I did this shit for 20 years, it ain't that hard bro.What to use for it:-GraphicsGale Use this if you want something good and free. been using it since the days it was a paid program.-Asesprite. desu I don't like this thing the UI is dogshit but everyone swears by it so it's probably fine.-ProMotion NG. uhh, lmao? I guess if you like photoshop this is cool but it is a gigantic pain in the ass to use for animation.-Photosh- no, get that shit outta here. garbage.THINGS TO LEARN WITH:LOSPEC:https://lospec.com/pixel-art-tutorialsI don't personally think these are the best tutorials out there but they're good to start out with and it's a bunch of stuff in one place.The Pixelogic book is actually good atleast.OLD THINGS:https://web.archive.org/web/20130501035641/http://pixel-zone.rpgdx.net/shtml/tutorials.shtmlSome of the things I learned from as a teenager are here.ABOVE ALL YOU NEED TO GRAB THINGS AND STUDY HOW SPRITES ARE DONE.I cannot stress this enough. go grab screenshots and try to draw on them. use spriter's resource to look at things from the masters. I had to learn that way too, we all tend to reverse-engineer in this field and then build our own from the skills we learn.Also feel free to ask me questions. Don't be a dipshit.
>pixel art is easy>want to animate the rotation of a large detailed object without rixels
>You are just lazyStory of my life, brehAnyway post some more of your art and maybe share your process
>>7686512here's a really really old example I did of the very basics of color theory and hue shifting in palettes.
>>7686520a thing I made to teach how to do sub-pixelling
>>7686521a small guide I made for a project I was working on. a bunch of the info still makes common sense too.
>>7686521I should try this. I've never done it despite being into pixel art. brb
>>7686528*erm I don't know how to apply it. this guy for example, I have 2 frames, if I want a 3rd using some sub pixelling, how do I begin to do that?
>>7686533build extra in-between colors for the knees so that you can blend them.You also would likely need to do 4 frames so the arms lag up and down slightly to alot for the extra blend tones to go along the top of the shoulders.it's worth noting that you don't have to do the subpixelling EVERYWHERE, just on the spots where the movement is most obvious. In this case there's alot, but anything that's NOT changing in the up and down motion can be largely left alone.
How do you think sprites like this one from arcana heart were made? From what I could infer, they were drawn digitally in black and white, although I'm not sure if they are downscaled or they drew them in this resolution. After they applied some shadows they converted it to a 7 color grayscale palette (because each color zone in the final sprite has 7 shades). Then they colorized somehow the different areas and touched it up a bit.I have no idea what software they used. Asesprite doesn't have a way to colorize it quickly.
>>7686554Thanks. ok, so here's a rough attempt. I can see some places that are too contrasty that should have less movement(near hands). am I on the right track?
>>7686598*whoops transparent pixel on his shoulder
>>7686595If I change the indexes you can see the original lineart better.
Hm, wasn't there another thread just like this? Did it die?
>>7686599yeah, you more or less got it!
>>7686651There were two other threads that were just people complaining or saying full-on misinformation, so I decided to make a proper thread because I'd rather be an old fart giving actual advice than see another dumbfuck saying stupid shit.
>>7686595>>7686616You're pretty much on point, though I'd say that by this point digital tablets were slowly becoming actually useful, so it's possible they were drawn digitally from the start. given it's from 2006, I wouldn't be suprised if it's that.Though honestly, if some of the folks who worked on it came from one of the old arcade companies, it is very possible that they even had some funny custom hardware for that purpose. IREM (and later when the teams formed Nazca and merged with SNK) they had a ton of purpose-built drawing devices for pixel art.
I have not done anything with pixel since ehhh 6 months I do believe. And I never touched for more then a dozen of timesRate my best work
>>7686731I'm gonna be real, I can't tell if this is a bit or you are a time-travelling teenager from 2004
>>7686491>disliking Aseprites UIYou can download addons that change it but agreed: default sucks. Aseprite only has an edge over GraphicsGale if you're making games from scratch, really. For more general pixel art use I find it kind of overhyped>>7686595The JP pixel artists I used to see while browsing in the 2000s rarely bothered drawing something just to downscale it, and as far as I know that was more or less how most pros working under big companies operated: just drawing digitally on top of a digital sketch, in the scale you wanted the final product to be. There's a few known exceptions where they did (like Ace Attorney), but it didnt seem that common until around the nintendo DS era rolled around. and even then many sprite artists continued working as they always had.
>>7686769the problem with Aseprite that I can't really justify retraining myself for is that you cannot move the buttons around, and I also really, really do not like them shoving frames and layers into the same space. It just eats up an entire third of the screen real-estate if you work with more than 3 layers. (HINT: You will nearly always have to work with more than 4 while animating characters.)At the end of the day, I just really really like the customization of the space Gale allows for. This is what my Gale setup looks like. very pretty and organized!
>>7686823also here's the thing from the screenshot.
>>7686498>spending time on things i care about is hard>I don't want to try new things>so I have no idea what I actually care about>why am I so depressed and directionless>oh well time to go back to wasting time on /x/ and 4ch
>>7686491I still don't understand why you come to this site and put up with these dumbassesI know socmed is bad and our dead gay comedy forum is quiet but it can't be that bad surelynobody here is worth your time unless they decide they are worth their own timebeing on here is kinda proof they don't think they are worth their own time man
>>7686491anyways idk you're more patient than mehopefully at least one user here like, idk, is kind enough to themselves to actually try the stuff you're recommendingi'm gonna go fuck around w/ level code and watch more masshole mikulater
>>7686855>>7686861Hello rabbit friend!I'm not here for clout or anything else. I have my funny NASA lady sure, but I'm here because I wanna teach and this place is sorely lacking in this field.That and the Pixel Art Discord is really just not a fun place to be or to teach in, because it's filled to the brim with blind leading the blind.
>>7686864Oh hey apple friendfr if they actually follow your advice and aren't weird bitches about it that would actually be cool as fucksome of my favourite project participation back in the day was working on flash videos for this community, group-projects on /m/ or fucking with them on /x/ with pranks granted i did tripfag a bit hard back thenactually... what's the median age of a 4chan user now? like are they young-folk or did they go to more extreme sites so only like 30somethings (like us) are left? genuinely curious about the demographics of this place
>>7686872in every 4chan related art community I've gone to I've almost always been the oldest person in the group. :[We're probably some of the few oldheads still around at this point.
>>7686835blog? if that's okay to ask
>>7686752I don't understand
>>7686875yeah i'm now realizing like they won't know where a lot of their assumptions come from. descartes, irony, company, etc. its like goodhart's law crossed by way of sturgeon into shitposting.skimming the board i do like that their opinions are super unfiltered still and that aspect hasn't gone away>>7686752lol u tk him 2da bar|?
>>7686876https://x.com/ApplefatGovhttps://bsky.app/profile/appleheck.bsky.social>>7686878what I'm saying is it feels like something I would have seen 20 years ago on a sonic the hedgehog fan forum by a teen girl really into Evanescence.I wasn't really meaning this as a bad thing, it's just what it reminds me of.Being serious, it's not great, but everyone starts somewhere. my oldest stuff was terrible.Here, this is my old Sonic sprite edit from when I was like 13 or 14 lmao. We all kinda start simple.
>>7686888in 1992, you booted up Sails the Fedgehog and was given an adventure in christmas coloring by way of jackson pollock
>>7686888 Nah it's fine you gave me a nice giggle. also nice trips
>>7686823wery nice, wery sleek. And yes, I'm not a fan of using Aseprite for animations either, it's a far better time doing it in GraphicsGale. Aseprite wins out for me when doing very small old-school GBA overworld sprite sheets and fonts, but for practically everything else it's Gale. Will say though that the modding and asset community centered around Aseprite is a big plus and can be quite inspiring in its own right.>>7686835loving the sheen btw. I want to poke her legs
>>7686864Basically you got kicked out from the discord and got lonely? This is sad, anon.
>>7687037Far from it. I just got really bored because there's no other oldheads there. I wanna talk shop and all they talk is beginner stuff. Nobody taking it seriously.>>7686957I too would like to know how the cool touch of the funny hover legs feels on my face.
>>7687050>oldheadsWhere did everyone go after B&G shut down their forums? I admit, by that time I was out of the pixel art community and I've only recently gotten back into making pixel art. There seems to have been a long period where no one really cared much about pixel art once sprite comics died.
>>7687619god, yeah I got my start on the B&G forums too. I went by 'geona' or 'foxalpha' or something like that in those days.As for where the community went after? no real clue. I drifted over to pixelation.org and polycount where I learned advanced stuff as well as getting good at 3D. eventually all those skills came around to me doing illustration as well, so it's hard for me to say.A bunch of folks scattered over to pixeljoint, pixelation, joined the sonic fangame community or went to TIGSource forums, or kinda just vanished onto their own thing. A shame really, as I would have loved to keep up with the folks that kept learning around then.Personally though if I could find a place where folks ACTUALLY talk shop and don't just share around the same awful Saint11 tutorials like they're gospel, I'd be way more interested in getting back into it all.Speaking of, anyone got some techniques they'd like to ask about? I'm all ears!
(same anon as >>7686957)>>7687050>I wanna talk shop and all they talk is beginner stuff.Havent bothered going to discords yet but I feel like sometime around 2013 things started to change and more and more oekaki styled art with non-pixel overlay effects began filling up websites and tags. That, and indie games using the same overlay technique on extremely simple beg tier sprites. With how popular it got it led to an influx of beg tutorials from "big names", with people copying it over and over, and now it feels like it's a seperate "style" of pixel art that has become synonymous with what beginners hope to create, because that is what they've seen doing well online. Theres very little incentive for them to learn more. also the lack of hardware restrictions probably doesn't help.
>>7687728It's not really a commonality anymore but I often attributed this to Cave Story initially and called it Cave Story Dilemma, where a ton of newbies started out BECAUSE of that game and never really understood WHY it's aesthetic decisions exist.It's obviously different things now, but you don't see anyone really saying their inspiration is something really complex like OwlBoy or whatever, it's always something far simpler.I wonder what ways there might be to get people interested in getting more ambitious with work? It would be really interesting to find ways to get folks to be more ambitious.
>>7686491Does GraphicsGale allow for layer-specific indexed pallets? I have an entire canvas I use for pixel art but I can't use index in aseprite to stay system-legal because it applies to the entire thing instead of individual layers
>>7686888thanks!
>>7687825>Cave Story DilemmaThats actually a pretty good observation desuThese days I guess Undertale and Deltarune have taken up its spot, but the effect remains the same: people going for a simple style with little to no awareness of the methods and self-imposed restrictions behind. Kinda like skipping foundational training for traditional art I suppose.>I wonder what ways there might be to get people interested in getting more ambitious with work? I think if it goes the way of low-poly 3D it might be possible as the result of developers wanting to make games and mods for retro consoles again. That, or some sort of rise of a new piece of hardware with very limited specs or screen size (neo smartwatch gaming? programmable customisable tamagotchis? i dont know, but something like that)
>>7687846okay that's a particularly weird thing. I know that Gale supports per frame palettes, but I don't think it supports per layer. it DOES however count the colors per frame as well as total, so you could in theory use that as a way to check it.>>7688061I don't wanna get started about the current lowpoly craze but that has seen so much progress and evolution that I'm honestly super impressed with what folks are making now. Pixel art though? not so much.
>>7688240colors per layer, I meant to say.
>>7687728>I feel like sometime around 2013 things started to change and more and more oekaki styled art with non-pixel overlay effects began filling up websites and tags.That sounds like it might have been the after effects Super Brothers Sword & Sorcery EP more than cave story, if we're talking about the mixing of pixel art and none pixel art - It was definitely influential (and beautiful, mind you) visually, I think many people cribbed its unique character art visual style, which were very simple human figures, but didn't crab the very complex background art that contrasted that.
I recently made a pixel art game and got really burnt out near the end. I have trouble getting traction on any social media posts I made but I'm confident my work was pretty good, especially for a solo project. I definitely empathize with some anons here who think that pixel art recently has lost its purity. I very quickly went to the dark side when using 360p canvases and started to downscale linedrawings and use halftone effects in CSP to save time. Towards the end I was using glow dodge effects too.That being said, Aesprite changing common shortcut keys across painting software was a tragedy and if it wasn't for the onion skinning. I would have stuck to CSP
I've only very recently gotten interested in trying pixel art and I've been having issues finding answers to certain questions and I'm left having to analyze the sprite work I want to emulate and maybe guessing what their workflow wasFor example, two things I'm looking at are 1.) the comic panels from EBA/ Ouendan and 2.) character sprites from AA. I can kind of tell the EBA comics are just downscaled from full-res art but I can't tell for sure if that's what they did for AA as well. It feels more likely for AA4, since that was the only one fully built from the ground up for the DS
>>7688477AA is downscaled but I suspect the pixels are cleaned up manually a little
ProMotion NG is great, non destructive dithering for control. I can move palettes easily and make my own dithering patterns.
Also Grafx2 if you are a hobbyist and need a free lightweight program
>>7688240yeah it hasnt hit pixel art at all, just tossing my guess at what it would take to make it happen>>7688296There were a lot of indie games doing it at the time, so I can't say I'd confidently pin the blame down on one or two. The Cave Story thing other anon mentioned kind of seemed to exist in tandem with it, I feel. Theres also just a bunch of not so beautiful yet very popular indie games that may have inspired it >>7688477yes, AA is downscaled. The concept artist almost exclusively did traditional pencil sketches and ink at the time afaik, so it was likely done more out of necessity than anything else. AA4 just let them do it with more colours and space
Finally a thread.
>>7688842
>>7688847
>>7686491Do you draw? As in, do you draw normally and then use that to overlay with your pixel art, or do you directly start with pixel art?
>>7688853
>>7688857whatever I feel like really. sometimes I just start, sometimes I sketch out first, sometimes I do a 3D layout to get the composition right. It really depends on how simple or complex something is.In the case of the banner image for the thread, I did that entirely pixels from the get go. but in the case of this rainy cafe, I used a ton of different tools. Mainly designdoll for layout and SpriteMancer for the rain effect and the steam off the coffee (which was SUPPOSED to be transparent but the deadline meant I couldn't fix it.) I then composited everything together in Davinci Resolve while mnanually adjusting the animation of the guy drinking the coffee for proper timing, then exported as a GIF.There are a ton of things I wanted to do with this piece, like add extra characters waitress bobbing to some music, a car driving by, all sorts of things. The boss man was obsessed with me adding a laptop and asking for a dozen small changes, so by the time I got it this far I just wanted it done.Maybe someday I'll come back to it and finish it proper for myself though.
>>7689014reference collage for this piece
>>7689021early starts scribbling the characters in on the designdoll layout I built.
>>7689024Oh, huh. I have an early test of the rain effect in Pixel Composer that I recorded a gif from! didn't even realize that this existed.
>>7688857For a different example, I worked with someone on a character mod of Lina Inverse for Rivals of Aether, as there was a anime jam going on with a cash prize. So to do the win/splash screen I started drawing the character in CSP over a designdoll pose (again to make sure composition would work) and then pixelled over that.
>>7689038and the final sprite
>>7688842>>7688847>>7688853btw these rock.
>>7688841>>7688484I see, I'll have to experiment with a workflow that works for meThank you
>>7688328Picrel screenshot. I will say I don't think I'll ever be able to drop my boomer perspective grids. I think the original size of the line drawing for this was over 6000 pixels before I shrunk it and began painting. UI and stuff were made by me too but they're part of the game itself. You can definitely see where I got lazy on dithering.>>7689038This absolutely slaps. God damn you're good.
>>7689284First test using this method, lineart and color was in Procreate and I added shading after plus clean-up (missed a few places but oh well, next time)Next test is doing all the shading before importing.
>>7686491I've been getting into making pixel stuff, it's fun. The downside is that I fucking suck at coding and even the simple stuff is tripping me up, there always seems to be something these video tutorials say to do and then GML Code says "nah something's missing from the create event" and then I don't know whether to cuntpaste the code or what. If I could just fucking HELP someone else that's good with programming but sucks at sprites, man.
>>7689014Cozy! You've convinced me to try DesignDoll
>>7689394That's really impressive regardless! the scanlined dithering appraoch always looks particularly stylish anytime I see it. I hope you weren't doing all of those by hand, you can use a pixel brush/pattern to do that stuff really quick.>>7689441Good first try! I'm assuming you already draw your lines pretty thick, so this method can work well for artists with heavy line weights.>>7689522I know a couple people that do gamedev butI myself am not that smart. I'm pretty much the guy that handles art direction, QA, and making pretty things as a whole.Quick question though, what is the right most sprite supposed to be? I'm having a bit of trouble reading the... head?
Felt like sharing another fun thing today cuz I'm getting ready for a trip and the laundry is gonna be anotther couple of hours.A rather large amount of the time you can get away with basically not animating pixel art by just having tons of rotatable chunks. While this is pretty "duh of course you can" sort of thing, the levels of tomfoolery you can get away with doing this are really fun!So for this boss, I wanted to give it an interesting death animation and intro, but doing all of that would be a pain if I actually hand-animated given how big the sprite is. So, the entire top-half is a bunch of separated chunks parented to the body.
>>7690448by separating everything out, it can allow for some really impressive looking animation without needing to do the harder parts. The final chunks were then pieced together using Spine and animated with bones. (You can probably use a different program for this though!)
>>7690459the final death animation is one of my favorite things I've ever done. I really wish I could have seen it with proper explosions over it, but that was something the programmer would handle.
another thing you can do with this is change the palette of a section to fake motions, such as this with the 'leg lift'. there is no extra animation, just changing the colors to make it look like it is!
>>7690118It's a little bit of both, I did a second pass on the outline after importingWith this second test, I think I understand the workflow enough to try cranking out more poses
Havent lurked IC in a while, finally a pixel art post to pmw, ignore the BG, it's more of a filler cause i was too lazy to actually detail it.>>7690464Nah, learn to use PixelFXDesigner
>>7691053Forgot to post the image, bruh
>>7691054Ciri from Witcher
>>7691056Dressed up
>>7686491lua scripting, palettes, tagging, tile maps, pixel perfect, are all reasons aseprite is better than graphics gayle. that and it's actually actively developed.if you choose not to use aseprite because of some non-issue like UI (it's highly customisable, you can even script together your own), you're severely hindering your workflow.
>>7687656>awful Saint11 tutorials like they're gospelWhy is he awful?
>>7686491Here's a pixel art course for you guys>GameDev.tv Team / Pixel Art Characters: 2D Character Design & Animation>https://files.catbox.moe/08z8yb.torrent
/beg/ here, i made this, can you tell what it is?what can i do to improve it?(using gameboy palette so only 3-4 colors)
>>7693471If I had to hazard a guess it's some sort of lobster? Personally, I think you need a better ratio of light vs. shadow to make it read better, more light than shadow. Traditional wisdom is a ratio of 70/30
>>7693524is this better? i feel like i over did it
>>7686491Having to clean up an animation is miserable with how pixels get scattered after every rotationI don't hate that I have to do it, I just hate how long it takes.Should've gone into 3d animation...
So I wanted to try working in Aseprite for a change but the colors in the Aseprite window specifically are messed upDespite the color picker showing a full #ffffff white, it's displaying as this cool white, pictured hereAm I doing something wrong? I don't have indexed coloring on. I'm gonna try saving the file and opening it on my iPad and seeing if it stays like this
>>7693806OK yeah on my iPad (Resprite), the colors are all displaying fine, It's just an issue of how Aseprite is displaying themThis is my first time really opening Aseprite since buying it years ago so I doubt it's a setting I messed with
>>7693806It looks bluish to me
>>7693848Correct, that's what a cool white isI just learned Resprite also has a desktop version so if I can't figure this out, I'll just use that
>>7691311can i finally right click to color pick with it like graphicsgale fucking hate these 2 color layer things all the programs do
>>7688477>>7688484What’s downscaling in this context? I googled it and found nothing. I’ve been looking for a method to convert my drawings to pixel art.
I am finally home from my trip, so I can check on the thread again.>>7691311I'm an old fart and I don't like change okay?Also, I've yet to see anyone mod the buttons to the left side of the screen, the one thing I want them to do more than anything else.I also find most of the defaults in the program to be kind of asinine, among the fact everything is menus, nested menus, with very few buttons for actual tools you would use often. I'm sure this wouldn't be so bad if you enjoy keyboard shortcuts, but I'm not really a huge fan of doing that unless there's alternative methods or better tooltips
>>7693287I find the tutorials to be incredibly simple or they teach things just downright wrong, like the one about gems and shiny things. They're alright for what they are, but I feel they create some bad habits with both animation and stylistic choices, erring on the side of overly cartoony and simple.>>7693884there are a couple of ways, but you're pretty much guaranteed to have to do manual cleanup no matter what.Pixatool/SpriteMancer/Pixel Composer are all tools specifically for downscaling and palettizing, and would definitely be the quickest method, albeit a bit scuffed. The method I tend to use when downscaling first is open in the image editor of your choice and downscale with Lanzcos-3 Non-Seperable, then bring it into a palettizing tool or draw over it from there. I use this method for texture work on 3D models, as shown in this image.>>7693546I will try to go over this myself tomorrow before I start working on job things. I'm still really exhausted from the trip, so not doing it today.
I made this in case I need it. (I probably will lmao)
>>7693806I missed this last time, but it sounds like a similar problem to photoshop where it's reading a monitor's color profile for export instead of generic SRGB. This sometimes happens if the color profile from your monitor is corrupted somehow, but it can also just be windows being stupid.It's a fixable thing in photoshop, but I don't know if there's a setting for that in Asesprite or not.
>>7695791I'll mess around with the settings later when I get home, I think I may have seen something there to that effectFor now Resprite is doing me fine in the interim
where is the ic wplace zone, the jannies on v are suppressing any wplace threads cause i guess we need more pornbait or we
>>7696002no idea. I haven't really bothered with wplace. I was going to, but I ended up just making something too complicated. Now the thing I wanted to make on there became the image header for the thread.
>>7696002If anything someone should make an allianceIf I'm being completely honest, wplace is what sparked my recent interest in pixel artI got tired just copying sprites from existing things and wanted to try making "new" stuff
thoughts on color cycling ?
>>7696548it's really cool, but its also one of those things that is really annoying to set up. You can technically do it in Gale and Asesprite, but the two programs best at it is Pro Motion and Grafx2.I personally haven't tried it because usually it needs a shader to do it in game engines, (and no game team has really bothered to implement that when I've worked on something) but I'd love to give it a shot some day.
>>7697187why would a shader be necessary? What exactly would you like them to implement
>>7697267color tracking in most engines is not an inherent thing. To do the cycling in it's intended method (static image that has the palette shifted to save memory) you need a shader in modern engines. It's an annoying factor of everything being done on the gpu these days basically. In software rendering you could do palette calls a bit simpler.
>>7696548>>7697187I'm not a pixel guy, so excuse the possibly stupid question, but can the colours that are being cycled be the same as other colours within the image, or are they slightly different?I'm assuming that cycled colours are considered a different thing from the static colours, and thus there can be 'two' of the same colour but only one is cycling?Limited tech stuff can be rather confusing sometimes.
>>7698479http://www.effectgames.com/demos/canvascycle/click show options and you can see the palette cycling in real time.multiple colors can be cycled at once.
>>7698479yes there can be two of the same colours, but only one zone is cycling, basically it works through indexed colors, usually each pixel having their own individual color independent from each other, instead, the pixels refer to an index, color 1, 2, 3 etc, you can paint a zone that returns 5, another zone with 29, and while they might have the same hue, saturation, and value, they are different on the palette, and thus one color can be changed without affecting the other
>>7698842Thank you. I had assumed that's how it worked (especially after looking at the site >>7698512 mentioned), but it's hard to be certain with older tech/tricks and going solely by eye. The colours could have been a smidge different and thus been 'different' colours in the palette.It seems like a headache sorting out those areas for cycling, but the result is quite lovely.
>>7686491How is this person getting so much smoothness out of the Deltarune sprites?I asked them if it was subpixel animation and they said no, though I did specifically link thishttps://2dwillneverdie.com/tutorial/give-your-sprites-depth-with-sub-pixel-animation/so it might be subpixel animation just not that specific way of subpixel animation
>>7701990This should help
>>7701991and this
>>7701990Same way as regular animation; lots of tweens. The whole thing is over a hundred frames for what, 4 or 5 seconds of animation?
>>7702032there's software for tweening sprites like this?
>>7702086Not that I know of. it was probably all done manually.
>>7694388How are they wrong/bad?
>>7703155uuugghhggh okay so I have a bone to pick specifically with the way they teach lighting because it's at times OKAY but in others flat out wrong.This gem tutorial I think is the one that stands out the most to me as "pls don't" because the light control is just changing shades for the sake of it mostly, when you can get away with doing alot less and upping the contrast in areas it's important. it also straight up doesn't factor translucense and depth on gems, which would give it a much deeper color towards the middle. (I'm over-simplifying here, there's a ton of factors to take into account, but these are the ones you'd pay attention to in pixel art the most.)
>>7703190I forgor my name woopsTo give a bit of an idea, here's a magic spell for a puzzle game I worked on last year. the wave itself was meant to be a gem, then the spell effect would cause it to swirl, making deeper areas swirl around a bit before the explosion.This is just one of my complaints in regards to them, but it's the most egregious.I also think they realy too heavily on the black outline and their way of defining effects is far too simple, but that's alot harder to critique in a paragraph or two.
>>7703198I forgot the image, really not on the ball today D;
>>7686700They worked on Samurai Shodown 5 earlier, but you gotta keep in mind that much of their work in that game was derivative or straight up copypasting older sprites.
>>7686491rare quality threadthanks OP
>>7701991looks like he's doing smth kinda like smear frames as inbetweens ? if you zoom on the second animation, you can see that the motion's smoothed over by having it progressiveley happening, instead of having it jump from one sprite to the other
Finally, a pixel thread for me.
If I never done pixel stuff where should I start? Kinda want to try for fun.
>>7706216the tutorial I swear by and was the thing that hjelped me get better is "So You Want To Be a Pixel Artist"http://www.petesqbsite.com/sections/tutorials/tuts/tsugumo/This tutorial teaches alot of good habits right from the get-go, especially how to learn by analyzing the work of others and how to best utilize shades when starting out. I consider it the holy grail of early tutorials.If you want something more comprehensive (albeit a more long-winded) there's the Pixelogic book, which is very comprehensive.
>>7706197this is very good palette control. not necessarily 'pixel art' but hell, oekaki style art is fine too!>>7706034desu I kinda think they're a bit too smoothed out. I don't really see the need to go that far? Like as a thing to post to a site to go "woah that's so cool!" sure, but in a game environment that would be miserable to work with.
>>7690464Hey anon you want a job? I've been doing the character and enemy animations, but I'm too lazy (Really skill-less) to do bosses
Any tips for isometric walk cycle animations? I've made a few but they're quite sloppy
>>7706305Hit me up, name is the same as on discord. I was feeling like getting back on the horse proper anyway so I wouldn't mind having a job lined up. I love making bosses!
>>7706393I'll save your name and give you a shout in a couple of months. I have to finish up with the projects I'm currently helping out with, but I'll be sure to reach out to you eventually.
Not enough free time to animate the body
>>7709217I do like it though I feel it would be better served if you did a downscale on the effects part of it to match the resolution of the figure.
>>7706404Might wanna just go ahead and add me so we can shoot the shit etc. I like hearing about stuff early so I can get an idea of whether I'm the right person for the job ahead of time anyway. Anyways, I'm probably not sticking around this thread anymore cuz there's not as many folks interested in doing this stuff as I thought would be here. A shame really, but them's the breaks sometimes.
Love pixel art and started drawing with it, but trying to learn other mediums feels harder because of it.
>>7715894Same.Practice along side regular art
I suck at pixel art and I think its easyI drew this on my phone thoughts? supposed to a rabbit-like creature
>>7717718>a rabbit-like creatureThat's clearly a wolpertingerPretty nice overall. The spot where the horns join the head looks a little messy, and the forelimb joint looks awkwardly low - most four legged mammals have that joint fairly close to the body. Pic related; even at extension like this, you can see how the elbow joint is fairly close to the body. The joint you would see lower is the wrist joint.
>>7717853>most four legged mammals have that joint fairly close to the bodyah thx didnt know thatit does look weird now
Bringing this back to the front to piss off the no-draws.
>>7686731I'm going to agree with the other annon, It's gives me early 2000s internet vibes.I have no artistic skill, but here's my shitty attempt at trying to draw some trees.
>>7686491You inspired me to make pixel art.
My second attempt at trying pixel art, I thing it's better than the shitty trees I made last time.BTW, Thanks for this thread, It is giving me something new to try.
I feel like there is something wrongIs subpixelling even possible or useful here? I couldn't apply it at all.
Currently trying to break down this guy's process and it's difficult. He's got a couple WIPs online but I'm convinced he starts with a painting then uses some sort of post processing to reduce the colors.Im not opposed to that at all but its very tricky to try to break this down.
>>7724349some pixel artists genuinely just do stuff as paintings rather than as 'pixel art'. it's definitely being done the normal way, but some folks treat pixels kinda like laying down oil paints and such.You don't see it too often, but the folks that do it often are inspired by amiga stuff and classical paintings.
>>7724962I think you're right. I did some more digging and it seems like its basically a painting that he shrinks then reduces colors with selection tools to gradually get to a smaller palette then just paints as if he was using tiling gouache techniques.Currently trying this method doing a background inspired by Frazetta's Egyptian Queen. Will report back tonight.
sweet a pixel art thread, rare,might as well drop the title from the old general I use to host sometimes. This threads tend to fizzle out since the art form is esoteric.Previous thread [Link to previous thread]> Rules:- Resize your images before posting!- Binary art allowed if its low resolution.- Converted/Photobashed images are not allowed.- NSFW allowed.> ResourcesHow do I learn pixel art ?Where do I learn those things?What software do I use ?Where can I share my work ?Check this outhttps://pastebin.com/BK9s37m7 (embed) (embed) (embed)# TOOLShttp://graphicsgale.com/https://www.getpaint.net/https://www.aseprite.org/https://www.piskelapp.com/http://grafx2.chez.com/# TUTORIALShttps://2dwillneverdie.com/tutorial/https://lospec.com/pixel-art-tutorialshttps://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11299http://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=24744https://saint11.org/blog/pixel-art-tutorials/https://twitter.com/Sadface_RLhttps://bandygrass.tumblr.com/# COMMUNITIEShttp://pixeljoint.com/http://pixelation.org/https://www.spriters-resource.com/https://dotpict.net/
>>7724992Tried doing a colour sketch then adding some more saturation and tried using a blocky brush on a new layer and reducing the colours this way.. Its effectively the same composition I've done dozens of times but I'm not sure how much faith I have in bringing this into any kind of finish.That being said I looked at some art similar to blasphemous. Last Faith definitely is pixel art over compressed paintings. Unless they're using a palette of like 72 colours or bad image compression, the only workflow I can think of is >paint>compress>foreground/important props imported over compressed image>posterize the compressed background.
Are there any tools that would let me animate pixel art in layered segments, for example I want to have a flowing river with three frames looped, while I animate some extensive character action next to it with 50+ frames, without having to worry about doing the river animation in every frame individually
>>7725754Probably pixel composer
>>7693388seed for me brothas>>7725071would it be fine if i added this to the animation general pasta?i wanna keep this info accessible
>>7725876sure kott-anon, you might reach the word limit though
>>7693388Ewww
>>7725754Aseprite
it is a custom cursor
Finally pixelart thread. I haven't seen him for a long time. Does anyone have archives of previous threads?Anyway does anyone use Clip Studio Paint? I'm very satisfied with this program, I'm still using old version but for pixelart is more than enough for me
what's stopping me from downscaling a drawing to like 64x64 to make it pixel art? seems faster than handpicking each pixel
>>7686853NTA, but that is me 100%.How do I start caring about things?
OP, you should write a book about this
>>7686823Since when GraphicsGale got updated to look Sleek?
>>7726777I have riced the fuck out of my windows install to the point it it barely looks normal anymore. it just happens that Gale skins perfectly with the theme due to how it works.>>7725071This is alot of good info!>>7726317I was not involved in the creation of the other threads, I just got pissy when I saw someone asking about how to do stuff and they were getting gaslighted with genuinely wrong info.If anyone wants to dump archives and such here that would be great honestly.>>7726477I've thought about making videos about stuff for ages, but I did do a whole talk for the local gamedev association on making pixel art for games and important visual clarity rules. dunno if it would be of any interest with how disorganized it was.>>7726342if you're gonna do this use lanzcos-3 non seperable because it's the only resampler method that properly does the job.Tbh it's not that slow to do things, pixel art is very loosey goosey unless you're trying to cram a shitload of detail into small spaces.
>>7726786>I've thought about making videos about stuff for ages, but I did do a whole talk for the local gamedev association on making pixel art for games and important visual clarity rules. dunno if it would be of any interest with how disorganized it was.post it
>>7689394>>7688328What's the game? I want to see more of the art.
>>7726814Here you go. Right now I'm basically suffering a massive artistic identity crisis though while reworking the game. I have the new mechanics worked out really cleanly but at its core it is still an RPGM game.A large part of me just wants to completely style shift into a Mignola esque art style using high res instead and use some post processing effects to keep the dirty look I get with my pixel art hatching. Its on Steam if you want to watch some crappy trailers I made in an hourhttps://store.steampowered.com/app/3631050/End_the_Endless/
>>7726805alright fair, but I'll worn I sound like shit and didn't have a proper script.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3pAMpeFf8c
>>7726816Oof, changing artstyles right in the middle of development, that can't be fun. It doesn't look anything whatsoever like an RPGM game though, so you got that going for you. Or at least I couldn't tell.
>>7726828Thanks. Yeah I basically re did everything from the ground up to hide any notion of RPGmaker. The only thing that would ever give it away is the blue bar on the save menu (you can't get rid of that). Its isometric too.Honestly changing art styles feels kind of relieving in a way. It would basically give me an excuse to nuke all my assets. I'm still weighing on it though. As it stands right now, asset creation time is absurd considering how fast I could pump out the cleaned up high res assets.
I bought asprite and fucked around with it for like 40 minutes here's my first attempt how'd I do? I tried to copy another guys work but eyeballing it that's a "reference" right? but it kind of turned out like that one kevin james meme.
resized so it's not for ants. also, what resolution should one start out as? would 64x64 work or should I mess around with smaller stuff? for attempts to get better how good of an idea is it to just try to copy someone else's work while you get the fundamentals down or am I misconstruing what a reference even is for art?
>>7727376>>7727374In my opinion, you should start off with smaller stuff.at 16x16 - 32x32 pixels, it gives you a better sense of pixel economy.
>>7727524>it gives you a better sense of pixel economy.Would starting off with 1-bit (1 colour) also be beneficial in that sense, or would that be going over board?Picrel (not mine) is an example of what I mean, in case it's not obvious.
>>77275301-bit can be good for focusing on form, but you miss out on anti-aliasing, an extremely important skill for pixel art. I recommend using a low color palette of 4 - 32 colors fromhttps://lospec.com/palette-list/as limitations breed creativity.
Is pixelation.org permanently down? That was the best place for actual pixel art instruction.
Hello anons..What is the maximum resolution a game can have before pixel art becomes redundant? I can accept estimates>inb4 about 3 fiddyI was thinking of making a game like Stronghold and I thought pixel art would be a really nice choice of aesthetic, but I’m kind of hesistant because of the size difference between the human units and the buildings. If I make the units too small then I wouldnt be able to properly portray the animations which gave the original Stronghold such a wonderful degree of liveliness. If I make the buildings too detailed I fear that I’ll just waste a lot of effort especially since Stronghold players tend to zoom out the screen to get a better game feel at the moment.
>>7727588It was shut down years ago. Which sucks because that was initially where I had my portfolio up. Got a lot of job offers from there too :\
>>7727610If you're fine with not having "pixel perfect" game art, you can get away with doing something like pic related.Personally I think anything larger than 1280x800 native resolution would be pointless as pixel art. My current game is 640x400, and I could see myself getting away with double the resolution and making all my sprites 64x64 instead of 32x32, but not any more than that.
>>7727622Forgot to add it in the post, but I meant to say "I could see myself getting away with double resolution....IF I had a small team instead of doing it solo". It's already taking me way too long solo even at 32x32 per character.
>>7727612What a shame and a great loss, I wonder if that Indigo guy has a backup, he was running the site last if I remember right.
>>7724349>>7724962>>7725283yeah, the painting method I've been using to make old computer-game-style portraits might be similar. I start by doing either a flat colored drawing (top) or a painting (bottom) at 2000-3000px, shrink it to about 320px, then draw over the outlines with a 1px pen (in CSP, either millipen with "1px minimum brush size" or real g-pen with no minimum for broken lines), then proceed similar to how I'd cel-shade a drawing:>flat color>multiply layer (all coloring is done with lasso fill, antialiasing off)>overlay layer with mid value colors to add saturation to areas>soft light layer to add more range to shape the form>normal layer on top to detail things like eyes, mouth, highlightsattached pic shows layers for the bottom one (color burn layer is just to add freckles)
>>7696548Wait wait wait so all the talent of ic is on pixel art and porn? Then wtf am i doing in beg and dad?
Made with libresprite, any advice??
Today, I made del from animal crossing :D
>>7727622>>7727626Thanks anon. You’re game looks great btw
>>7730074It's not mine anon, it's Songs of Conquest, I just found the trick they use neat. I think some Zelda game did the same.
Art study on Loop Hero>>7726816Make the UI look good and this would be hella cool and atmospheric, gj.
>>7730183Yeah, Link's Awakening - it's a 3D game, but that do a similar trick to give that particular toy like/figurine model look to the game.
>>7730933Thanks anon. I appreciate it. Honestly my biggest issue right now is I went away on my BLC for the army for a couple months and came back and I just had zero motivation to do pixel art anymore. Ive been doing a lot of painting and studies trying to find what I enjoy doing and I've been trying to do some artistic blending to little success. Not to mention the sheer workload of a 640x360 background in pixel art is massive compared to a background painting
>>7690118Oh shit, forgot all about this thread, sorry. Yeah, that sprite is of her head, she’s a witch, design inspired by a molting penguin. In her back there is a sword.Super Mario Bros Remastered was launched by fan devs on Saturday, so that gave me the spriting bug ball over again. These are able to be used in a resource pack, one of the project’s most fun features.
>>7731261And Luigi.
>>7731262Bowser, based closer to his design on the Japanese box art.
>>7730933Oy vey, the cheese was promised 2000 years ago
>>7731261>>7731262>>7731263I really dig these, particularly the Bowser.
>>7709217How you do the portal thingie?
Saw this pixel art jam, and thought of you guys; https://itch.io/jam/gbpixelartjam25I might enter it myself? Seems like it could be fun.
>>7731719https://store.steampowered.com/app/939360/Pixel_FX_Designer/It's made with this software, I would lose my mind to hand animate that.
i was/am learnin gamedev and made a crummy sprite to go with the crummy provided assets, but this thread inspired me to do something a lil betteralso that palette site is pretty cool thx
>>7732265that's an overpolished turd if I've seen one.
>log in to wplace>spot some half completed pixelart>colors are garbage, anatomy is wonky, nonsensical clusters etc.>try to fix it, maybe add some stuff to make it interesting>OG 'artist' comes back and manually remove everything i've done>...>i've tried to polish a turd but the turd wants to be a turdToday i was a fool. What will i be tomorrow?
>>7734923You working for a game company?
>>7734930yeah, a small indie one.
>>7686491Considering GraphicsGale nowSticking with the ProMotion demo cuz I like the palette limit and the color cycling. Wish there was some easy tool to have x-bit palettes on GraphicsGale or other pixelart programs. I know it may be silly to limit oneself as a beginner but I really like the look of older console and would like to emulate that aspect where possible.
