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A Pixel Artist Renounces Pixel Art

dinofarmgames.com

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Re: A Pixel Artist Renounces Pixel Art

#11

Post by gavanwoolery »

emsy wrote: post #9

Pixel art games nowadays all look more or less the same. Actual games from the 90s didn't look alike at all. Also most games use pixel art as an excuse for lazy animations with a little amount of frames. I really wonder why everyone likes it so much and I often think maybe something is wrong with my taste :/

I think that the "formal" rules for pixel art have become more well defined with increased access to the internet, and you now see more of a tendency towards Japanese / console style pixel art (compare with Deluxe Paint-style pixel art seen in old PC games). I think that there is also a huge amount of "abuse" in these rules, some of which are definitely universally applicable as applied to pixel art, IMO - namely, using the same pixel size, and perhaps keeping the palette reduced as far as reasonable. There is quite a large amount of "bad" pixel art, probably more so than "good" pixel art, so it is easy to come to dislike the genre nowdays. But pixel art (at least "good" pixel art) is much harder to produce than vector art or unrestricted raster art, especially when it comes to animation (unless you are just rotating limbs, which is a "no-no" in pixel art rules).

Re: A Pixel Artist Renounces Pixel Art

#12

Post by mattmanser »

MollyR wrote: post #10
emsy wrote: post #9

Pixel art games nowadays all look more or less the same. Actual games from the 90s didn't look alike at all. Also most games use pixel art as an excuse for lazy animations with a little amount of frames. I really wonder why everyone likes it so much and I often think maybe something is wrong with my taste :/

I often wondered if indie games tend to like pixel art because its cheaper and faster to produce.

That's a pretty obvious yes isn't it? I thought that's why a lot of indie games are pixel games, just like why a lot of indy games are side scrollers.

It's so much quicker to do.

Re: A Pixel Artist Renounces Pixel Art

#13

Post by DanAndersen »

This article reminded me of a trend I noticed when reading the book "Masters of Doom," which discussed (among other things) the graphical improvements that made games like Wolfenstein and Doom so impressive. Very often, the book's prose would start sentences something along the lines of "though the graphics were crude, etc etc etc."

These sorts of lines, constantly repeated, irked me, not because they weren't technically true or anything, but because it's such a "looking-backward" point of view. At the time, that's not how people saw it. It was all about pushing forward the state of the art, and we miss something when we look back on it in that way.

I guess in a similar way I've had the same feeling about "modern" pixel art, where it often seems to miss the point. By treating it as just an art style, it turns it from an exercise in conveying a vision despite limitations, into an effort to simplify and downsample because those are the most easily-recognized surface-level hallmarks of that period.

For me, the magic of that era comes from seeing techniques like color cycling ( http://www.effectgames.com/demos/canvascycle/?sound=0 ), where the desire to get a certain effect led to interesting workarounds, rather than being satisfied with limitations because it's "retro."

Re: A Pixel Artist Renounces Pixel Art

#14

Post by pshc »

emsy wrote: post #9

Pixel art games nowadays all look more or less the same. Actual games from the 90s didn't look alike at all. Also most games use pixel art as an excuse for lazy animations with a little amount of frames. I really wonder why everyone likes it so much and I often think maybe something is wrong with my taste :/

Many pixel games today take it further by adding shaders, lighting, semi-transparency, HDR, particle effects, etc. so a lot of them share this hybrid old-new look. It's charming if a) done tastefully and b) the animation/art is solid e.g. Towerfall Ascension.

Re: A Pixel Artist Renounces Pixel Art

#16

Post by dragontamer »

MollyR wrote: post #10
emsy wrote: post #9

Pixel art games nowadays all look more or less the same. Actual games from the 90s didn't look alike at all. Also most games use pixel art as an excuse for lazy animations with a little amount of frames. I really wonder why everyone likes it so much and I often think maybe something is wrong with my taste :/

I often wondered if indie games tend to like pixel art because its cheaper and faster to produce.

Except when you look at the development methodology of the best-of-the-best pixel art games (BlazBlue, King of Fighters), the teams did 3D Animations for all of the characters and then re-traced them into 2D Pixel Art.

Everyone who actually _does_ high-quality pixel art understands. Good Pixel-Art is much MUCH harder to do than good 3D.

It lothes me to say it, but the blogpost is correct. Very few people understand this fact except for the artists who actually do go pixel art.

Re: A Pixel Artist Renounces Pixel Art

#17

Post by gavanwoolery »

It is the duty of an artist to fulfill their vision, not someone else's. For this reason, many prominent artists go unknown in their lifetime. The masses are attracted to "bad" art like Thomas Kinkade (I use quotes because the art is not actually bad, just lacks the originality that art connoisseurs seek). I would actually argue that you will have to make a choice between being a popular artist and being good artist (there is some overlap though). And it may well be the case that you don't have the luxury to make this choice.

For me personally, I think that good pixel art is timeless (emphasis on "good"). It gives an artist a limited canvas and forces them to be creative. You can instantly deduce an artist's skill based on how well they can convey a concept with a limited palette and resolution. An unlimited palette and high resolution actually magnifies the flaws in art, IMO (leaves less to the imagination). I find that in many modern 3D games, the suspension of disbelief is destroyed when I walk up to a character and see blurry textures and pointed polygonal edges.

For an idea of what good pixel art looks like (at least according to my opinion and many others), check out Henk Nieborg's work:

http://www.henknieborg.nl/gallery_pixels.html

Re: A Pixel Artist Renounces Pixel Art

#18

Post by pshc »

MollyR wrote: post #10
emsy wrote: post #9

Pixel art games nowadays all look more or less the same. Actual games from the 90s didn't look alike at all. Also most games use pixel art as an excuse for lazy animations with a little amount of frames. I really wonder why everyone likes it so much and I often think maybe something is wrong with my taste :/

I often wondered if indie games tend to like pixel art because its cheaper and faster to produce.

Yeah. It's like 24fps in film. In 60fps (HD) every flaw is apparent; film props of the wrong weight look fake, and insincere facial microexpressions give it away.

Whereas in 24fps (pixelation), creators can get away with more as your brain fills in the gaps. There's also the bonus that it feels dream-like; larger than life.

There's also the question of pixel-perfect platforming. HD platformers can feel sloppy and untrustworthy if not done right. It's easier to trust a pixelated platformer. (And yet I've never felt cheated by a jump in the polygonal New Super Mario Bros.)

Re: A Pixel Artist Renounces Pixel Art

#19

Post by DanAndersen »

pshc wrote: post #6

Yes! Thank you. I love the old pixel aesthetic, but today's art should fit today's constraints. Those classic games will always be around, awaiting your next nostalgia rush. Screw stagnation. Likewise, I like old Victorians and Art Deco, but I wouldn't be excited about one built today. No one would respect a 2015 medieval-style castle quite like one from 1515.

Agreed. It's like the tacky buildings in Las Vegas that mimic other buildings, or Disney World, or those faux-European cities built for tourists in China.

I sure would love to see some new cathedrals built using the methods of centuries past, though.

Re: A Pixel Artist Renounces Pixel Art

#20

Post by EdSharkey »

I think pixel art by itself is rad and has an audience that appreciates it. For games though, even beyond the problem of the audience not getting the point, in the age of retina displays there are many technical roadblocks with getting the pixels to stay blocky and render the way you want.

If one was so inclined to stick with blocky pixel art, one could always render the bitmaps' pixels as filled vector rectangles and the target display would autoscale those rectangles without blurring them (unless they became subpixel-sized.)

But, I personally think a high resolution pixel art style in games is just going to confuse the consumer. Box shots no longer sell a game, trailer videos do. Are you going for high detail but low color count and 24fps animation? That does seem like a strange choice when I write it like that.

Low resolution pixel art (320 pixels wide or tall) makes a statement, and I think the consumers get the "retro" style the developer is going for there. But then why would an artist with a pencil and a budget ever want to restrict themselves like that?

I don't know what Ubisoft did in recent Rayman titles, but it looks like 3D or 2D vector art. The animations are super fluid, scale very nicely, and are super fun to watch! I suppose as the author suggests at the end, hand-placed curves could be a good substitute for hand-placed blocks.

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