I know that resprites are one of the biggest things people criticize in mods, but I am having trouble understand what exactly IS a resprite.

Is it when you take an existing vanilla sprite and modifiy it a bit? Or is it when you take a vanilla weapon and just replace the sprite with something different?

Or can it be either of the two... OR is it when your weapon has a custom sprite and is different than vanilla weapons but it uses vanilla effects, i.e. muzzle flashes, reloading sounds, explosion pyro effects, ect?

Or can it be a mix of these? Or can it be any of them and it just depends on the situation?

When I make stuff I usually just copy a vanilla weapons .ini and edit stuff because I can't be bothered to code the whole thing from scratch, but when I finish something I can't tell whether people would consider it a resprite or just a weapon with vanilla muzzle flashes.

Resprite can go for any sprite. If you take any sprite, Vanilla or not, and you sprite over it and you either change the color or shape or anything about the sprite then it is known as a Resprite.

Is that all? I guess I was looking at it way to complex.

The only time resprites are considered bad is when they're just color changes or very minor edits. In reality, most every mod is a matter of a bit of respriting and changing a few variables, so getting mad at a resprite is a waste of effort.

Just changing colors can also be called a recolor.

Oh god this reminds me of my first mod. Bad times.

Duh was still nice, though.