How to make your first Icon V0.7 State Update

Halkel · Last edited by Halkel on Sun Aug 02, 2009 12:20 pm; edited 12 times in total

Table of Contents
Version Info [ST1]
Introduction [ST2]
About Dream Maker [ST3]
Making a Map Icon [ST4]
Portrait Making [ST5]
Battle for Glory [ST6]
Main States [ST6A]
Status Abnormalies [ST6B]
How to make the Icon [ST7]
Bases for easier Custom Work [ST8]

Version Info: [ST1]

0.7:
Seperated the howto from the Map State Section.
Bases moved from Search Code [ST7] to [ST8]

0.6:
Introducing the Dream Maker to new Iconners.
Information edited slightly to fix typing errors.
New State introduced in the update (battle_victory) has been added
Updated with Status States

0.5 Revised:
Bases have been added

0.5:

Tutorial Started
All required states added, this excludes status

Introduction: [ST2]

Iconing is simple yet complex. so here's how it works. In FFL, the states are split into 3 categories: Portrait, Battle and Map. Map states are 16x16 always. Battle are optionally 32x32 where Portraits are Always 32x32 When applying them into an icon file, these must has a ratio scale of 2:1 meaning all pixels in the icon must be doubled in size when completed.

About Dream Maker: [ST3]

Dream maker is the application used for coding, mapping, and iconning that comes with the application Byond (if you don't have it, look harder or you've been ripped off). Icons are at a scale of 32x32 pixels and has two styles, Animated and Static that can be conjured between two types, Movement and Static. You can have 2 states of the same name, as long as one is Static and one is for movement. The State Type can be modifyed in two different ways:
Right clicking the icon and select "Edit State".
or
Double clicking the name of the state.

The great thing about this is that you're the boss, and you can do anything with your icons. If it's for a game with rules on Icon Upload, follow these rules properly otherwise you'll be in trouble.

Animated States are moving sprites, you can set it between 1 direction, 4 directions or 8 directions. As FFL uses only 4, use up to 4. The Animation screen shows Framerates above each frame (default = 1) You can change these by double clicking. Double clicking the "Frame Box" enters Edit Frame Mode where you can modify your graphics. Static States are just 1 Frame in one direction, more commonly used as Map Tiles or States that are facing one way with no animation. When Pasting from outside apps or files works as well, the sprite is pasted at the Top Left corner of the sprite (unless in the edit screen, where it's the bottom left). If the sprite is Exceeded it's limit, the left and/or bottom of the image is cropped and moved to the top or right of the new Frame created. These frames are numbered from the top left first in this fashion:

1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9

A 96x96 sprite was pasted in Dream Maker's State Viewer:

FFL's Restrictions recommend you to enlarge 16bit sprites rather then using 32bit. How does this work? 16bit is half of 32, so you can use MSPaint's Stretch and Stew feature to make it like that without affecting the colour. This applys also to Portraits and Battle States. Read on to learn how to make them.

Making a Map Icon: [ST4]

Map icons have 5 states:
normal: your movement state
in: movement in Water or Forest. It's best to copy your normal state and remove the bottom half
lift arm: Inn state after you rest at an inn
look down: Can be seen if someone rests in an inn and you're there
fallen: an optional action*

*Action Verb only states

Portrait Making: [ST5]

Wanted to make Sailor moon in the Style of FF4 or edit a screen shot for a mug shot, Portrait Making is not as hard as Battle States. The word you need is "portrait"

Portraits uses 4 states, named portrait1 to portrait4. It's arranged like this:

2 4
1 3

Easy Peasy. Now make a portrait 32x32, but with a pixel ratio of 2:1

(screens coming soon)

Battle for Glory: [ST6]

Battle states, I seriously don't wanna start there. These states come in numbers. Anyways, All battle States have "battle_" infront of the state type. and the order is like this:

4 2
3 1

Main States: [ST6A]

The states are with "battle_" infront of the following words:

walk: Normal stance, set as a movement state
parry: Ready to make an attack or parrying
lattack_attack: attack with left hand, replace lattack with rattack for right hand
lattack_stance: Before the attack stance, replace lattack with rattack for right hand
special_stance: For Charges of Jump, Build up, DarkWave and so on
special_attack: Non Magical Attack action for Cry, Strengthen, Jump, Kick and so on.
magic_stance: Magic Charge
special2_attack: Charged Summon, or other specials.
item: Item ~~and Victory pose~~ (was modified to make it just used for item poses)
hit: accepting damage from an attack
ndead: when you HP is critical
dead: HP = 0 D=
***Update*** New State Added:
victory: When you win basically. This can be either a custom thing or just your normal first frame of "walk" and the "item" states.

Example of layout: battle_hit1, battle_dead3 and so on

Status Abnormalies: [ST6B]

**Note** These are not required as it works during PVP battles. Here's all the states available, don't forget that battle states have the text "battle_" before the following words:

venom: Poison status
hold: Paralysis status
stone: Petrification, Simular to death
silence: Mute basically
sleep: Character is asleep
cry: When a character is hit by the White Twin's Cry move
curse: Curse Status

(screens coming soon)

How to make the Icon [ST7]:

1. get a map state from Final Fantasy 4 or 5 (if the pixels are larger then the 1:1 scale, select it and right click -> Stretch & Stew (Resize & Stew for Vista users) then put 50% in the Horizontal and Vertical Stretch section.)

2. Edit this sprite to look like what you want while it's in its 1:1 state (Optional)

3. If you use MSPaint, select it and right click -> Stretch & Stew then put 200% in the Horizontal and Vertical Stretch section. It's easier this way.

4. Copy and past it into Dream Maker

That's all there is to it. Simple no?

Bases for easier Custom Work: [ST8]

Special Thanks to Frying Tonight and Harken for the links of the following Bases.

These are map states, The styles in Final Fantasy 5.