No post body was provided.
Pixel Art: Common Mistakes (2020)
11–20 of 90 posts
Re: Pixel Art: Common Mistakes (2020)
#12Bad pixel art is a pet peeve of mine. This is really advanced advice compared the problem most games have: - pixels of different sizes - rotating (!) pixels - scaling pixels - smooth gradients with millions of colours - dynamic lighting overlayed on top ... I could go on :(
I think the points you mention are easily noticed by people who lived in that era as anachronisms. At least that's true for me. And yet, Minecraft does all of those things and more, and I liked its style. I think it really depends on how well it's done.
Re: Pixel Art: Common Mistakes (2020)
#13No post body was provided.
Re: Pixel Art: Common Mistakes (2020)
#14I like the second version. The final version looks like some kind of monkey/Sun-Wukong.
The final one somehow looks lower resolution, more crude, but also has a style that’s a lot more reminiscent of older low pixel count games.
The final version reminds me of something that would have looked great on Gameboy Advance!
Re: Pixel Art: Common Mistakes (2020)
#15Bad pixel art is a pet peeve of mine. This is really advanced advice compared the problem most games have: - pixels of different sizes - rotating (!) pixels - scaling pixels - smooth gradients with millions of colours - dynamic lighting overlayed on top ... I could go on :(
Why are any of these things "bad"? Back in the day pixel art was constrained by technical limitations, but now you can use the same style but with less technical constraints, and include these sort of things. It's not "true" pixel art from 1990, but that doesn't make it "bad".
For the same reason people like the hiss and pops of a record, film grain, or even VHS tracking artifacts. Yesterday's technical limitations become today's aesthetic.
But the real answer is they aren't inherently bad. People don't actually need it to conform to the past limitations. More that they want it to feel authentic to the nostalgic memory they have in their head.
For example, games like Shovel Knight go for an 8bit style, but they're not limited to an 8 bit color space, NES sprite limitations, etc.
Re: Pixel Art: Common Mistakes (2020)
#16Kind of a "draw the rest of the fucking owl" step there at the end.
Exactly my thought!
"part of what I enjoy about art is admiring craftsmanship - the skill and knowledge of the artist at work."
I'm a devrel person my art is writing tutorials and guides. And this one is a very naive approach at it.
Re: Pixel Art: Common Mistakes (2020)
#17Bad pixel art is a pet peeve of mine. This is really advanced advice compared the problem most games have: - pixels of different sizes - rotating (!) pixels - scaling pixels - smooth gradients with millions of colours - dynamic lighting overlayed on top ... I could go on :(
Why are any of these things "bad"? Back in the day pixel art was constrained by technical limitations, but now you can use the same style but with less technical constraints, and include these sort of things. It's not "true" pixel art from 1990, but that doesn't make it "bad".
The techniques he mentioned don't serve the higher principle.
Adding lights from a lighting engine over the top of sprites with baked shading, might make a pretty image but it is not pushing pixel art forwards. Scaling and rotating can produce poor quality sprites.
P.s. Ashford is the best.
Re: Pixel Art: Common Mistakes (2020)
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why are any of these things "bad"? Back in the day pixel art was constrained by technical limitations, but now you can use the same style but with less technical constraints, and include these sort of things. It's not "true" pixel art from 1990, but that doesn't make it "bad".
For the same reason people like the hiss and pops of a record, film grain, or even VHS tracking artifacts. Yesterday's technical limitations become today's aesthetic. But the real answer is they aren't inherently bad. People don't actually need it to conform to the past limitations. More that they want it to feel authentic to the nostalgic memory they have in their head. For example, games like Shovel Knight go for a…
I get all that; I really enjoy the sound of some "imperfections" of old blues and jazz records, but I also don't consider any modern records which doesn't replicate those "imperfections" to be bad.
Re: Pixel Art: Common Mistakes (2020)
#19Bad pixel art is a pet peeve of mine. This is really advanced advice compared the problem most games have: - pixels of different sizes - rotating (!) pixels - scaling pixels - smooth gradients with millions of colours - dynamic lighting overlayed on top ... I could go on :(
I share your preferences, but it's a rock and a hard place. Performing any of the tasks you listed by hand is extremely labour-intensive. Doing without those features is a harsh creative limitation - in my experience, the result isn't "this game feels retro", but instead "this game feels oddly flat, repetitive and static", which is much less forgivable.
I've worked on a game which aimed for authentically retro pixel art, but in hindsight I think it was a silly misallocation of resources. There's a reason it's so uncommon nowadays. If I were to try again, I'd at least include high-resolution 2D transforms in the engine, and possibly dynamic lighting too.
I briefly explored the possibility of developing a style-preserving realtime rotation algorithm for sprites, but it's a hard problem.
Re: Pixel Art: Common Mistakes (2020)
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why are any of these things "bad"? Back in the day pixel art was constrained by technical limitations, but now you can use the same style but with less technical constraints, and include these sort of things. It's not "true" pixel art from 1990, but that doesn't make it "bad".
The techniques he mentioned don't serve the higher principle. Adding lights from a lighting engine over the top of sprites with baked shading, might make a pretty image but it is not pushing pixel art forwards. Scaling and rotating can produce poor quality sprites. P.s. Ashford is the best.
Who’s Ashford?