TDSM itself does not impose any licensing restrictions on the use of art created in the program, but individual sprite styles may.

TDSM doesn’t come with thePokémon sprite styles by default. They are separate free downloads.[Gen. III][Gen. IV]

ThePokémon sprite styles are adapted from art that is the copyright of The Pokémon Company, so you should avoid using them for commercial projects.

There are sprite styles available for TDSM that do not have any licensing restrictions, likeTime Elements andPuny Characters. I am also working on a sprite style with original art that will be out in a few days:

Great, I love someone that is willing to get their hands dirty hahaha!

The presence/absence of a color picker for a color selection is determined by the boolean argument in the color selection constructor$Init::col_sel. If you unzip the sprite styles and look intomanifest.tds, search for occurrences of “$Init.col_sel(” to find all the color selection constructors. The ones defined toNOT have color pickers will have afalse argument. Set this totrue and they will have a color picker.

I don’t exactly remember how every singlecolor replacement is defined off the top of my head, but for Puny Characters, for example, it actually performs color replacements by loading image files from thepalettes subdirectory and sampling pixels at certain coordinates of that image. The color choice is represented by rows, and the specific color in the ramp (highlights, neutral, shadow) is represented by the column. Because of this implementation choice, adding a color picker won’t produce the desired effect and may lead to runtime errors/crashes. In that particular case, you would have to rewrite all of the color replacement logic to make it work with the color picker.

The general rule of thumb I used to adapt sprite styles for collaborations like Time Elements and Puny Characters is that if the artists were intentional about color palettes, I define color replacement logic and color selections in an enumerable way. You would have to write custom replacement logic for skin tone for Time Elements as well, for example.

Feel free to check out thesprite style development guide or read through theAPI specification for a better understanding of the theory. I can give you more detailed one-on-one help if you email me at jordanbunkework@gmail.com.

And thank you so much!

Can you tell me your computer specs? What operating system are you running?

You can email me at jordanbunkework@gmail.com for support.

You have to upload the sprite style ZIP to TDSM before attempting to load a metadata JSON in that sprite style back into the program. The next update will add an error screen that catches it if it can’t match the JSON to an uploaded sprite style, but right now the program just crashes when that happens.

So every time you launch TDSM, you have to upload your modified Time Elements sprite style ZIP before you try to load from JSON.

Let me know if that makes sense and if it resolves your issue!

Edit:Just to clarify, you are supposed to use the JSON from the exported animation. That isn’t a mistake.

It’s definitely possible and it’s one of the styles I’ve had high on the list of priorities since I first started working on the program!

The biggest issue there and the main reason I haven’t tackled that yet is the workload: the sheer number of animations is quite daunting if the style is meant to support all of the possible player —- and not just NPC —- animations.

I’m working on an original style right now that I should be ready to release the first version of in a few days. Then I have some other TDSM-related priorities, but this is something I could start working on by mid- to late October.

If you’d like to see it supported ASAP, let me know if you think you’d be up for for drawing the base assets and we can discuss collaborating on it, or whether you might even be interested in attempting to make an SDV sprite style entirely on your own, in which case I’d be happy to support you if you hit any snags or need any help or advice. :)

Sprite style based on the farmer (player) in Stardew Valley is officially in the works! Watch this space

Hi, thanks for your support!

No, I’ve never used pokeemerald-expansion, but I can look into it and get back to you.

Generally speaking, you’ll want to make sure your sprite sheet layout and frame dimensions (both configurable on the Configuration screen in TDSM) match the layout and dimensions of the sprite sheets you are replacing.

As of v1.2.0, TDSM only exports sprite sheet PNG images with 32-bit RGBA colors. ROM hacks typically expect 4BPP (4 bits per pixel) images with accompanying palette data provided by a separate file.

My recommendation to you would be to take your exported sprite sheets from TDSM and convert them using a tool likePorypal, which is free and open source. Porypal is designed for Gen III ROM hacking sprite compatibility, and lets you convert your standard 32-bit RGBA PNGs to 4BPP PNGs that should work perfectly in a hex editor or with pokeemerald-expansion (don’t quote me on that just yet though!).

Let me know if that makes sense :)

Download theGen 3 andGen 4 sprite styles and upload them to the program by clicking the plus icon in the top-right corner of the customization screen.

There is a clip of me doing it in the trailer at the top of the page :)

Good question!

Are you asking in terms of configuring sprite sheets to be exported or defining sprite styles?

Configuration

You can resize sprites to be anything ranging from 1x1 to 128x128 pixels (don’t have to be square). All of the animations of a sprite sheet will have sprites that are the same dimensions. If you want specific dimensions for particular animations, I would recommend exporting those animations individually. You can do that on the configuration screen by…

• Unchecking all other animations in the “Sequencing” section
• setting your desired dimensions in the “Padding” section

Defining sprite styles

You can define sprite styles with individual frames/sprites ranging anywhere from 1x1 to 128x128 pixels as well. All animations of a particular sprite style will conform to these dimensions. I’m still finalizing some of the pages, but you can have a look at theAPI specification if you want to learn about how to make your own sprite styles. I’m in the process of producing tutorial videos about that as well.

Let me know if that answered your question :)

did you check the sprite styles? That’s where they would be. 

Hi!

ThePokémon sprite styles[Gen 3][Gen 4] don’t have tool animations.

The default sprite style that the program comes will eventually have tool animations, but it will take a while before I get around to implementing them.

I’m currently working on resources to help people make their own sprite styles for the program and better understand the program’s advanced features.

Then, I will be encouraging talented pixel artists in the community to make sprite styles forTDSM. Some of these will likely include tool animations. Approved sprite styles will be added tothis collection.

Hey again!

I’ll be 1) documenting the scripting API and 2) making tutorial videos about creating and editing sprite styles in the next few days, so stay tuned!

Themanifest.tds file is just code, so it’s just a plain text file. I use VS Code to write them. I’ll be publishing a VS Code extension that adds syntax highlighting forTDSM scripts imminently as well.

The primary use case forStipple Effect when it comes to making sprite styles is programmatically separating and saving assets from project files, which I’ll be covering in the tutorial videos.

For now, I’d recommend using the Pokémon sprite styles as examples to study how sprite styles work. Have look at how theirmanifest.tds files and other subdirectories are structured, if you haven’t had the chance to do so already. You can also experiment with modifying the script or CVS files and assets in thebases subdirectories in the if you feel confident.

• Gen. 3
• Gen. 4

Thanks for your continued interest in the program; let me know if you have any other questions!

You have to crop/pad the sprite according to your desired dimensions on the configuration screen. I’ve attached a GIF as an example.

By default, theGen. 3 (FireRed/LeafGreen) sprite style is set to 40x40 pixel dimensions per frame. When you adjust the values in the padding section, the “Individual sprite size” section under the textboxes tells you how big your individual sprites now are, and the preview in the top left shows you how an example frame from your sprite sheet is sliced.

Let me know if this helps you achieve your desired result, and let me know if you have any follow-up questions!

And just to add,[-4, -4, 4, 4] isn’t the only way to pad/crop 40x40 sprites to a size of 32x48. If you find that leaves you with too much blank space at the top, for example, you could just as easily set it to[-4, -4, 2, 6].

Thank you so much! Just gave your review a watch and will leave a more detailed comment under your video!

First of all, I’m so sorry for the late response. I’ve taken some time away from the program but I’ve got some good news regarding your question. I personally don’t plan to add that – but you can!

As of the update I just released, you can now create and edit your own sprite styles for TDSM. Adding a weapon layer is somewhat complicated and requires programming, but I’ll be releasing tutorials and documentation in the near future that should make it more accessible.

Thanks for your interest!

Hi, thanks for reaching out.

Wouldn’t a static front-facing sprite just be the front-facing idle sprite, or do you mean something else. If so, TDSM does let you choose which directions and animations to export, so you can already limit the export to that single sprite, since the idle animation is only a single frame in this case.

I’m actually hearing about Picrew for the first time. But no, I don’t see myself making a dedicated avatar maker in this style.

I’m actually releasing a major update in a couple days at the latest that will make it possible for users to make and upload their own styles to TDSM. Using the tools that already exist in the program, it will be possible for you to make your own avatar styles.

Let me know if that addresses your question :)

No, there’s no scale up option.

This is primarily because sprites intended for game development should never be stored as scaled-up image files. This is a best practices thing to keep the asset file size as low as possible.

If you intend to use exported sprites for something that requires them to be scaled up, then you can scale them up in an image editing program. I would recommend my own:Stipple Effect.

Thank you!

Splitting bangs and back hair is a really good suggestion.

I’m going to workshop user-customizable sprite styles in the next few weeks and will be asking users for feedback when I do, so stay tuned for that!

Yeah, that’s a good idea/point. I’m thinking about adding a feature where users can upload assets to a category (e.g. hairstyles, headwear, etc.) and add options to categories that way.

The included customization options are stored in theart repository on GitHub, which you can check out to familiarize yourself with what the assets actually look like under the hood.

I’m planning on setting up a contribution guide so that the community can add customization options to the official program as well.

If you want to formally request what you’re describing as a feature, you can do that by making anew issue in the mainTDSM repository.

Hi! There is no reason why the use ofTDSM sprites would have to be limited to Pokémon fan games.

The base assets that are used to customize sprites inTDSM are stored inthis GitHub repository. Elements in the styles based on Pokémon games are drawn. Many are adapted from overworld sprites from the original games, but are modified to comply with TDSM’s customization code and to make the elements more suitable for customization.

Also, most of the content in the program will eventually be unrelated to Pokémon. Besides the styles based on the Gen 3 and Gen 4 Pokémon games, future styles added to the program will be original and not based on any existing IP.

The base asset files for the sprite styles supported by the program are stored directly in the program executable. For the cross-platform build, this is thetdsm.jar file, while for the Windows build, it is thetdsm.exe file inC:\Program Files (x86)\Top Down Sprite Maker once you have installed the program. You can look inside the executables with an archive viewer like 7-Zip and find the base assets in thesprite_assets subfolder.

The program doesn’t let you define your own sprite styles using custom assetsyet, but it is a stretch goal. I’m still thinking about how best to implement this. If you want to get involved with the implementation of the feature, or just follow along, you can subscribe tothis issue on GitHub.