School: Lesson 5

Post by thinkslogically » Sat Jun 15, 2013 7:26 am

Yeah I know, but I figured that those folk who have more free time at the weekends would probably still prefer to see the new lesson up as normal.

Also, I'm loathe to get off schedule unless loads of people request it but happy to hear your views. If you all want 2 weeks to catch up, then we can take next week off to do that?

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thinkslogically
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Re: God School: Lesson 5

Post by thinkslogically » Tue Jun 18, 2013 1:39 am

Hey folks, just checking in. Everyone's gone very quiet over the last 2 weeks and we've only has assignments posted for #4 & #5 from LAYF so far. I know it's still early in the week, but if you're struggling to keep up / no longer interested / away on holiday please just let us know. There's not much I can do to help if I don't know what the problem is :)

Of course maybe I'm just paranoid, and you're all about to inundate me with beautiful entries as soon as I post this :D

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I'mBob
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Re: God School: Lesson 5

Post by I'mBob » Tue Jun 18, 2013 1:46 am

Well I barely have time for anything. I try to keep up but I can't really.
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M0rtimer
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Re: God School: Lesson 5

Post by M0rtimer » Tue Jun 18, 2013 2:52 am

Well as I said, I've been too busy with exams to work on any assignments. Things are finally starting to clear up though- Getting my games running again will take priority, but these assignments will come soon after. I'll work on assignment 5 and upcoming assignments first, and if I have the spare time I'll combine assignments two to four in one big assignemnt which I'll title Paradox: ascend.

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madmartin26
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Re: God School: Lesson 5

Post by madmartin26 » Tue Jun 18, 2013 5:55 pm

I'd still like to be a part of this, but i've had some other obligations as well, and i've had to take care of them first. Hopefully i can catch up pretty soon.

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thinkslogically
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Re: God School: Lesson 5

Post by thinkslogically » Fri Jun 21, 2013 5:10 am

Ok everyone, as you know the deadline for Assignment 5 is today but since we have only had 1 entry, a bunch of people have said they're busy, and everyone else is AWOL I'm goign to extend the deadline another week. Hopefully this will give you a chance to get something done for Lesson 4 as well and we'll pick this up next Saturday instead.

PS if anyone simply isn't interested in continuing any more please let me know so I'm not waiting for entries that will never come :)

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Re: God School: Lesson 5

Post by BeanDip » Fri Jun 21, 2013 6:26 am

Crap. I thought the deadline was tomorrow. Sorry, my bad.
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thinkslogically
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Re: God School: Lesson 5

Post by thinkslogically » Wed Jun 26, 2013 3:25 am

Morning all! Just a gentle reminder that the assignments are due on Friday and I'm still looking for basically everyone's entries for assignments 4 & 5. I'll post the next lesson on Saturday, but I must admit it's not quite so much fun if it's just me hanging out in here on my own!

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LooksAndSmiles
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Re: God School: Lesson 5

Post by LooksAndSmiles » Wed Jun 26, 2013 4:59 am

Don't wait for my entry, I only showed up at the beginning so the others could expect a lesson from me too. :) That being said, I think the lessons are there for the posterity, so there is no harm in putting them out.

Nevertheless, if you think that at least one session of "live following" the god school should be there, then you might wait with further lessons until the current ones get moreless completed.

p.s.: Nice tribute to Ratha's original "training map". :)
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Re: God School: Lesson 5

Post by M0rtimer » Wed Jun 26, 2013 5:56 am

I fully intend to at the very least get this lesson in on time. I've just been mostly lazy the past few days... Maybe I'll get working on it later today.

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Re: God School: Lesson 5

Post by BeanDip » Wed Jun 26, 2013 8:48 am

Been having a lot of stress lately, going to try and get this done though.
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thinkslogically
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Re: God School: Lesson 5

Post by thinkslogically » Wed Jun 26, 2013 8:50 am

Sorry! I didn't mean to sound like I was having a go - it's absolutely fine to miss a few lessons and it's not a problem. It just seems like everyone's left en masse in the last couple of weeks and I don't want this to die a death just because people have forgotten about it or anything.

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Re: God School: Lesson 5

Post by BeanDip » Thu Jun 27, 2013 2:13 pm

Assignment incoming after Dinner
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M0rtimer
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Re: God School: Lesson 5

Post by M0rtimer » Thu Jun 27, 2013 3:14 pm

Am I the only one who can't see the images Bean posted properly? :(

I could see them once I followed the image link, but not in the post.

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Re: God School: Lesson 5

Post by LAYF » Thu Jun 27, 2013 4:55 pm

Nice going Bean :) Liked the little conversation you had going there....

one question do.... where did that bottle come from? the desk or?
-Best regards LAYF

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Re: God School: Lesson 5

Post by BeanDip » Thu Jun 27, 2013 5:50 pm

It was the thing on the desk. It looked like a bottle to me.

My wife later told me it was a book.... and well, she married a dope :P

So it looked like a bottle, but was in fact a book. Just call it my godly magic that I was able to turn a book into a bottle. ;)
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Re: God School: Lesson 5

Post by LooksAndSmiles » Thu Jun 27, 2013 6:06 pm

Ratha's original dungeon had a mirror over that table :) And things are ALWAYS whatever you see them, so no worries. :)
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Re: God School: Lesson 5

Post by thinkslogically » Fri Jun 28, 2013 2:48 am

BeanDip wrote:It was the thing on the desk. It looked like a bottle to me.

My wife later told me it was a book.... and well, she married a dope :P

So it looked like a bottle, but was in fact a book. Just call it my godly magic that I was able to turn a book into a bottle. ;)
We could always just assume it was in the desk drawer :) Here's the original version for comparison if you're interested. Mine is most definitely a tribute :)

Image

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Re: God School: Lesson 5

Post by LooksAndSmiles » Fri Jun 28, 2013 1:17 pm

Gathers, your entry is just far too good! :D:D:D:D I half expected that last goblin dying to a trap behind the door, but ... nevermind. :D

Also " *stretches out and reaches for the key* Got it! " appears before and after that picture too, I assume one of that is reduntant. :)
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BeanDip
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Re: God School: Lesson 5

Post by BeanDip » Fri Jun 28, 2013 1:51 pm

I loved your assignment, Gathers! Very cool and creative! Wish I could think outside the box like that. I give it a 5/5
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GathersIngredients
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Re: God School: Lesson 5

Post by GathersIngredients » Sat Jun 29, 2013 3:14 am

Aw, you guys are too kind.
I had a lot of other ideas I wanted to implement...
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... but it just took way to long to draw the ideas that I actually used for this assignment, so I decided to settle for those and call it a day.

I am very happy that you all like it so much, though. Thank you very much for saying so. :)

And BeanDip: part of the credit should go to you, too, because your Avatar Doug and his antics/adventures of accidentally killing of pretty much everything really inspired me for this asignement. :D

Also, I like ALL the solutions you guys came up with, that I have seen in assignment 5 thread so far. Great job, especially on the facial expressions, everyone. :thumbsup:

LooksAndSmiles wrote:Also " *stretches out and reaches for the key* Got it! " appears before and after that picture too, I assume one of that is reduntant. :)
Thanks for bringing that to my attention, I edited one of them out now.
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