10 most common pixelart mistakes by beginners
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 มิ.ย. 2024
- This is a list of 10 common mistakes I see beginners make all the time. I provide suggestions to solve each one
On my pronunciation of palette: English is not my first language so I defaulted to the Portuguese pronunciation which is similar to french, which I believe is the origin place of the word.
My links:
marcovaleKaz
twitch.tv/marcovaleKaz
marcovalekaz
DYA GAMES channel
/ @dyagames - เกม
video: *shows some pixel art as an example*
me: "wow that looks cool"
video: *this is an example of what NOT to do*
me: "oh"
me to banding and shading lmao
Honestly that's the problem with videos like this, saying that some methods are objectively bad. Sure, technicality is objective, but whether art is good or not is subjective.
I think doing mistakes like those don't prevent you from being good, but from being better
yea lol
@@lukealias1uk345 better in what regard, the binding of isaac makes all of these "mistakes" would you consider that game to look bad or cheep or poorly made? the value of the art is not determined by dumb rules set up by other artists. the value of art is set by the full product and it's perception amongst it's consumers. however i understand the need to teach these rules to beginners that are looking to enter the workforce because it is what is expected it will not necessarily make you "better" and no one should be afraid to use these techniques if they believe it would improve the final product.
"Gradients . . . no . . . just don't." Haha I love it!
specifically smooth ones
Though correctly and rarely used they can be used for some quite interesting, eye catching effects.
Gradients can look good too! But it really depends on the style of the game, it just shouldn't look out of placd
Hyper light drifter Joins the chat
Don't know what I would have done in Flash circa. 2003 without using gradients.
I feel like one more should be added: dont "rotate" pixel art graphics.
Yes, one of the seven deadly sins
In some cases I prefer rotated graphics, like character hand when aiming, or objects with physics. But it's more of a game thing, you absolutely shouldn't rotate in your drawing software
Came here to post this. Related to the size continuity, your pixels should only exist on a pixel grid. Sprite based hardware could rotate, but it looked choppy as hell. Sonic Mania did a good job of recreating this effect.
What about simulated Mode 7 effects?
Just be sure to rotate the object BEFORE scaling (I just keep everything at 100%, then scale the framebuffer when rendering).
Er, I think this is debatable. What about games like Towerfall? Rotating arrows is necessary unless you want to create countless variations of arrows at various angles.
Why did it took me so many years to realise why mari0 has so few scaling options and why you can't correctly fullscreen it on a 1080p monitor
Same for me with a different game.
Pizza Tower has 3 scaling options (1080p, h1080p, q1080p), and if you try to fullscreen it on a 1366x768 monitor, it looks bad-ish. Especially the text in the manual.
I think that was the fist thing I noticed after 3 seconds when activating the first emulator of my life.
The fake Metroid game am2r can't be properly scaled to 1080p
Same with the first Risk of Rain game, some resolutions look awful or it just doesn't scale
@@bland9876 "fake Metroid" ༎ຶ‿༎ຶ
"Stretching and rotating sprites isnt sprite animation, its flash that looks uncomfortable"
Starfy!!!
@@sansaraee :3
The only time that has ever looked good was when it was done in Mode 7 or the Sega equivalent.
@@Dargonhuman Hhhhhhh
They are both valuable tools. While I agree that the lazy method (diagonal/stretched pixels) looks ugly, that doesn't mitigate the fact that pixel rotation is a valid option. Just respect the grid.
Oh, cool, I don't make any of those mistakes
I still draw like shit though
Yes, this is me
Same
its ok to draw in any quality
@@morgankasper5227 Inspirational
Neither do I. Well, I actually don't even do pixel art but that's another point.
While I agree with the overshading argument, I think it can look kinda interesting in some cases.
Overshading in a way displays the skill of the artist and can make interesting art styles. But usually when begginers do it, they lack the control or restrain to keep it from looking blurry.
@@MarcoValeKaz They look good when using real scale on HD screens, small characters on large play field.
the overshaded character will look sharp and shiny 3D-like.
@@MarcoValeKaz A good example of that is Sonic Mania. Where it does look like it was quite a lot of shading, but if you inspect the color palette of the character, it shows that they make sure the color are limited to 24 palettes, for instance for Sonic, the shading of the eyes is actually use the same palette for white object on his glove, but because it's blend with his blue color, it almost like it was overshading even though it was use the same palette as the gloves.
Like other things on the list, this completely depends on the style of the game and the reasoning behind it. I think he got a little too "black and white" in his arguments. Sometimes there are good reasons to shade more, use gradients, etc... The most important thing is to keep the style consistent for each project, so that the art doesn't conflict throughout...
The new Minecraft textures are overshaded.
I think overshadobg is just people trying to add in as much detail as possible in too little of a space
Yep, that was what I was thinking when I overshaded...
@@sansaraee overshading can look very good with experience to make it properly, so its not strictly bad
Yeah, no shit
@@lethauntic ? Someone’s got a stick up their ass...
@@lebendigesgespenst7669 a very sharp stick
"Don't use gradients in pixel art."
Hyper Light Drifter would like to have a word with you.
This video is more intended for beginners. The devopers or hyper light drifter are experienced enough that they can both bend the rules and make an art direction out of it. But yes, gradients can be used. Just make sure to steer away from them when you are staring to avoid solving shading with a basic gradient
@@MarcoValeKaz Welp, I really didn't expect you to reply to my honestly tongue-in-cheek joke comment. But it is cool to see a TH-camr staying on top of things like comments, especially if they're assisting in expanding others' knowledge by doing so.
@@ZarHakkar you make a valid point
Nice profile pic!
@@curse7469
Hell yeah boyee!
The heart at 4:30 annoyed me so much by just looking at it
Triggered and angry rn
and 1:08 ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh
@@t4ky0n Yeah same
Same
also the pun at 4:50 "really close to my heart"
Overshading...
Mario Kart pixel fanartists: *chuckles* I’m in trouble.
zippee playZ danger*
@@QS1597 chaos*
Point about banding: real life lighting isn't that simple. The type of lighting you described applies mostly to open areas with a single light source. Most of the time real lighting is way more diffuse because it bounces off multiple surfaces, specially indoors, it is not that common to see objects with a well-defined shadow line. I much prefer SNK's sprites as they feel more solid and dynamic, Capcom's look bland and flat.
Much more important: If you draw sprites banded like that, you're giving the programmers an amazing tool to create beautiful dynamic lighting effects by manipulating the pallete colors of the character.
Real life is not that simple, but also the academic method is not 100% true to life. Its a gradual process. In my course I teach both the direct light shading, and the adding of bunced light form the scene. But its a complex theme. The biggest issue is the banding, since if people use banding, they usually don't leave room for bounced light
yeah i was surprised at how he used snk's sprites as an example of "wrong". wtf? They're just less cartoony than capcom's.
@@GraveUypo the original snk sprites are used as an example of banding done right, and of how they solved it, and the capcom is an example of the core-shadow grouping.
@@MarcoValeKaz ok, then
@@MarcoValeKaz Oh, I came away from the video thinking you were using the SNK sprites as an example of what not to do. That surprised me, since I thought they did it much better.
literally everybody:
Minecraft skin makers: 9:52
Yeah. Ive noticed nowadays that these new bedrock skins its like 128x128 now or something. And the creators really overused it.
I really dislike those generic faces skins
I fucking hate overshaded minecraft skins and texture packs. Fucking keep it simple
@@raxo4009 They are just 64×64
oop
9:25 "Mistake no. 7: Gradients. No. Just don't."
Concise and right to the point, love it
"The transition from the light side to the dark side is a little harsher."
I mean, the high ground scene was somewhat harsh tho...
@@asmylia9880 I have a timelapse of a "Force awakens" mockup in my channel!
My dad said there was a book where Luke Skywalker became a Sith because he learned everything he could by being a Jedi so that was the only way he could learn more about the force
Read this exactly as he said that XD
@@bland9876 Could you get a title? I'd like to see if my local library has it.
the 150% scale mario looks like he's seen some shit
In which a professional pixel artist doesn't know how to pronounce "Palette"
(All in good fun. Very good tips.)
pAlette or palEtte ?
PaLETTE... Makes me cringe.
@@pgtd
I always said it as PAL-IT. I've never heard PUH-LET until this video.
*Accent and how pronounce it doesn't really matter. But for professional you should try to pronounce it correctly*
The word is originally French, and has gone through several iterations of meaning. Pronunciation at this point is entirely moot, especially since the way he's pronouncing it still clearly indicates what the word is without confusing it for any other.
12:53 "You did not get the point of pixel art."
Pun intended? Haha
_“Dithering is an automated process”_ and I thought “hey wait a second, hand-drawn dithering is used by talented artists to…” and then you mentioned Mark Ferrari, whom I've worked with (at Griptonite Games). So yup, different strokes for different folks.
As a pro tip to improve your handle on using dithering properly (which I learned from Mark Ferrari and others), it can be intensely useful to have a palette of dithers pre-made (such as in a separate PSD with color layers set up so you can rapidly swap which colors you're dithering between), varying in the angle and pattern of dither used, and including pre-made dithers for corners of 3D objects from different perspectives, and curved surfaces of different slopes and “materials” (a metallic surface dithers differently from concrete or wood or skin). Then when drawing the pixel art, you can copy-paste in pieces of dither and modify as needed. (Mark uses *a lot* of copy-pasting.)
Mark is a legend. I saw his gdc talk. His work is unmatched!
I wish that every 10-yo on Scratch could see this video.
Same with most Minecraft skin makers.
Most of them are overdetailed to all hell.
Do you know how the editor on Scratch works? Some of these can’t be fixed on Scratch.
RandomRows
They can
I import sprites and they're fine.
The fact that i gave up on scratch to do pixel arts is awkward af
I don't even do pixel art but felt like this grilled me.
saving the image as a jpeg
So png is better?
Tahm Kench On Top yes
@@shagarakar I always confuse the two lol. Thx
@@mattontop Yes. Png supports transparency and jpeg doesnt. And sometimes jpeg has bad compresion.
@@oscwavcommentaccount oh k. I knew one of them supported transparent backround and the other didnt. Thx for the help
Lots of great info here! (that I will never use)
Is that Linus Tech Tips staff talking?
A lot of these came naturally to me over time but I still learned a lot. The excessive shading one especially used to be a pitfall I would fall into.
Honestly, one of the best videos about pixel art that I have ever seen. A real eye opener.
This is fantastic! As a pixel artist myself I taught myself all of these when I first began years and years ago and anytime I play a pixelart game these things pop out to me and in most cases are a red flag! Like you said; It's not that the games are necessarily "bad", but rather they could have been rushed, or more likely, they simply don't know any better.
If I may point out another mistake: "Overuse of Black Borders". I find too many amateur pixel artists use black borders exclusively rather than an appropriate complimenting color. Black borders are fine in a lot of cases, but after you're done doing the art, take a moment to replace the black with other colors, see how it looks. Take the skin tone color and darken it by 20% and use that, see how it looks. Same with armor tones, etc.
That heart pissed me off so much.
Am I the only one who laughed everytime he said "pulette"? am i crazy? have i been saying it wrong my whole life?
You're not crazy, he says it wrong. (Unless it's some really obscure regional pronunciation)
@@xphreakyphilx He sounds like he's from Portugal, so, I'd bet he just said it wrong unknowingly, as a Portuguese man myself.
I Learned a Lot like 8/10 of these are new ground to me. THANK YO
Having just discovered dithering yesterday, I can say I spent plenty of yesterday making mistake number 9.
Dithering in it self isn't wrong. Its when you dither excessively instead of looking for other possibilities.
Please keep dithering away!
Dithering is very hard to master
Awesome video! I knew about most of these to varying degrees subconsciously, or some I never attempted.
Having the examples really helped it all sink in! Thanks
you don't know how much I needed this , thank you so much for making this video .
Fun fact: the rules change if you are making a different kind of game
Mfw I used to pillow shade
Mfw I now use banding
very nice video explaining some of the tribulations of pixel art, keep it simple, work within boundaries.
been thinking of testing out doing some pixel art for fun.
especially the example of banding and grouping colors together really got me intrigued,
i really liked the pixel art they did for KoF so i'm definitly gonna use that as a reference point in the future.
This is an incredibly useful video, it both solidified what I already know in words, and also taught me new things I wasn't thinking about before this. Thank you for this video.
Did this video got recommended just for that minute about terry?
Yes
IMFERMO yes...
Scott Pilgrim-
VS ZA WARUDO!
As a side note to do with "defining a light source", historically in classical art training you would set the light source (the sun as default) as if it were coming from the top left unless there was a good reason to do otherwise (probably something to do with where the sun rises and sets or something like that). Similarly, when moving a character you move them from left to right to indicate moving forward in time and travelling to a place over some time (and from bottom to top in the same way), again, unless you have a specific good reason for doing otherwise. This is probably why almost every 2D platform game has you moving left to right--it just feels right. Moving right to left would indicate travelling back to somewhere you came from and/or back in time as it were.
Incidentally, the "natural" direction of progress varies from culture to culture-or more precisely, from writing system to writing system. For instance, Japanese has traditionally been written from right to left (though Western writing direction is also common these decades), so Japanese visual media often treats left as forward instead of right. There are exceptions, of course, but there are also Western games where progress is to the left-they're just less well-known and influential than Super Mario Bros.
@@timothymclean Yeah, I imagine that's the case in some examples. I haven't actually seen many games where going left is the norm personally.
What brilliant video! I've been doin pixel art, animation and games on and off for twenty years. This was really spot on!
Creating pixel art is something I've decided to finally learn, so this was helpful. Thank you!
The video has some good advice, but it's also pretty opinion heavy. A lot of these kind of "mistakes" can look fine in the right context and if the artist knows what they're doing.
But you gotta know the rules to break them, I suppose.
I like Super Mario World’s pixel art. It doesn’t have any specific lighting but the style of game makes it work.
I like your style in explaining. Other youtubers and people just do a bad job and talk about of topic things.
Thanks for this! I honestly didn't even know that you could mess up with dithering that bad, and now I'm seeing quite a lot of flaws in my work which I feel like I should've noticed sooner
I love how u present mistake number 7 ^^
When I was in middle school and first starting highschool I loved drawing pixel art on ms paint or gimp.
I like this video and found out now I really didn't many of these mistakes so I must not have done half bad lol
short, concise and to the point, and incredibly helpful! thank you very much!
Thank you for the continual updates! Great video.
Another thing to add in:
Try and make both a monochrome and a colored version of your sprite. Look at them both and say "does my sprite show what it is just through black and white", if yes, look at your colors and make sure that they compliment the sprites general form and read-ability. If no, adjust the shape to be easier to read and then repeat the process.
I can’t be the only one who thought the overshaded Knight dude looked way better than the less-shaded one, right?
you are
no I think so too
🍿🥤
You are
yes
This is some really crucial information that makes me more confident to dive in deeper into pixel art, thank you for this video
Watched this on a whim thinking I wouldn’t learn anything new but I did. Thank you for posting this, I will be using this as reference material for myself and friends seeking advice.
Almost threw up at that gradient art lol
“Mistake“ one is wierd. There's nothing wrong with good filters that aim for the crtv look. old school games never looked that pixely on their hardware to begin with.
I have to agree, I look at a lot of pixel art games, and they never looked like that in the old school days, so it's one thing to want to have that pixel art look of the past but at least they should give it the kind of look for how we remembered them on crt screens but on lcd screen and to me, a lot of pixal art games look even worse then what I remember many games of the past looking like.
Most of the filters aren't good though, and cause clipping along the edges of the sprite. Old CRTs may have added a bit of subtle blur, but the blur is more akin to FXAA than texture filtering (and I'd highly recommend checking out this difference, in fact - if you play an old sprite-heavy game like Doom, for example, with texture filtering? Looks awful, like everything is plastic... but with an overall screen softening effect from FXAA or the like, it looks softer without looking necessarily blurry)
@@NicholasBrakespear True there are some bad attempts out there to recreate the crtv -look. But also some very good yet rather hardware hungry solutions. When I play old arcade games on mame I always use some crtv-filters. My eyes just can't watch them pixelated. It simply feels wrong. Some new filters really look astonishingly correct. At least when I compare it with my memories. You even get a headache from watching it like in the good old days ;) There are many new great looking clean pixel art games around. One contemporary example is Blasphemous or Blazing Chrome. But those games were usually designed with superior modern hardware power in mind and make up with effects that wouldn't have been possible on real 16-Bit machines. With this kind of artwork I don't miss any filter at all. It is good as it is. To make a long thing short: It can go both ways and look cool. By the way guys! Check out The Last Door. It is such a great example of what you can do with minimalistic pixel graphics and good sound design.
@@NicholasBrakespear This is the right answer. It's texture filtering that is the mistake, not "filtering" in general.
The fact that texture filtering is on by default in Gzdoom is maddening.
Even if you are using RGB cables with professional quality CRT monitors, old games don't have that sharp and starkly colored look that many indie games have today. That's not to say its a bad look, and you could argue its more fitting for modern LCD displays. However, it is less truly retro than many people think.
In the case of modern pixel art, games tend to look sharper without any additional filters applied.
Very informative! Subbed because of this, this guy knows his stuff.
Thanks for the vid, very clear concise points! Well done.
Those first two points were also my first obstacles when I tried learning to animate those sprites (also those exact mario world sprites). When I didnt save the spritessheets correctly (as a PNG or GIF) but somehow saved it as a jpeg instead, they'd get slightly blurry and I couldn't propperly cut them out of the spritesheet anymore (at least not clean on MS-paint), and i'd be left with nasty-ass white edges around the character (or whatever the spritesheet color was). So not knowing PNG was mostly the way to go. I saved all spritesheets from games i'd find as BMPs. Needless to say my resource folder became quite huge in size. And rendering a video in moviemaker took forever (since every frame of animation i saved as a BMP too).
The scaling thing is just annoying to see. Something I hope most everyone notices straight away when trying to scale up their character. If you don't scale up your thing in a measure of 100% and you don't see any problems with it straight away or when editing it. Then you just don't have a good eye for pixelart. Or just bad eyes in general.
Pretty much all of the points in the video i've dealt with as well, with me still being kinda guilty of the 'pillow-shading' thing sometimes, for indeed the reason of not defining an actual light source.
Could've used this video 8 years earlier mate! xD
BMP is fine if you would've saved in indexed (paletted) colors and used run length encoding. uncompressed 24-bit (alpha channel doesn't exist and is reserved) bitmaps are definitely the incorrect choice for pixel art.
3:00
150% Mario is mood
Just got started w/Aseprite a few weeks ago, thanks so much for this stuff it's really helpful when you're a total beginner.
Man, I wish videos of this kinda quality existed years ago when I actually started pixel art. It would have saved me so much time figuring out all these things on my own just thru trial and error. Most all that was around when I started were those old forum posts that would call certain techniques "wrong" or "bad" and would just generally push people away from using those techniques at all.
The "banding" example... they were not really about banding at all but rather a particular style of Shading.
Both spheres where showing banding, but one with a way softer ambient light, the other with a single directional light.
Gradients:
There are many good uscases for gradients, but that normally requires some in-depth knowledge and mostly used in conjunction with pallet-swaps. They can for example be used for very nice dynamic lighting or for simple texture-animations.
Dithering... No, simply no.
That was not about excessive dithering but just using a poor procedural dithering without giving the tool the necessary information.
One of my favourite example of dithering: Final Fantasy 9 - it is used to simulate transparency and gives a really nice effect.
In the first sphere, it honestly looked less like a sphere and more like four discs strung together. Arguably using a 1px-thick line for *both* transitional colours in the second sphere looked odd din its own right, but it was more obviously a sphere than the first example.
Every time I see a non-interger scale I have a mini aneurysm
Dude the shading/lighting part just fixed everything, great video.
I'm just starting pixel art as a hobby, and this video will really help me a lot! Tnx!
I like how he pronounces palette like paulet. Like, "My name was Paul. But now I'm Paulette."
Cara, só notei que você era português na hora de você mostrar os sprites dos jogadores de futebol e falar os nomes dos criadores. Seu inglês é ESPETACULAR parabéns mesmo pela sua arte incrível e ótimas dicas. Abraços brasileiros
PERAI ELE É BRASILEIRO?!
i’m just starting to learn pixel art during quarantine 2020 so thank you for these tips! excellently explained!
really helpful video.
Just started studying Computer Games Development. Your tips are good and you're giving nice examples ^^
Had a suspicion from your name that you were Portuguese, the "pixeis" at 4:56 confirmed it hahah. Great video!
Common voice recording mistakes:
1) Too much low-end that muddies up the speech
2) Not enough sibilance frequencies which impedes clarity
3) No compression, making low dynamics difficult to hear
Thats actually very helpful! Ill be mindful of that in the next video. Thank you
Chris you should do a video about them! please!
@@ShinyShilla There are hundreds already. Do a quick search and you'll find just so, so many.
@@ChrisHanline Sorry for the spam, the websited kept saying my comment was not submitted due to an error! I'm saddened you would not like the idea of a tutorial :( I'll search some online
4) Saying Pa-let
Great video for people getting into it. I find this fascinating because whilst all of these are great starting points all of these rules can be broken if you know what you are doing. And yes I mean all. I feel like often newcomers really want to write a novel but don't realise that they need to be able to write a sentence first.
Clever stuff indeed! Well done and thank you!
Hey, really like you content! Where are you from?
I'm from Portugal
Why am I watching this - I dont even make pixel art lmao
Same
The Eye of the Critic has been bestowed upon you. You won't be able to play your next pixel art game normally
@@PabbyPabbles oh no
some amazing advice here IMO. I don't consider myself a master pixel artist by any means, but this guy makes a lot of sense and proves it with some terrific examples. I'll keep all of this in mind next time I go get the urge to go amateur pixel artist
Thank you so much. You've solved my issue in a minute!
I realized I kept squinting my eyes nearly shut while watching this and it took me a second to understand why... seeing pixel art scaled up to such a huge size in youtube (while fullscreen especially) makes it hard to see the characters, it looks like a collection of squares. So I was kind of blurring my vision to give 'fake shading'. A nicer solution is to ctrl+mousewheel down a few times, shrink the YT video to a small size within the browser, and suddenly all the artwork makes sense.
there are no mistakes. just happy accidents.
I'm not a pixel artist, but i still find this extremely interesting and educational. I've always been fascinated by game design and pixel art is my absolute favorite within the genre. Now, i don't know why i was randomly recommended this in youtube but i am really glad i was.
To the point (to the pixel? eh?) and well made video! Loved it.
7:50
The "mistake" looks better than the "solution"
no
it does though
@@aliasmcgames in cartoons light doesn't need to be perfect
true
"Palette" is pronounced like "pallet". Short A, not short U
The "Paulette"
I personally spell it "palette" and not pallet
It. Depends. On. Where. You. Live.
People can pronounce things differently.
@@RyanTosh nope
@@kaizobit-gaming8485 You do realize I was using "pallet" as a pronunciation example, yes?
This is great advice not only for beginners but it’s good to be reminded about these things even as a professional
Jumping back into pixel art after 20+ years. This is great advice!
I actually prefer the 'overshaded' one to the 'fixed' version. I don't know, there's just something about it that appeals to me.
because that's how 16 bit games used to be shaded like. it does look better.
Same, It's the only rule I don't agree with, and his reasons against it are quite subjective.
Yeah some of this is very subjective. There was an era where even 32bit pixel art was used. It doesn't mean bad, just a stylistic choice. Not everything needs to look like 8bit or 16bit art.
It looks like a gba game
I like the Terry by SNK over the capcom version. More colorful and detail
As someone who loves making pixel art, this was very informative. Thank you
These were great - thank you!
8:11
And here we are now (:
google "how to make crepes"
10:07 i like the overshading more then the smooth one...
idk his face kinda looks like porridge
@@tomh2572 indeed
Because you're not understanding the actual way it will look once you zoom out the characters to normal scale. The second one will read much better at actual scale.
Fantastic video. I learned a lot! Subbed
Wow, this video is really good! Thank you for all the knowledge.
Just dropping my comment before this hits the algorithm hard
I dont even do pixel art so why did I watch the whole vid
procastination
HempLemming I feel personally attacked
Maybe try it and you might like it bro
That banding tip actually is quite helpful, thanks!
I liked that you gave a practical solution for point #1 - nice
shows guy with pillow shading: Thats nice!
shows him with real shading: ... wtf? ...
What annoys me with "today's" pixel art is the lack of antialiasing. That's something that you were rarely encountering in arcade games for several reasons (crap CRT's + the fact you weren't paying as much attention), but that was *key* on computers. To me, the masters of pixel art are/were the Bitmap Brothers. Of course at that time everyone was dreaming of a higher res & more colors, hence hand-drawn antialiasing, and what you would call excessive use of dithering. Yet, it is still the best pixel art in my book, and I prefer it over self-satisfied artwork where pixels are too visible.
Of course, one might argue that what the Bitmap Brothers were doing, today they would go for high-res cartoonish style, a bit like the visual remake of Spelunky. Still, when you take a look at games of the Amiga era, you'll see quality & detail that you rarely see today. Today's pixel art is certainly more artsy & original, but it's too self-satisfied, IMHO pixel art is about handcrafted art using pixels, it's not about *seeing* the pixels. Yeah it has its charm, a bit like Sierra's old AGI style has its charm, but it's pompous when seeing the pixels is seen as the form of art, where it's just a way to to speed up the workload.
I do a lot of hand-drawn antialiasing. The main challenge is finding a balance between too little and too much, especially if you're shooting for a true retro (no alpha transparency) look, in which case antialiasing between objects and what falls behind them is a no-go, since it would require semi-transparent pixels to achieve that... This is why too much can look bad, as it will create a strange look - lots of blending on the inside of the stroke and none on the outside. Very unpleasant to look at - so this should not be overdone.
@@Tim.Hammer But I don't think that sprites with an alpha channel go against pixel art. Even technically, color-keying is a thing of the past, so even just for efficiency most likely an engine would better use an alpha channel anyway.
But in the past, artists generally had an idea of the darkness of backgrounds and generally it was fine, only sometimes passing a sprite looked bad passing over a bright sky.
There are also other reasons to do every sprite with an alpha channel, and transparency was sometimes used in old games.
@@anothergol Of course. Not denying any of that. In fact, I've used mostly dark backgrounds myself as a way around that. I prefer to avoid transparency also for optimization purposes.
Ok boomer
Incredibly helpful, thanks for this!
thanks for making this video, now i understand i have to avoid the mistakes in pixelart