Dictionary

Below are a number of common terms used within the community and this wiki.

Spriting Dictionary

Anti-Aliasing

Anti-Aliasing, often refered to as simply "AA", is a technique in which you place mid-tone pixels in strategical places to make lines appear smoother.

In the case shown to the left, the black line is anti-aliased by gray pixels placed on the 'corners', because the background is white (white+black=gray). If the line was red, then the gray dots should be changed to light pink to portray correct anti-aliasing.

Keep in mind that the image example was generated with Photoshop, thus creating a a lot of mid-tone pixels for aliasing. In spriting you would generally use far less aliasing, and place them in a more organised manner. They should only be placed in jagged places; if the line is already smooth without AA, there's no particular need to do it.

Banding

Banding is considered a highly flawed technique, in which you shade by following the outline's shape.

This should regularly be avoid, as it prevents an object from portraying depth and shape properly.

This is generally considered to be a poor excuse for Anti-Aliasing.

Jagged

Also known as Jaggy, or Jaggies, a jagged is an erratic line that doesn't appear to be smooth.

JPEG

Also known as JPG, JPEG is a lossy file format that causes sprites to be unusable.

Recolor

For more details on how to effectively create recolors, please go to our Recolor page.

Recoloring is a technique in which you simply change a sprite's colors, without modifying or changing the shape in any form.

The technique is often frowned upon when it comes to the creation of "new" characters, when taking a ripped sprite from a commercially released game and claiming it as your own creation.

However, the technique does have its place when it comes to your own custom sprites. It can be used to portray alternative forms of the same enemy, for example, or allow for alternative costumes in fighting games.