Cost of 2D animated sprites

[dariuszp]

Hi all,

First of all, sorry for my bad English. I'm big fan of your games for a long long time. And I'm playing cRPG since I can remember. You are company I like the most in this industry since your name is next to all my favorite games. Your games are great and sometimes full of bugs but you can't make good and complex cRPG without few of them. My second favorite company, CD Projekt RED also make lot of them and yet they don't stop fixing what they can.

 

Anyway, I'm programmer. But for some reasons I ended up as webdeveloper. Mostly I work with SQL, PHP, Javascript, HTML, CSS and stuff. Nothing fancy. Some time ago I decided to learn something new. I did some work in C++, Java etc but I decide to learn something different, something new.

 

So I ended up learning semi-new technology - Node.js (started 2010 if I remember). In short, it's V8 Javascript engine that work on server side. It's also event based (like Javascript) and I wanted to do something cool with it. Since I learn about it I decide to get to know it better and make some project with it. So I started playing around and I decide to make small RPG game. What I wanted to create is game that:

 

~ load fast

~ not require installation of a client

~ or any other "plugin" (like Quake Live that is advert as Quake in browser but you still need download few hundreds megabytes of "browser plugin")

~ not require extra plugins like Java, Flash or Silverlight

 

So I created proof of concept. I dig some 2d sprites and created sprite animation test. I put it here:

http://nodegame.dariuszp.pl/ (look using Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox only right now)

 

Since I started with Node.js, after 12 hours of learning and work I made proof of concept, small online "game" in browser that right now work only under Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox but with socket.io library it will work under new versions of Internet Explorer as soon as I convert some part of code to be compatible with it.

http://alphang.dariuszp.pl/

 

All you can do is to sign in (just open URL and type your name, accept only letters and "_" ), move around and talk with other people that joined (hit enter, type, hit enter again to confirm, pain in the a** because I didn't include chat history).

 

Right now I'm working on proper game (or engine to be more precise) when I have some free time and I want to make it open source so I will post source on github at some point under LGPLv3 license. But I did hit a wall with something.

 

I'm a programmer. I have no talent for graphic. Sprite I used to animate players I dig from http://vxresource.wordpress.com/ . I tried to ask around about graphic and animated sprites but it's hard to find anyone that do something like that. So I came here to ask few questions.

 

QUESTIONS

~ how much graphic designers (or 2d animators) take for this kind of graphic ? I'm talking about sprites with animations and static elements. As example for that alphang project I used this sprite:

 

This one have 8 characters. Each have 4 animations, 3 frames per animation. I'm thinking that for my project I will need around 50 frames, 5 frames per animation. And those will be

~ move north

~ move south

~ move east

~ move west

~ attack north

~ attack south

~ attack east

~ attack west

~ die

~ wave

Style more realistic but size like here, so 32px width and 48px height. Fire format - PNG, optimal for this kind of job and for websites as whole.

 

~ where I can find people that do this kind of thing ? So I could order stuff like that. I need to but it since I want to include it and distribute with the engine for free and if someone use it, I don't want them to have problems with copyrights or something. That's why I don't want to use something I dig on the internet. On that websites they say you only need to post author of the graphic you use but you can never be sure.

 

~ are there any sites with already made resources that are under proper categories and stuff ? Something like stock photos but with 2d resources for games. I'm talking about places when you can but this kind of graphic and do whatever you want with it, adding it to engine and giving away for free included (so full license except reselling of course)

 

Any graphic designer, animator or someone like that who could point me somewhere ? So I could see how much money I will need to spend to create my project ? We are talking about around 20 human characters + 10 animals and around 100 static elements (walls, chairs, ground, env inside and outside). It's not much but it's just to create engine and working demo that contain few maps etc.

[Blarghagh]

I'm not sure how much graphic designers/2D animators charge, but for finding freelancers go to http://www.aniboom.com/ and start a project, most likely you'll get offers. 2D animators especially are always looking for jobs.

[dariuszp]

Thanks for suggestion. I didn't want to post offer or anything since I probably can't afford it right now. So to prepare budget for the future I wanted to ask some professionals for advice. But it's probably only way. I never imagine that it's so hard to find 2D animators for this kind of stuff. It's even hard to find anyone who have slight idea about costs.

[Blarghagh]

I know a lot of freelance graphic designers and 2D animators hang out at the forums of ConceptArt.org, I think your question will get clearer answers there. Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

[dariuszp]

Thanks again. btw I'm updating demo on http://nodegame.dariuszp.pl/ when I can. Today there should be small feature that allow bigger map than view area (right now map don't scroll but I didn't have time yesterday to finish this) and there will be map switching.

Also I was testing this against 100 and 1000 animated characters on the screen. As expected only Google Chrome have no problem handling 1000 characters But that gave me idea to handle animation of people out of the view area to increase performance.

 

As expected, DOM manipulation is quite nice for this kind of job and after I finish this, game will be available on every browser. And with right interface, also on mobile devices

Edited July 27, 2012 by dariuszp