What size should my sprites be?

[TheMagentaMenace]

What size should I download my sprites at? I'm worried that if they are downloaded big, they'll be too big for the screen, and everything will be giant. But if I download them too small, they'll be super low quality and I want everything to be high quality.

(More info here)

I use Pixilart to draw my sprites, since I am a teenager with too few resources for this stuff. I don't know how professional that is but I'm considering switching to another program that's made for spriting.

[Jorpho]

This question makes no sense. If you are trying to replace a sprite that is 64 pixels by 64 pixels, then you will need to download a sprite that is 64 pixels by 64 pixels. Period.

[TheMagentaMenace]

Well, I don't know- Here's one of my sprites at a size of 32x54:

[img]file:///home/chronos/u-81688b1939999a332c865bb87083eca8b71f6194/MyFiles/Downloads/pixil-layer-Background.png[img]

It's super blurry, and that's what I'm trying to avoid

[Cyneprepou4uk]

What size should I download my sprites at? I'm worried that if they are downloaded big, they'll be too big for the screen, and everything will be giant. But if I download them too small, they'll be super low quality and I want everything to be high quality.

Download medium sprites then.

[TheMagentaMenace]

Download medium sprites then.

I've got most downloaded at 4 times their size, but idk.

[Jorpho]

Well, I don't know- Here's one of my sprites at a size of 32x54:

[img]file:///home/chronos/u-81688b1939999a332c865bb87083eca8b71f6194/MyFiles/Downloads/pixil-layer-Background.png[img]

You just linked to an image on your local hard drive.

It's super blurry, and that's what I'm trying to avoid

There aren't enough pixels in a 32x54 image for "blurriness". You're probably viewing it the wrong way.

[TheMagentaMenace]

Well then- It might be the program I'm using to draw the sprites that makes the downloads that's making them look fuzzy when they're small
Sorry, I'm still pretty new to spriting-

[tobiasvl]

There's not enough information here to help. I don't even understand what you need help with.

What do you mean by "download" in this context?

How are you saving the sprite and what program are you using?

What are you planning to use the sprite for?

[FAST6191]

I too am struggling to get to what the problem might be and it could be any of the major stumbling blocks.

A basic sprite is a grid of pixels (8x8, 16x16 and in some cases a higher multiple or custom size as the system might allow). 8x8 looks tiny when you have a 1080p (1920x1080) monitor as it is such a difference in relative resolution.

In most cases around here you play to what the base game has, or if you are in for a serious hack what you can get the hardware to do.
Some hacking circles do emulator level texture replacement and thus can swap out the apparent thing on screen for your chosen thing from your computer and thus be whatever the limits of that setup are. It is rare for sprite work though compared to what we see for texture replacement stuff on 3d systems but not impossible ("IF [sprite value] is on screen replace with this PNG, repeat procedure for all others on this list" is not a terribly complicated thing to code and have a PC deal with). This might be where you encountered a size.

As a convenience for various people just wanting an avatar, to use in a PC fan game or some other non original console reason then some sprite sheet websites and pixel art tools will offer scaled up versions. Scaling sprites is a very involved and sometimes contentious topic. Generally speaking the only truly accepted way is to scale it up by a whole number multiple using something called nearest neighbour (one brown, one red, one green becomes two brown, two red, two green for 2x multiplier, 3 brown 3 red 3 green for a 3x and so on and so on) or if using some programs point resize and in GIMP you will want to select "none" for interpolation when doing a scaling option. If you pick anything else then you will probably introduce blur as it attempts to smear pixels together to make it look good if the base image was a photograph (nearest neighbour on a photograph will look worse than other choices). After this we get into artistic interpretation, vectors (modern street fighter providing an interesting case study), sorting previously scaled sprites with lost information, baseline artwork (Doom's sprites are noted as being scans of clay models, accordingly those baseline clay models https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Models could be used to generate "official" versions at higher detail) but I will leave that for today.

[TheMagentaMenace]

If you pick anything else then you will probably introduce blur as it attempts to smear pixels together to make it look good if the base image was a photograph (nearest neighbour on a photograph will look worse than other choices).

That might just be the case

And yea, I should've put more info on my problem.

[TheMagentaMenace]

There's not enough information here to help. I don't even understand what you need help with.

What do you mean by "download" in this context?

How are you saving the sprite and what program are you using?

What are you planning to use the sprite for?

1- Like literally downloading the image from the Program I'm using, which is Pixilart. I download it as a PNG.
2- I'm planning on using the sprites in an NES mod.

[Jorpho]

1- Like literally downloading the image from the Program I'm using, which is Pixilart. I download it as a PNG.

So, are you saying the sprites look blurry in Pixilart, or what?

2- I'm planning on using the sprites in an NES mod.

Do you know how you're going to put the sprites in the NES ROM yet?

If you extract sprites from the NES ROM, do they look blurry to you?

[tobiasvl]

1- Like literally downloading the image from the Program I'm using, which is Pixilart. I download it as a PNG.

I see. So you just mean that you're saving the image, but since you are using an online pixel editing tool, saving the image entails downloading it to your local computer.

I just tried out Pixilart, and the downloaded the image looks pixel perfect to me. No blurriness.

What program are you using to view the image on your computer? Are you sure the image is actually blurry, not just displayed as blurry in the program you're viewing it in (probably because it wants to scale it up)?

Could you upload the image so we can look at it?

[Jorpho]

Could you upload the image so we can look at it?

I was going to suggest imgbb.com , but offhand I don't know how it handles tiny images.