LPC Spritesheet Character Generator

This generator attempts to include all LPC created character art up to now.

Try it here.

The Liberated Pixel Effort is a collaborative effort from a number of different great artists who helped produce sprites for the project. If you wish to use LPC sprites in your project, you will need to credit everyone who helped contribute to the LPC sprites you are using. See below for how to do this.

Although this particular repository focuses on character sprites, LPC includes many tilesets and some other artwork as well. Tileset collections can be found on OpenGameArt.org

History

The concept of the Liberated Pixel Cup was introduced by Bart Kelsey and Chris Webber. It was originally a competition on OpenGameArt.org sponsored by Creative Commons, Mozilla, and the Free Software Foundation. (Note: These organizations do not sponsor and are not involved with this generator.) The idea was to create a body of artwork with a common style.

This was originally based on https://github.com/makrohn/Universal-LPC-spritesheet, which contained an xcf file combining all the assets from pngs. That repository was originally included in this repository as a submodule, and probably represented the first (albeit offline) LPC Spritesheet Generator. Thanks to @makrohn for creating it.

@Gaurav0 was the original author of this repository. However, life came in the way and he did not keep up with maintaining it. Thanks to @sanderfrenken for maintaining the primary fork of the repository for many years.

@jrconway3 and @bluecarrot16 have been the key art focused maintainers of the repository.

@ElizaWy has revised and expanded the LPC paradigm. See https://github.com/ElizaWy/LPC

Licensing and Attribution (Credits)

Each piece of artwork distributed from this project (all images in the spritesheets subdirectory) is licensed under one or more of the following supported open license(s):

• CC0
  • Allowed to be used under any circumstances, attribution not required
• CC-BY-SA¹
  • Must credit the authors, may not encrypt or protect² AND
  • Must distribute any derivative artwork or modifications under CC-BY-SA 4.0 or later
• CC-BY
  • Must credit the authors, may not encrypt or protect²
• OGA-BY
  • Must credit the authors, may encrypt in DRM protected games
• GPL
  • Must distribute any derivative artwork or modifications under GPL 3.0 or later

If you generate a sprite using this tool, or use individual images taken directly from the spritesheets subdirectory from this repo, you must at least credit all the authors (except for CC0 licensed artwork).

When using the generator, you can find download a text as csv or plain text file that contains all the license information of the selected assets in your spritesheet:

Alternatively, you can also use the file CREDITS.csv.

This file lists the authors, license(s), and links to the original URL(s), for every image inside spritesheets.

Concluding, to conform to the attribution requirement of the used artwork, you can either:

• Distribute the entire CREDITS.csv file along with your project.
• Distribute a composed list containing the credits for the assets you use in your project.

Make sure this credits file is accessible from within your game or app and can be reasonably discovered by users (for instance, show the information on the "Credits" screen directly, or provide a visible link).

Importantly, the individual licenses may impose additional restrictions. It's your responsibility to conform to the licenses imposed by the artwork in use.

If you don't want to show the entire credits file directly, should include a statement like this on your credits screen:

• Sprites by: Johannes Sjölund (wulax), Michael Whitlock (bigbeargames), Matthew Krohn (makrohn), Nila122, David Conway Jr. (JaidynReiman), Carlo Enrico Victoria (Nemisys), Thane Brimhall (pennomi), bluecarrot16, Luke Mehl, Benjamin K. Smith (BenCreating), ElizaWy, MuffinElZangano, Durrani, kheftel, Stephen Challener (Redshrike), TheraHedwig, Evert, Pierre Vigier (pvigier), Eliza Wyatt (ElizaWy), Johannes Sj?lund (wulax), Sander Frenken (castelonia), dalonedrau, Lanea Zimmerman (Sharm),
• Sprites contributed as part of the Liberated Pixel Cup project from OpenGameArt.org: http://opengameart.org/content/lpc-collection
• License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 (CC-BY-SA 3.0) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
• Detailed credits: [LINK TO CREDITS.CSV FILE]

For additional information on the licensing and attribution requirement, please refer here on OpenGameArt.org.

Contributing

Important: all art submitted to this project must be available under one of the supported licenses, see above section Licensing and Attribution (Credits).

• If you are submitting art that was made by (or derived from work made by) someone else, please be sure that you have the rights to distribute that art under the licenses you choose.

• When adding new artwork to this project, please add valid licensing information inside the json files as well (part of the credits object). Note the entire list of authors for that image, a URL for each piece of art from which this image is derived, and a list of licenses under which the art is available.

• While it is recommended that all new artwork follows either the refined style guide, or the revised guide, it is not required.

This information must be part of the JSON definition for the assets, for instance:

  "credits": [
    {
      "file": "arms/hands/ring/stud",
      "notes": "",
      "authors": [
        "bluecarrot16"
      ],
      "licenses": [
        "CC0"
      ],
      "urls": [
        "https://opengameart.org/content/lpc-jewelry"
      ]
    }
  ]

If you don't add license information for your newly added files, the generation of the site sources will fail.

To add sheets to an existing category, add the sheets to the correct folder(s) in spritesheets/. In addition, locate the correct sheet_definition in sheet_definitions/, and add the name of your added sheet to the variants array.

To add a new category, add the sheets to the correct folder(s) in spritesheets/. In addition, create a json file in sheet_definitions/, and define the required properties. For example, you have created at this point:

body_robot.json

A category can exist of n-layers. For each layer, define the z-position the sheet needs to be drawn at. For an example of a multi-layered definition, refer here here.

You can optionally also specify the available animations the asset supports. You do not have to feel obligated to fill out all animations, and some assets may not work well on all animations anyway. In the sheet definition, you can add the "animations" array below "variants". Again, refer here here:

  "animations": [
    "spellcast",
    "thrust",
    ...etc
  ]

If you add this animations list, users can filter the results based on the animations supported. If this list is not included in your sheet definition, then it is assumed the default list of animations are all supported:

    "spellcast",
    "thrust",
    "walk",
    "slash",
    "shoot",
    "hurt",
    "watering",

As such, if you wish to include less than this list, such as only walk and slash, you should still include the animations definition to restrict it to just those assets. Users will still be able to access your asset, but it won't appear if the animations filter is used and you did not include that animation in your sheet definition.

Finally, to get your sheet to appear, in source_index.html, add your new category at the desired position by adding a div_sheet_ like this:

div_sheet_body_robot

Make sure the name starts with div_sheet_, and match the postfix with the name of your json, in this case body_robot.

At this point, you will need to run a script that will generate the final index.html. In order to do that, run:

node scripts/generate_sources.js

This will generate the index.html from the source_index.html.

In case you want to push your changes, be sure to run this script and never change the index.html manually. The CI will reject any PR's that contain manual changes made on the index.html.

z-positions

In order to facilitate easier management of the z-positions of the assets in this repo, there is a script that traverses all JSON files and write's the layer's z-position to a CSV.

To run this script, use:

node scripts/zPositioning/parse_zpos.js

This CSV file will be regenerated each time one invokes:

node scripts/generate_sources.js

Therefore, before creating a PR, make sure you have committed the CSV to the repo as well.

Using this CSV, one can more clearly see the overview of all the z-position used per asset's layer.

Moreover, one can adjust the z-position from within the CSV, and then run:

node scripts/zPositioning/update_zpos.js

In order to reflect the changes made back into the JSON files.

Concluding, please remember that the JSON files will always contain the source of truth with regard to the z-position an asset will be rendered at. The CSV is there to give an overview of the z-positions in use, and provides a mean to easily alter them from a single file.

Animation Frame Guide

You can look at the Animation Guide in Eliza's repository for a detailed suggested guide to how she recommends you display your animations.

Also, each animation has a frame cycle documented which you can see next to the animation preview.

Run

Traditionally, you could run this project, by opening index.html in your browser of choice. However, today's browsers have some security restrictions that do make this somewhat impractical. You will likely have to change your browser's settings to enable it to open a file url this way. You may instead wish to use a web server locally for development. Some free recommendations:

• IIS (Windows only) (NOT open source)
• Python (py -m http.server )
• Rust (Simple Http Server)
• Node.js (require('http'))
• nginx
• npx serve
• brew serve (Mac only)
• Lighttpd

FAQ

May I use this art in my commercial game?

Yes, however you must follow all the terms of the license(s) for the art you are using. See [Licensing and Attribution (Credits)](#licensing-and-attribution-credits)

How do I use the output of this generator in <insert game engine>?

There may be resources available to do this already. We are working on providing a list in the future for a few common game engines. For now, try Google. In most cases, however, you will likely have to write some code.

I downloaded the image, but I forgot to get the <url, credits, etc.> How do I get back to where I was?

It is recommended that you "export to JSON" to avoid this problem in the future and save the json file with the png image file. See [issue #143](#143)

Terms

Liberated Pixel Cup (LPC)

Originally a competition designed to create a large body of compatible art assets. Now also refers to that body of work and the style art marked as LPC attempts to follow.

Universal LPC (ULPC)

LPC originally expanded to add some new animation sizes and bases. This generator helped ensure that many assets covered all those bases and animations. LPC originally included only spellcast, slash, thrust, walk, shoot, and hurt animations for male and female adult bases. It also stuck to a standard 64x64 format. The most notable change in ULPC was to add weapons with oversize animation frames.

LPC Revised (LPCR)

LPC changes proposed by @ElizaWy that in some cases changed the number and order of animation frames, a new color palette, and the smaller heads.

LPC Expanded (LPCE)

Additional expansion of animations and bases proposed by @ElizaWy and others. New animations included bow, climb, run, and jump. New bases included child and elderly. Many of the assets in this repository are not yet drawn for these new animations and bases. Help wanted.

Examples

Footnotes

1. This is the most restrictive license for any art supplied by this generator. You may use all the art in this repository if you follow all the terms of this license. Yes, this license allows you to use the art in this generator in commercial games. ↩

2. It is unclear whether this means you cannot release your game on platforms like Steam and the App Store on iOS which use encryption to DRM protect your game. It could be enough to make the assets easily available separately for download, but the DRM clause does not clearly state this. It could be enough to make a DRM free version available to those who purchase the game on these platforms, but again, the DRM clause does not clearly state this. To be safe from any potential legal issues, I would recommend you use CC0 and/or OGA-BY assets only if you intend to publish on such platforms. The OGA-BY license removes the DRM clause for precisely this reason. ↩ ↩²