Custom Sprites

Custom sprites are made by the Pokémon Infinite Fusion Community to replace the default sprites in the game. The default sprites are sourced from Japeal's Pokémon Fusion Generator, and often come with odd scaling issues and are lacking in detail. To remedy this, artists in the community have combined their efforts to replace the default sprites with ones made by hand, with thousands of sprites made weekly on the Discord. Anyone can create their own sprites and apply to have them in the official release if they follow the instructions below.

## Custom Sprite Packs

The base game includes a collection of quality-controlled sprites and an auto-downloader that can download sprites you do not already have custom art for. However, more sprites are created by the community regularly and can be downloaded through sprite packs, which are uploaded monthly. These packs offer more variety and allow you to choose the active sprite through the in-game Pokédex, but often come with less quality control[verify]. They can also be used to update the sprites in your game if you already have a custom sprite installed and it has been updated.

### Download And Installation

Download sprite packs and extract them into the CustomBattlers folder in your game directory (..\InfiniteFusion\Graphics\CustomBattlers).

The official sprite packs are hosted on the #downloads channel in discord. If this is your first time installing a sprite pack, download the one labeled "Full", as it contains all the sprites created for the game up to the previous month.

## How to become an Official Spriter

Anything that gets posted to the ⁠#sprite-gallery channel will be added to the sprite packs and game. To be allowed to post there, you must have the **Spriter** role.

To get the role, you must do the following on discord:

1. Create three sprites and post them to ⁠#spritework so the community can give you feedback and tips! You can use the command /feedbackpls if no one comments on your sprites.
2. Once you've gotten feedback on your sprites, click the **Apply for the Spriter role!** button in the #apply-for-spriter channel. A private channel will be created for you to apply in.
3. Post three fusions sprites you have made in there. (conventional fusions of IF Pokémon only please! no non-IF mons or joke fusions.)
4. A Sprite Manager will come evaluate you as soon as possible!

**Please make sure you have read ⁠spriting-guidelines entirely before applying!**

## Creating Sprites

This section is copied from the #spriting-guidelines channel on the discord. The discord is where the majority of the custom sprites for the game are made, so consider it the most up-to-date resource on the subject!

### Programs

Most image editing software will do the job, but here are some commonly used examples:

* **Piskel**: Beginner-friendly, easy to use, doesn't require a download. To resize cleanly, either export at a 3.0x scale using the slider, or click resize and set the width/height to 288x288 with "Resize canvas content" toggled. https://www.piskelapp.com/
* **Paint.Net**: Intuitive and free, requires a download. To resize cleanly, go to Image > Resize, and turn Resampling to "Nearest Neighbour". https://www.getpaint.net/
* **MS Paint**: Very simple to use, already installed on most PCs, doesn't support transparency so will need a second program to remove the background. Doesn't have layers. To resize cleanly, click the small option with two squares near the Select tool and resize via percentage to 300%. To downsize cleanly, use the pixels option.
* **GIMP**: Free Photoshop alt, requires a download. Not very beginner-friendly, but useful once learned. To resize cleanly, go to Image > Scale Image, and turn Interpolation to "None" https://www.gimp.org/
* **Aseprite**: Costs money and requires a download. Has certain advantages, but there is probably no need to pay for this when you are just starting out. https://www.aseprite.org/download/
* **PixelStudio**: Fully featured mobile app, useful if you want to sprite from your phone. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/pixel-studio-pixel-art-editor-gif-animation/9p7xs7vh1r3j?source=lp&activetab=pivot:overviewtab

### Starting off

First, you need sprites to work with. Even if you make sprites from scratch, you still need these to get the correct colors. Do not use the sprites from the Infinite Fusion game folder, as those often have incorrect colors!

* For Pokémon from gen 1 to 5, you can use the PokémonDatabase: https://pokemondb.net/sprites/
* For Pokémon from gen 6 and onwards, the Pokémon Showdown Database is a good source: https://play.pokemonshowdown.com/sprites/gen5/
* Further sprites, such as frames from the animations when a Pokémon is sent out can be found here: https://veekun.com/dex/downloads
* Do not use someone's sprite from Google or DeviantArt, unless you have permission to do so! This includes sprites traced from other people's artwork.

Once you have the sprites, you can load them into your editing software and start working. **Make sure that the canvas size is always 96x96** when working on it. Some sprites will have slightly lower sizes like 80x80, so it is important to load them into a canvas of the correct size. The sprite will need to be **sized up to 288x288**, but working in that size is not recommended, as it can very easily lead to stray pixels and half pixels.

To preserve the cleanness of sprites, **save them as .PNG files**. Do not save them as .JPEG files as this will make them look blurry and is a difficult problem to fix.

### What Makes a Fusion

The best way to start is by taking two official Pokémon sprites and combining them. Usually, this follows the following guidelines:

1. One Pokémon is decided to be the head of the fusion and one is decided to be the body.
2. You use the sprite of the body as the base.
3. Then you add features of the head to that base and color it in the colors of the head.

Here are some general requirements for what makes a "good" fusion:

1. Both head and body of the fusion are recognizable and used correctly.
2. It's clear which one is the head and which is the body.
3. The sprite uses a good mix of both Pokémon's features.
4. The sprite doesn't use a bunch of colors that are very similar but not quite the same.
5. The sprite has the correct size (288x288) and no half pixels. More on this below.

When you're starting to make your first few sprites, a good way to learn the style of Pokémon is to start with smaller, unevolved Pokémon. They're usually simpler in shape and texture so it's easier to combine them in a cohesive way. It's also good to choose two Pokémon that are in similar poses, as this means it will be easy to take the parts from one of them to add to the other one. Any fusion that requires large sections to be redrawn from scratch will be difficult for a beginner to make.

Fire, rocks, fur and liquids are some complex textures that may take more time to understand. It's best to get to grips with the basics before tackling these.

Be mindful of where you put your sprite on the 288x288 canvas as well, they should not be placed at the bottom, as they will appear very low on the battle screens.

### Fusing Sprite parts

Pokémon fusion sprites are usually made by copy-pasting parts of the head Pokémon onto the body pokémon. A lot of the time, those parts need to be edited to blend them in.

Sometimes, body parts need to be resized to fit on the base Pokémon better. Resizing sprite parts will cause the pixels to become crusty or double-sized, so that messiness needs to be polished up by hand.

### Pokémon Style

With Pokémon style, we usually refer to the style used in the sprites in Pokémon Black and White (BW). To sprite in the Pokémon style, there are some key features that should be followed:

1. The lightsource in the Pokémon style always comes from the top left.
2. Don't overshade your sprite. The maximum amount of shades per colour is around about 4 or 5.
3. The sprite should be easy to read rather than be overloaded with details.
4. The sprite should always be looking to the left.
5. The sprite should be about the same size as the body Pokémon's sprite. Please remember that these are just the guidelines for spriting in the BW style and not for spriting in general.

### Half-pixels

Half-pixels are wrongly-sized pixels, usually created when working with sprites that are resized to a 3x scale.

Since all sprites used in IF are sized up from 96x96, every pixel is technically a block of 3x3 pixels. If you now work in 288x288 or any other size that isn't 96, it is possible to create pixels that are not 3x3 blocks. Having these in a sprite will make them look extremely janky and distorted. Those are half pixels. Avoid these at all costs.

If you resize the body part of a Pokémon to make it fit the base, even if working at 96x96, you will get double-sized pixels or larger. Those also count as half-pixels and should be avoided by polishing/redrawing the lines.

Resizing to a scale that isn't a multiple of the original image's size will also result in half-pixel, e.g., if you start with a 80x80 canvas and resize to 288x288. This can be avoided by making sure you're on a 96x96 canvas, or failing that, always resizing to a number that's exactly 3x your canvas size.

### Stray Pixels

Stray pixels are simply pixels that are floating in the air around the sprite, because they got overlooked. They can be small 1x1 pixels that look too similar to the background color, but they can technically also happen with a normal pixel when working in 96x96.

Small pixels can also remain when removing a background, for example, so watch out for those.

### Color Palettes

Original Pokémon sprites are generally limited to 16 (including black, white and transparency) colors due to the limitations of the software, but we are not limited to that here. However, it's still important to keep the palette limited to stay in the style.

Each color should have no more than 4 shades in most cases; a highlight, a main shade, a shadow shade and a darker outline color. Having too many can make sprites look blurry or as if the files have been saved wrong.

There are exceptions to this. For example, some colors don't need an outline shade, and some have two shading shades. Using the original palette of the head mon will usually work just fine.

Different sprites have slightly different blacks (very dark grays). It's good to make sure you only use one shade of black on your fusion instead of two. Similarly, if two Pokémon have similar shades, such as greys for claws, make sure you only use one set instead of both, so the palette remains more consistent.

### Recoloring

The first step of making a fusion is usually recoloring the body Pokémon using the head mon's colors.

It's important to identify what shades serve what purpose when recoloring. If your chosen head mon has more or fewer shades per color than the body mon, you still have to use the *main shade* of the head to replace the body's *main shade*, the *shadow* for the *shadow*, and so forth. You can recolor two similar shades with a single equivalent one, or create new ones if needed.

Don't use highlight or shadow shades for main colors, or vice versa, or your fusion will end up looking too light or too dark.

Don't mix up the placement of the colors, either, or your sprite will look very janky.

### Adding New Colors

Sometimes new colors need to be created when adding new parts that aren't present in either of the original sprites, such as a held object or new unique features. When doing this, make sure that each shade is distinguishable from each other so that they can easily be told apart.

Other common mistakes are to make the shades too saturated, too contrasting or too different from each other. Pokémon-style colors are rarely fully saturated. Light colors sometimes are, but mid tones and shadows are almost always at 80% saturation or less. Likewise, the brightness difference between one shade and another is usually around 15-30%, though you can usually eyeball the ratios.

Hue-shifting the different shades of a color slightly can add an amazing color depth, or atmospheric perspective. However, taking this too far can make shades look mismatched and like they don't belong together, so don't overdo it.

When in doubt, you can always color pick from other sprites to get shades that fit with the Pokémon style.

### Outlines

The best way to get good-looking outlines is to make sure that they are smooth; especially when it comes to curves. The length of line segments should increase in size gradually and in order, e.g. 1-1-2-2-3-5, and NOT go up and down in length, E.G 1-2-1-3-2-5. To put it simply: A two pixel long line should only be followed by either a one, two or three pixel long line and so on. Long lengths of same-size segments (e.g. diagonal lines of single pixels) also look very rigid and should only be used on intentionally angular things like rocks, never on organic shapes.

**Note:** this can be ignored if the desired shape is **clearly supposed to be jagged**, curves and lines ***should not have Jaggies***

Outlines should never be all black or all colored in. They should be shaded using black where the lines touch the shadowed areas, and colored using the darkest shade where the lines touch the corresponding main shades and highlights. Sometimes, the shadow color can be used for the outlines in the very top left of sprite where the lines touch highlights, too. Refer to the original sprites to get an idea of how they shaded the sprites if you're unsure.

**"Jaggies"** should also be avoided: Jaggies are unintentional corners or jagged edges that can occur in spritework when they don't follow a proper curve.

**Staircasing** happens when a line is too thick. Line segments should only touch at the corners of the pixels and not be connected to make a continuous line.

**Broken outlines** are lines where one or more pixels are missing, leaving holes in the lines. This doesn't fit the Pokémon style and should be avoided.

### Shading

The light source on Pokémon battle sprites is always in the top left and in front of the Pokémon. This means highlights are in the top left, and that shadows are in the bottom right of almost every part of a sprite.

The amount of shading and shape of the shadows has a big impact on the perceived volume and depth of the sprite, so it's important to get those right. Usually, the original sprites of the Pokémon you are fusing are a good reference for that.

Body parts that are on top or in front of other parts also cast a shadow on the parts that are under or behind them, so don't forget to add those when you add new features to a base. Tails and feet will often be largely shaded in because of this, for example.

### Anti-Aliasing (AA)

Anti-Aliasing (AA) is a technique that is used to help make the transition between colors look smoother. This is done by adding an extra shade and placing small amounts of pixels (usually single pixels, sometimes a couple more) in the corners where the two colors intersect. It shouldn't be a *full outline* between the two shades, this can result in blurriness.

AA is mainly used either when the difference between two shades is quite large, or when a Pokémon has a pattern that's a different color to its body. AA should never be used around the outlines, either inside or outside of the sprite.

AA shades should be a good middle ground between the two colors. Don't use shades that are visibly lighter, darker or differently colored. AA is supposed to help lines and shapes blend in, it should never stand out.

### Dithering

Dithering is a technique where two colours are drawn in a checkerboard pattern to blend from one shade to another. Most often, it is used in Pokémon sprites in order to show that a texture isn't entirely smooth; fur, feathers, fire and smoke are some of the main environments where it is used. As it is quite an eye-catching technique, it should often be used sparingly, as this helps give a sprite texture without making that area stand out.

Historically, dithering used to help create the illusion of smoother gradients or extra shades when sprites were viewed on small screens. Some Gen 3-4 sprites use dithering for that purpose. When sprites are scaled up, however, the dithering stands out and doesn't work for this purpose, so it should be avoided on IF sprites.

### Textures

Different Pokémon can feature a lot of different textures that can be difficult to render in an appealing manner. Here are a few examples that will hopefully help guide you.

### Special Effects

Special effects are things such as elemental attacks, which may feature in a lot of sprites, such as fire Pokémon. It can be tricky to render those well in the Pokémon style. Here are some examples of various effects.

### Making a sprite from scratch

(Not recommended for beginners)

A good way to do a scratch sprite is to rescale a reference sketch/image to the appropriate size and sprite over it, preferably on another layer. If you like drawing, freehanding custom poses for your fusions rather than using the pre-existing sprites will give you dynamic, unique sprites that stand out. However, if you're not confident in your artistic abilities, you can still make custom sprites: Official art, TGC cards and screenshots from the anime are good sources for custom poses to reference or trace.

IF you want to use someone else's fanart though, you need to ask for permission. Don't just take any image from Google, as that can be art theft. Bulbapedia's image archives are a good source of art you can use freely: https://archives.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Category:Pok%C3%A9mon\_artwork

Pokémon typically should look to the bottom left corner, so you might need to flip your reference/drawing. You will likely have to adjust the shading as well, to make sure the light source is in the top left corner as per the BW sprite style.

When resizing your image, keep in mind that the size of the Pokémon shouldn't deviate too much from the body Pokémon's default sprite. However Pokémon in sprites tend to have bigger heads than in their official art for them to be easier to read, so don't be afraid to make some changes to your original image as you turn it into a sprite.

### Other Resources

Here is a collection of various other pixel art guides that may help! More to come as we find them.

General Spriting Guides:

* https://www.dragonflycave.com/spriting-guide
* https://www.deviantart.com/the-godlings-rapture/art/Spriting-Fakemon-Tutorial-V-3-280927794
* https://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum\_posts.asp?TID=11299
* https://onimille.tumblr.com/post/153309304208/improve-your-pixel-art-sprites?is\_related\_post=1

Avoiding Half-Pixels:

* https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/307020509856530434/722236694543466566/guide.png
* https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/307020509856530434/492325142681223169/process.png

Various Textures:

* https://onimille.tumblr.com/tutorials

Shading Tips:

* https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/307020509856530434/872976572884320317/unknown.png?width=747&height=676

## Spritework and Spriting Process

### ⁠Spritework

#spritework is the main channel to use if you want to receive feedback on your sprites. Sprites for things outside the game are allowed too! As are WIPs and such. **Simply create a post with an image attached, a title and text. Include the full names of both parts of the fusion in the post title as well.**

**DO NOT delete your post or its images after you post the sprite to the gallery.** Change the tag to "posted to the gallery" and **Close** it instead.

If your post is older than a week, or just too far down the channel and not receiving much attention, you can always create a new one.

Note: Any sprite posted to spritework that never makes it to the ⁠#sprite-gallery will be included in the sprite packs' "No QA" folder, unless it is speechified to a sprite manager that their sprites shouldn't be harvested.

### Spritework-Questions

Any discussion about sprites that is not feedback on specific sprites belongs in ⁠#spritework-questions, such as general questions about spriting techniques, questions about different software, etc.

If you feel your sprite isn't getting enough feedback, or you just want to know if it's good enough to post to the gallery, post the current version of your sprite in spritework-questions with a link to the forum post, such as #post-name so that people can easily click on it and be redirected there to give feedback, or to react with heart-mail if your sprite is ready.

**Do not give feedback directly in ⁠spritework-questions, always go into the post to give comments about the sprites.**

### Feedback

Always feel free to go give feedback on any sprites you see in ⁠spritework! Any input is welcome, it's always nice to get a variety of comments on one's work. Non-spriters and experienced artists alike are encouraged to give feedback on sprites, everyone's allowed to have an opinion, even if it's as simple as "I like it."

Please keep all feedback constructive and try not to word your comments in a hurtful manner, though. "This looks bad" helps no one. "The shading needs some work, make it go all the way up to the line next to the ear" is a lot more valuable to the spriter and helps them improve their sprite.

Design suggestions and such are welcome, of course, but spriters do not have to take them on if they don't agree with it. Not everyone has the same likes and dislikes, not everyone agrees on design conventions. As the spriter, you get the final say on what your sprite should look like. You are allowed to refuse to change your design or to implement tiny nitpicks if you're satisfied with the quality of your work. It's okay to simply agree to disagree.

Note that you don't need to wait for anyone's approval to post to ⁠sprite-gallery, even sprite managers do not have a final say on what may go in the gallery. The only requirement is have posted your sprites to ⁠spritework so people have a chance to give you feedback. Just post your sprites whenever you think they're good to go or when people aren't giving you any more feedback. Worst case scenario, a sprite manager will ping you if your sprite isn't fit for the game. (e.g. extreme half-pixels, NSFW elements)

### Sprite-Gallery

Sprites must be posted to the gallery to be included in the game and monthly sprite packs.

* The finished sprite has to be a .png file that is 288x288 in size(3x original perfect pixel scale, 96 x 96).
* The file name itself is very important, as it has to be correct in order for the game to find it.
* A fusion sprite is always named [head].[body].png, e.g. 252.12.png

If you create a sprite for a fusion that already has a custom, or if someone else creates another sprite for a fusion you already made a sprite for, the community will be able to vote on which one will be the main sprite in the game in #⁠main-sprites-voting. All other sprites will become alts and be available to be swapped in-game in the Pokédex!

If you make multiple version of the same sprite, the alt should be named [head].[body]a.png, e.g. 252.12a.png, with b, c, d, in place of the a if you make multiple alts.

### Alt Sprites and Joke Sprites

Some sprites will always be alts, regardless of whether there's already a custom sprite for that fusion or not. These include:

* Sprites that feature regional variants, regional evolutions, paradox Pokémon and convergent species. (Megas, Dynamax, Primal and Origin forms are fine as mains however! As are sprites that only feature a very small part of the regional variant, e.g. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/543958354377179176/1068794368019927111/211.371.png is fine)
* Joke sprites (intentionally shitty sprites, pictures of Stan Lee, anything too ridiculous to be a normal Pokémon)
* Sprites that are predominantly a reference to another show/game/real animal/person/meme/etc. (Some may be okay as mains, if the sprite is more prominently a very clear fusion of the 2 pokémon rather than just X character from Y show)
* Sprites that use non-IF mons in place of IF ones (e.g. using a Glameow base instead of a Meowth one for a Syleveon/Meowth fusion)
* Any sprite in which either or both of the constituents are unrecognizable.
* Some sprites for which the head/body fusion order is unclear.

The @Spritepack master might make some alts into mains and some mains into alts when prepping the sprite packs. Ping them if you're unsure where your sprite falls.

## Naming

The naming convention for custom sprites is: '(Head Pokemon Dex No.).(Body Pokemon Dex No.).png'.

Example: An Exeggcute/Pinsir fusion sprite would be named '102.127.png'.

**Note: All Pokémon from generations 3+ had their Pokédex number changed. For their Pokédex numbers, see Pokédex.**