Top Down Sprite Maker – Sprite Style Development Guide

Attention:
You must own Top Down Sprite Maker to make full use of the information contained within this guide.

Welcome, pixel artists!

If you are interested in making your own sprite styles for Top Down Sprite Maker, you're in the right place! The sprite style development guide is the one-stop shop for everything you need to learn to be ready to produce your own sprite styles.

What is a sprite style?

A sprite style is a formal system of customization possibilities that combines an art style, supported directions, animations, sprite size, and layers. For example, the Pokémon Generation III and Pokémon Generation IV human overworld sprites are represented by distinct TDSM sprite styles.

Contents

The sprite style development guide contains all of the materials from the "Make a sprite style" tutorial video, including:

• The completed sprite style as style.zip
• The completed manifest.tds script
• manifest.tds at various stages throughout the tutorial
• All the base assets
• Stipple Effect workspace files and save scripts

It also contains a README file full of useful resources, including the program's API specification and the VS Code extension for script syntax highlighting.

Getting started

This is not a pixel art crash course. All of the guide materials assume you are already a competent pixel artist, or at least have access to pixel art that you want to combine into a sprite style.

There are three things you should do to get started:

1. Watch the tutorial

The tutorial is an absolute must-watch if you are starting out, especially if you are not the type of person that prefers to learn by reading documentation.

There are tons of resources linked in the video description as well, so please consider watching it directly on YouTube.

2. Read the API specification

Whether you are or aren't a keen reader of documentation, the API specification is very helpful. There are many features and techniques that are not covered in the tutorial which are only documented in the API. The API also goes into more depth about program concepts with a dedicated set of theory pages.

3. Inspect existing sprite styles

Existing sprite styles are a great way to look at practical examples of `manifest.tds` scripts and art pipelines. You can download any of the free sprite styles from the approved collection and inspect their ZIPs.

Hire the developer

If you have all of your base assets ready, but...

• you aren't comfortable writing the code for the manifest.tds script
• you don't have time to learn DeltaScript or the ins and outs of the API

... you can hire me to write the script for you. I offer a commission service on Ko-Fi where you can give me your base assets, and I will write manifest.tds and send you a sprite style that successfully compiles your art according to your specifications.

I will not be drawing pixel art for you or accepting commissions that require extensive editing of your art.

Availability is based on demand and my schedule.

Submitting your sprite styles

Getting added to the approved collection

Sprite styles made by members of the community that I have verified can be uploaded successfully to Top Down Sprite Maker are added to the approved collection. Your sprite style must be uploaded to Itch.io in order to be eligible. To be considered, please post a link to your sprite style in the discussion thread here on Itch.io or on GitHub.

Selling your sprite styles

If you own all of the art that comprises your sprite style and have the rights to distribute it, you may sell the sprite style. If you are not the creator or owner, please ensure that you may still distribute the art before listing it as a free download. If you submit a paid sprite style for official approval, I will most likely ask you to send me a download key to verify that the style compiles in Top Down Sprite Maker and doesn't contain any offensive content.

Help

For help, please post in this discussion thread.