I am working on an action-rpg (Secret of mana 3 style) and am having major problems with the art. I have a large portion of the basic enginge completed, but I am not an artist . I have a few questions, and I figured that this would be a good place to post them: 1. Are all frames of a game sprite the same size? The reason I ask this is because, the character will stay the same size, but I need to have frames where he is swinging his sword, and I was wondering if these would be larger than normal frames and calculations be done to account for the size difference. or would all frames be the same size, even if there is extra space on some. 2. Does anyone know of any good art tutorials (the art I am trying to make is pretty low res, but I am probably too picky and can not get it to look just right)? 3. Could it possibly be any easier for me (seeing how I am not an artist) to model my characters in 3D and have them rendered for me in certain positions? Or would that be even tougher? If you can answer ANY of these questions (or help me out with my art lol) please reply! I need help with this badly! Thanks!

Ok, lets see.....

1. I have only limited knowledge of programming, but I´ve had some experience with 2d sprites on my last project.
It´s probably easier to code if you make them all the same size, each in a seperate file.
But then, as you need sprites of different sizes anyway you might just put them all into one file (one for the character, one for an explosion....) = one big image, and then specify the section that you want to use and the center of that section.
But you might take this to the coders place, they´ll be able to help you proper.

2. There was some mention of 2d-tutorials in one of the recent threads, look there.

3. I say NAY. Rendered usually does not look better in lowres. If you use rendered sprites you usually have to do some serious retouching to make them look alive. The advantage of rendered animations is that once you have put the animation together (lots a work) you can crunch out any number of frames. But then, a 64x64 run animation takes about 12 frames, and that doesn´t take all that long to do.