'Spriting School': Good or Bad Idea?

**Rival Max** · 03-04-2014, 04:59 PM

Originally Posted by RampagingRayquaza

Dredd, you ARE an admin, so couldn't you just put this up and give it permission? Or do you need to talk it over with the other Admins?

;) I am aware of my position here. This thread is a discussion thread, I was chiming in with my opinion. Once the discussion is over then we can talk about what happens next. For now I imagine Speed wants to draw out the idea more.

**Caite-chan** · 03-04-2014, 05:30 PM

I love this idea. The one question I would have is how would you go about doing the lessons? Because people learn different ways as I'm the type of person that needs to be shown step by step to understand where as someone else learns by having someone tell them something and they can do it. Will we have a program that you can sere what we're doing as we do it?

**Pokeman** · 03-04-2014, 06:36 PM

Originally Posted by Judge Joseph Dredd

;) I am aware of my position here. This thread is a discussion thread, I was chiming in with my opinion. Once the discussion is over then we can talk about what happens next. For now I imagine Speed wants to draw out the idea more.

Ahhh. I understand.

**ray_quazaa** · 03-04-2014, 06:44 PM

Have you seen 'Coding School'? Perhaps it may be useful to develop them, then we can start to put the guide on our front page (or off of the front page).

**Mr. Nyan** · 03-04-2014, 06:48 PM

I would love to take part on it! Even though I'm skilled, I would like to take some lessons. For the classes you could stream or screencast the lessons... Bah, I dunno.

**Rival Max** · 03-04-2014, 06:54 PM

Originally Posted by Caite-chan

I love this idea. The one question I would have is how would you go about doing the lessons? Because people learn different ways as I'm the type of person that needs to be shown step by step to understand where as someone else learns by having someone tell them something and they can do it. Will we have a program that you can sere what we're doing as we do it?

I can't speak for Speed but we could use are Youtube to create an how to series. That way people who learn visually can see what steps to follow. Something that would help me out as well.

Originally Posted by ray_quazaa

Have you seen 'Coding School'? Perhaps it may be useful to develop them, then we can start to put the guide on our front page (or off of the front page).

Im not sure we are at that stage first. I would think that after the first group goes through the program there would be a set guide that we could then pass on. At first it might be best to test the "lessions" first.

**SassySnivy** · 03-04-2014, 07:36 PM

@Caite-chan

Each lesson would be separated by thread. For example, for Freshman "classes," it would theoretically have to be divided into 8 or more threads: Color Theory I, Line Art I, Shading I, Perspective I, Anti-Aliasing, Pixel Art Taboos; and then for the filler classes, Isometric I, Objects I, Overworld, and Pokemon Sprites I. The last four are extra, optional classes.

I will have each of the lessons ready to be posted, but
will actually have them up one at a time. Whenever the first person is ready to move on, the new thread will be posted.

But I digress slightly.

Each lesson thread would consist of what the focus is (likely several paragraphs or a few large ones); excellent tutorials relating to the subject (I will likely take excerpts from some of them--but also provide the links at th end), a default challenge / assignment that the students will need to start on, and most likely the OP will contain more content. That is one thing I still need to think through; however, once I have the first lesson finished I will post it here as a template of sorts to see if you guys think it will be effective.

Ideally, each student would submit their finished challenge as a post in the corresponding lesson thread. A mentor would provide constructive criticism and will make the ultimate decision as to whether they think the student is ready to move on or needs more practice. Constructive criticism includes describing what was done wrong, what could be done to improve it, and likely how to improve it. However, on the subject of a student passing or staying in a course is ultimately up to the head mentor(s). There are no grades and failing simply does not exist.

Perhaps on the entrance exam I could also include a question relating to the learning style of the student submitting.

Thank you for bringing up these questions; if I wasn't clear, let me know! ^^

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@ray_quazaa
Unfortunately, I'm not sure exactly what you're talking about here. Think you could clarify a bit? :>

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@Mr. Nyan
I'm not necessarily planning on Livestreaming, simply because my internet doesn't have the capability to host a steady Livestream. Not even on join.me will it probably work. But I will think about using screenshots, if not even videos, if I need to explain something to someone in greater detail. I actually found an awesome program the other day that was made for the sole intention of being used with pixel art. Otherwise, I have really no experience with Youtube or recording / uploading videos at all. I honestly think pixel art is best with screenshots instead of recordings because of the fact that Youtube diminishes the quality of the video so that it's difficult to view individual pixels / pixel clusters. I would at least need something that is crisp and concise but not too excruciating for a network with an average speed to download / upload / stream.
@Judge Joseph Dredd

**ray_quazaa** · 03-04-2014, 07:53 PM

@Speed-X - Instead of each lesson being a separate thread (or in addition), they can be an actual separate webpage within our site. Obviously, if they wanted help, they can register as ask for help in the threads too.

I was thinking about writing up something for newbie spriters since I'm trying to rebuild pe2k's sprite dex... (and it's nearing completion now...)

**SassySnivy** · 03-04-2014, 08:35 PM

Having both the resources and being open for help (in this case, by assigned tasks per thread) wad the original intention, but I see exactly what you mean. I think that final say should be up to the head admins. Maybe we could, like Dredd mentioned, use the first "batch" of students almost as guinea pigs to see how things go. We can alter some things along the way from there if need be. Thanks for the suggestion!

**Dash** · 03-04-2014, 10:05 PM

Ugh sorry about the short post that's about to come up. Anyways...

We had this at PS, and it was successful for the most part. The main problem is finding people to manage it and people to participate in it. You can't make cake without the batter, but the cake won't be good without the frosting (bad metaphor). anyways, it can work, just be careful how you go about it I would say.