A bunch of people have been pestering me about the dysfunctionality of an old sprite editor of mine, so I'm working on it again. I plan to support masked 3-color (black, gray, and white) grayscale sprites, and I want the user to be able to see transparency. To do this I'm going to display the sprite in 4-color grayscale, with transparent being represented as one shade of gray and actual gray being the other shade. The question is, which method looks better: transparency being represented as light gray (left) or dark gray (right)? I'm torn because, to me, the option on the left better portrays the sprite being over a transparent layer, but in the option on the right, the sprite itself simply looks better.



Another image (also, sneak peak at the epicness that will be the new sprite editor - note the full filesystem - no, it's not just a mock-up):


Another, with non-Zelda sprites:

Yeah, but that would mean a darker gray is used for transparency, which might not look good in many situations. I vote left...

EDIT: Maybe you could post more examples? If we were to vote based on how it looks, the sprite on the right definitely looks better.

Yeah, but that would mean a darker gray is used for transparency, which might not look good in many situations. I vote left...

EDIT: Maybe you could post more examples? If we were to vote based on how it looks, the sprite on the right definitely looks better.

Yeah, I probably should post more examples. Especially because the Zelda sprite was designed to have the coloring of the sprite on the right, so it will naturally look better.

I personally like the left one better, but what about a transparent background that animated?  Like some scrolling light grey diagonal lines to show through the sprite to make everything more noticeable?

I personally like the left one better, but what about a transparent background that animated?  Like some scrolling light grey diagonal lines to show through the sprite to make everything more noticeable?

That sounds like a good idea. You could use L₁ for a third buffer for that!

Hmm, the one on the right does look better. And this is looking awesome! Especially the filesystem. Does it search through the VAT to find pics, or are they all saved in an appvar? In any case, good luck on this. It looks like one of those little utils I'll definitely use

Looks wonderful!  I still use your old Sprite Editor to do all my spriting; it's an awesome program.
I can't wait for more info on this!

I think Builderboy's suggestion for scrolling lines is the best.

Hmm, well in the preview, the left uses a nicer shade of gray on the sprite itself, but in dealing with transparencies the right has a much more distinguishable transparency layer. Is what is seen in the preview going to be what they look like if used in-game or will they use the same gray in-game and this is just for the sprite editor?