GIMP Editing

[Kentaro]

Using GIMP might be my best editing option. But how do I get a sprite sheet to start my work?

[Caethyril]

I haven't had much experience using GIMP, but I'd advise you to start from a template sheet (google images link[www.google.co.uk]). Then if you open both it and your character sprite, you should be able to copy + paste the latter into the former; there's a "Move" tool in the toolbox that allows you to move selections.

To save as a 256 colour image, I think you'll have to use Export (Save creates an .xcf file, but RM2k3 needs .bmp or .png) and ensure the colour depth is 8-bit (a.k.a. 256 colours). You don't have to worry about transparency if you're going to use the Resource Manager, either, as you can set a transparent colour by clicking that colour when the Manager displays the image to be imported.

GIMP does take a bit of getting used to, but it can do a lot and it's free. If you get the feeling that it's over-complicated for your purposes, another one I've seen recommended recently is Paint .Net (link to site[www.getpaint.net]), which looks like it might be more intuitive and newbie-friendly. ^_^

[Kentaro]

Thanks. Is there a way of loading a template onto my computer without compromising the size?

[Caethyril]

Originally posted by Kentaro:

Thanks. Is there a way of loading a template onto my computer without compromising the size?

I'm not sure I understand. Every charset must be 288 pixels wide and 256 pixels high, so an appropriate template will be that size. Is something happening to the size of the image when you open it? Or are you talking about colour depth?

If it's that you're only wanting to import 1 or 2 characters and you're worrying about the blank space in the template, that's not an issue. Put your character(s) in the first (few) slot(s) and leave the rest as-is, it'll be fine. =)

[Beria]

I use GIMP for making assets for my own project such this:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=657898861

Besides what Caethryl told you, take a look to help documentation on RPG Maker 2003 because there it is the answers to all the sizes of assets (charas, bacground, tiles, etc).

Some important tip I confronted when using GIMP were to set 8bit colour because sometimes the in-depth is less than this, and GIMP automatically set to less bits of colour, for this cases I suggest to you using paintnet (getpaint.net) for making this under 8bit assets to the correct 8bit 256 colour to be imported on your project. You only need to open it with Paintnet and save it.

Try to optimise the interface of GIMP and learn its shortcuts, this is really important to make it easy to draw your pixel assets.

EDIT: You can import files in your project without taking the full file size, with only respecting the right size (for example a file with just 1 chara size).