What is the best way to draw and import 2D graphics

This is a READ-ONLY snapshot of the Godot Community Forums when TwistedTwigleg was the owner, which is hosted for archival reasons only. The current Godot Community Forums can be found here.

Some links may point to external websites, including the current Godot Community Forums. These websites are not associated with TwistedTwigleg.

What is the best way to draw and import 2D graphics

nb_dot

I've only just started with Godot so aiming to do things the right way. I've been drawing 2D characters and objects in photoshop then exporting them as transparent PNGs and they have pretty rough edges often with white lines that really show up on a dark background. I've just been dragging and dropping them into an assets folder to import. I did find something about importing them and using border alpha but that made little difference. Am I better off using SVGs? What is the best way to make characters that have a shape and are coloured?

ALBATI_2005

Pixophir I see, so you're saying the problem itself is not even real, to begin with. Although, I disagree because of the following reasons:
1- Lots of people seem to agree in the comment section. I'm not saying they must be all truthful, but when the number is that high, well I just doubt that the problem is not even there.
2- You talked about reproducibility, and the video actually talked about how to reproduce the problem; simply find the pic and set it up as wallpaper of an old Android phone with no updates to the system (the guy who took that pic is linked in the description of the video, and I myself searched and found the pic).
3- The guy simply saw a problem spread on the internet, and tried to solve it... with the help of a team, all linked also in description,
4- The error is rare, and he himself (and his team) couldn't replicate it with other colors.
5- The guy has a good record of credibility.

So if you really can't believe what he's saying, despite the points mentioned above, go ahead and try it. Did I try it myself? No, because I'm not ready to lose my data over something as silly.

Finally, I just wanna say, what's the point of all this? I'm simply suggesting an answer that COULD work, but never said it will for sure. The guy can simply try it and then tell if it works or not. You suddenly came in saying that the video I shared has 0 info (wrong) and called a scam.. because the error happening in the first place is illogical. What about the many people that experienced it? And, even if around 1 million people who liked the video are all either blind followers or bots, and the video is proven wrong (which I still don't agree with), does it make a difference anyway? I already stated that I don't think the same thing is happening with nb_dot, just that MAYBE the problem is related to color space since Photoshop uses a wider.

All in all, with all due respect, I simply don't see how you're correct that the video is a scam or clickbait, nor do I see how is that in any way helpful to the guy nb_dot having a problem. Is any of this going to really solve it? Just remember the actual purpose of this discussion, to solve a problem. If you have no more NEW points or experiences to share, then I humbly ask you not to continue this discussion, because I simply don't see where it will get any of us.

Thanks for reading it all!

nb_dot

Just a little additional... I've been trying some SVGs and one I downloaded from wiki worked perfectly in Godot. Full colour, nice edges. I've have made a couple more of my own in Inkscape and when I import these they are just black shapes, no colour. If I export them from Inkscape as PNGs then they look OK in Godot so I'm using that option for now but it would be good to know what best practice is or if there are other options.

Tomcat

nb_dot I've have made a couple more of my own in Inkscape and when I import these they are just black shapes, no colour.

You may have exported the SVG in Inkscape format. Try "Plain SVG".

I don't remember the details anymore, but when I had a similar task in front of me, I went through the import settings. But I was using Krita and GIMP.

Megalomaniak

nb_dot If I export them from Inkscape as PNGs then they look OK in Godot so I'm using that option for now but it would be good to know what best practice is or if there are other options.

That is your best practice. Godot import just does the same, but worse. Godot integrates a really light weight library for this functionality just as a last resort sort of thing.

cybereality

You can export PNGs from Photoshop and they should work. I use GIMP, but the PNG format should be the same. SVG is possible, but it still converts it to bitmap when used in game, so there is not too much advantage. If you want to send me the PSD or PNG (or both) I can take a look on my end and tell you what the problem is.

cybereality

Megalomaniak That is your best practice.

That may be true, but I'm surprised that Photoshop wouldn't work. There must be some settings issue. For example, the wrong depth on the alpha channel or something. I'm sure Photoshop can export PNGs correctly.

cybereality

Not sure how set you are on Photoshop. I use GIMP and I know it works, though the features are not as good as Adobe. However, for illustration I would recommend Krita. It is free open source and I would say better than Photoshop for that kind of stuff (drawing characters, etc.).

Kojack

Fully transparent pixels can still have a colour, you just can't see it normally. If a texture is scaled, the visible pixels along the edge can blend with adjacent pixels that are fully transparent, leaving a coloured fringe, This also happens when making mip maps. If the characters/objects were drawn on a white background then masked with alpha, the background is still there and can bleed over into visible pixels under certain circumstances.
This isn't a photoshop or PNG specific thing.

What some artists do is add padding around a character, extending the colour into the transparent area so any bleed will have no effect.

For example here's one of my most used sprites (got it with Haaf's Game Engine many years ago). On the left is the sprite normally with alpha on a black background. On the right is the actual colour data in the texture if you ignore the alpha.

ALBATI_2005

Pixophir I just wanna say, considering the problem presented in the video is legit, your whole argument revolves around the fact that such an error happening is not possible because it's too simple for professional coders. But I hate to break it to you; people make mistakes. As cybereality mentioned, it's not ONLY color spaces, but there are many other things that need to be checked for. It's like you're saying people who program video games are professionals, it's impossible to have glitches in games, hence any video game glitch video is clickbait. Except, you probably experienced game glitches before, so you can relate to that better.

Anyway, the correct answer is probably as what Kojack explained, it just seems more logical.