When people paint they tend to value loose strokes that give them impression of, say, some dumb leaf, but computers aren’t people or your friend. In other forms of visual art, being loose is good. Bring it IN, Hug it OUT, and abide by the following list of principles and guidelines I’d like to call Cool Rules(I’ve also registered the trademarks for Slick Tricks, and to a lesser extent Bland Commands so don’t steal them). So naturally, I made up for it by making the art more elaborate and detailed, which which in turn re-lengthened my workload…behold my logics!…ĭon’t make my mistakes… You have your whole lives ahead of you, and to know that you too slave over a 40px X 40px canvas for 10 hours when you only need to spend…9… well, I’m here. By the end of the process, I had devised workflows and shortcuts that sliced the time practically in half. As a result of that, and 100 Rogues’ well-over-a-year development time, there is some art for the game that I find ghastly, and some I can still sort of look at. We were all learning on the job, as you do when you’re a start-up team. Remember what I said about “incredibly dumb and inefficient use of time and life?” Well, nothing quite brings that home like my first spriting experience. Though I’ve been drawing since I was wee, I’ve only been spriting for a few years now, and got my first experience on Dinofarm’s first game, 100 Rogues. The point is, at small resolutions, every pixel counts, so every pixel should be accounted for.
I’m not saying there aren’t terrifically talented 3D modelers out there or great looking 3D art, but crushing and blurring a 3D model into a 64×64 sprite? Who ever actually thought… This process of digitizing 3d models, will always, ALWAYS look awful. As previously stated in an article by Keith about pixel art, an artist chooses which pixel goes where rather than a computer squashing and approximating pixels from a high res-digitized 3d model. As a practical matter, it’s ideal for small resolutions like mobile devices and hand-held consoles. It’s challenging, therapeutic and rewarding. But we all know it’s worth it because pixel art is really special. This first installment is about spriting or, in scientific terms, “makin’ little mans outa ‘puter squares” (there’ll be a lot of oh-ficial lingo so keep up, jerks!) Spriting is noble work, and by noble I mean an incredibly dumb and inefficient use of your time and life. This is good – I prefer learning to teaching anyway, so leave me some comments and let me know where I’ve gone horribly wrong. Programming’s hard enough, chaps, so I hope I can provide fun little tutorials that may give some indy developers with no art team some quick and easy tips for making their games prettier.įor those of you who are already artists, you’re probably way better than me.
Beginners of all types, people new to pixel art and 2D animation, and especially programmers who can’t afford to hire artists. Its primary goal is to share some half-baked know-how about pixel art, animation and art in general. I’ll be general custodian of The Art Barn, the new art column for Dinofarm Games. First off, you ought to be ashamed of yourself because I’m pretty darn amazing all-around and am especially good with kids (let me hang out with your dumb idiot kids!) But if you want to get right down to it, my name is Blake Reynolds, and I try to make Keith’s games look pretty.
I’m willing to bet, though, that there are a few people(maybe on the internet) who know Keith and don’t know me. Anyone who knows him in person would also know me, because we’re housemates. Those of you who know about Dinofarm Games might know about its lead designer and columnist Keith Burgun. 23 The Art Barn: The Cool Rules of Spriting