>top
Sauceless and spiceless, reductive in lieu of maximization, gormless, derivative and candidly unimaginative, diluted >bottom
Contemplative vivid tapestry, mise-en-scene that speaks for itself, future-proofed and anti-digital erosion, cathartic
It's best when there's some kind of self-imposed limitations to mimic the 8 or 16-bit eras. Otherwise what's preventing you from making a game with pixel art on par with Metal Slug?
>Otherwise what's preventing you from making a game with pixel art on par with Metal Slug?
Talent, skill, patience and a lack of autism. Those frickers made every little thing move and look smooth as frick, no way your modern indie is hitting that level of detail.
Well that's the funny thing. It would be a lot more effective to just know your limitations and try to mimic a 8 or 16 bit style instead of trying to fill every inch full of detail that still fails to capture the spirit of what you're trying to do. Like there's nothing wrong with doing pixel art as a style, but if the point is nostalgia, it better look like something you actually remember.
because literally no one else uses sub-pixel shading or whatever they called it (basically gradually changing the tone of pixels instead of distinct flat colours moving around the grid)
>Otherwise what's preventing you from making a game with pixel art on par with Metal Slug?
Probably the lack of the best pixel art team that ever lived working on death hours for years.
it's not realistic or viable in any capacity
if some homosexual spends 2 weeks on a single static 200x300 pixel image with no animations or anything, then how the FRICK do you expect to carry that same level of detail across an entire video game?
you only see artworks like this as just that: artworks
you will never, ever in a million years see a full-fledged video game that looks like this, unless the developers are morons who are critically mismanaging their resources (see: owlboy)
Metal Slug not only looks leagues better in stills, it has some of the most insane animation in any game ever on top. Saying it's not realistic is silly when it's completely doable, normalgays just don't want to buy it.
>if some homosexual spends 2 weeks on a single static 200x300 pixel image with no animations or anything, then how the FRICK do you expect to carry that same level of detail across an entire video game?
Multiple artists, tilesets, inbetweeners etc. Once you have a style and designs down, making the final assets is a breeze, games these days take 5+ years to make on average anyway.
>tilesets
the ironic thing is that if you actually broke down most of these types of artworks into a tileset, it would be incredibly unoptimized
games aren't made this way, you don't start with a fully rendered artwork and then break down the tiles into what you need, you can't do crazy baked-in rendering with a tileset because tiles need to be flexible and versatile
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
What the frick are you talking about, the point is that you can reasue drawings and don't need to draw the e.g. pillar in the background four times you can draw it once and copy it across the entire game, we don't even need tilesets these days with how powerful engines and layers are
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
use your fricking eyes and look at the artwork again
nearly every single pillar is done differently, the moss, ferns and cracks are placed differently, there is a unique part where the stairs are casting a shadow over the pillar, most of it completely unique
it's not that this type of tileset would not be technologically achievable - it's so bloated and it would require so many tiles to the point that it would be an unmanageable clusterfrick
also SNK games don't do this type of shit either, for obvious reasons
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
Nah anon it's mostly reused stuff that's then fudged around a bit to make it more unique, such a pass wouldn't take too long for a full game though if you just left it without the pass most people wouldn't notice.
>also SNK games don't do this type of shit either, for obvious reasons
Yeah they draw full unique background art for every scene at a much higher resolution and with more colors which is far FAR more time consuming than what was done here.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
Gottem.
Is it just me or should the fishman statue be a bit darker? It stands out a little too much for a backround prop.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
don't be a reductive c**t, it's not JUST rearranging tiles, it's also blatantly using unique tiles for very niche and specific parts of the level as well
the shadow from the stairs is a prime example of a tile that has no reason to exist >such a pass wouldn't take too long for a full game
yes it would, think about the logistics of this
it would require the game to be already 99% finished and set in stone, without the ability to rearrange anything after this point
then a phase of looking over each individual screen of the game in order to see what can be added
then a phase of adding baked-in stuff like rendering and detail on top
then a phase of turning those additions into new tiles
then a phase of pain-stakingly implementing said tiles in their correct positions
nobody does this, because like you said, most people wouldn't even notice
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
Anon like I said you don't have to make the game using tile logic anymore, you can just use tiles to make the whole scenes as images which will be shipped as assets, pixel art background PNGs are so small you can just make the entire game one giant PNG even if there's tons of repetition because it'd be like 10MB for the whole game at worst.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
>the shadow from the stairs
not a /vr/gay so I might be missing something, but is there any reason why you can't just have the shadow be part of the stair sprite and draw it on top of the pillar tile?
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
that idea mostly doesn't apply in a /vr/ context, especially not 8-bit consoles
you can't have shit hanging off of tiles, the shadow would have to be its own tile
but nowadays you can use lighting and shaders, pretty much anything as long as you plan it out properly
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
I didn't really mean shaders or anything, but just overlaying, same way you can gave the player character sprite on top of the background without obscuring a full square of whatever's behind it
...which I'm assuming wasn't possible at the time either, and you'd just get a blocky "shadow" following you around as you went, your sprite replacing the background tile?
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
actually wait what am I saying, you can see what I mean with the player's sprite overlaid atop the background right here
The use of negative space and black backgrouds in the NES games led to a sense of otherworldliness and uneasiness, especially during the boss fights. While it was the result of technical liminations (usually making the boss a background), it led to an artistic eeriness which is inseparable from video games for me. Shame this art is gone.
That's also why 8-bit games are probably the best creepypasta foils.
In the bottom one, the skeleton is readable. The top example, he blends in.
The right example is competent, but misguided in both art direction (not art style, that drives me crazy) and that there's a lack of separation between the gameplay and the scenery. A player should never have to guess what they can and can't interact with unless it's like an easter egg. In the original, the black is crucial to make sure your character and the enemies pop so you can immediately detect any changes as the screen scrolls.
This one works for me, the strong cel-shaded look gives off Capcom vibes. Since there's more detail, the little details like the shelf bowing from the perspective and the shopkeep's head turned just slightly are nice touches.
Value separation to make him and the foreground stand out against the background and make their silhouettes stronger, otherwise you get busy stuff like the right on here
Pixel art or pixel ART
Ironically you don't need that separation in this case since it's a static shop scene, whereas in the Castlevania example the separation would be useful since it'd be hard to tell apart the playable area and characters/enemies from the decorative background, you'd constantly be hunting around the screen
I like Pixel better but it's more a mater of the color and contrast used. Like if they recreated the bottom in a raster style near exactly, I'd still like it more than the top. Though the Player Character needs a redesign, dude is the least noticable part in the whole picture.
top pic looks awful because reddit artstyle
bottom pic looks awful because it's
1. purposefully drawn to look like average SNES shovelware
2. disproportionate with the size/look of the item and health GUI, zero effort put in
The top isn't really a problem but why the frick did they made the road completely iced over and insert a billion trees? The original looks better in that regard.
>left >165x65 >right >338x206
woah old pixel "artists" sure were dumb... why didn't they just triple the size like our modern pixel artist GODs??? it's just common sense
so glad we're out of the videogame dark ages their stupidity brought on......
top looks better because it's good raster art
bottom looks worse because it's only competent pixel art, although it does look more gamey and easier to read
overall I think pixel art is much easier to make look good if you have little art skill, since you can just go for NES / GBC style or just minimalism in general, which requires a bit more art knowledge in raster lest it look like a bad flash game (which raster has connotations with in general)
another example with pico-8, the color palette does a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of art since the choices are already made for you in such a limited palette and resolution
Wonder Boy 3 is one of the game's I'm most fond of. I still remember the wonderful days I spent as a child playing it with my parents. I miss you Mom, and I'll always love you.
>top
Sauceless and spiceless, reductive in lieu of maximization, gormless, derivative and candidly unimaginative, diluted
>bottom
Contemplative vivid tapestry, mise-en-scene that speaks for itself, future-proofed and anti-digital erosion, cathartic
>Top
>Shit art by middle schooler who wasn't bullied
>bottom
>Shit art by someone who didn't give a frick and thought NES graphics were "good enough", as is spouted in any entry level CS class.
>gormless
That's a funny word
What are most of these words
Let me translate to redditor for you:
>top
virgin, cringe, coal, locked
>bottom
chad, based, gem, keyed
basted
Pixel art or pixel ART
why did they make the fairly realistically proportioned characters into moronic chibi cal arts designs
Readability probably, you get to dedicate more pixels to each of the major forms and especially the face
It's best when there's some kind of self-imposed limitations to mimic the 8 or 16-bit eras. Otherwise what's preventing you from making a game with pixel art on par with Metal Slug?
>Otherwise what's preventing you from making a game with pixel art on par with Metal Slug?
Talent, skill, patience and a lack of autism. Those frickers made every little thing move and look smooth as frick, no way your modern indie is hitting that level of detail.
owlboy
was considered vapourware for literal years, took so long to come out that everyone forgot about it and it underperformed
There's Souldiers, but it's laggy as frick to the point of being unplayable.
Mercenary Kings
Well that's the funny thing. It would be a lot more effective to just know your limitations and try to mimic a 8 or 16 bit style instead of trying to fill every inch full of detail that still fails to capture the spirit of what you're trying to do. Like there's nothing wrong with doing pixel art as a style, but if the point is nostalgia, it better look like something you actually remember.
because literally no one else uses sub-pixel shading or whatever they called it (basically gradually changing the tone of pixels instead of distinct flat colours moving around the grid)
>Otherwise what's preventing you from making a game with pixel art on par with Metal Slug?
Probably the lack of the best pixel art team that ever lived working on death hours for years.
>left: a game
>right: non-playable artwork
almost like there's a reason why games don't look like that
There's no reason why a game wouldn't be able to look like that
it's not realistic or viable in any capacity
if some homosexual spends 2 weeks on a single static 200x300 pixel image with no animations or anything, then how the FRICK do you expect to carry that same level of detail across an entire video game?
you only see artworks like this as just that: artworks
you will never, ever in a million years see a full-fledged video game that looks like this, unless the developers are morons who are critically mismanaging their resources (see: owlboy)
Metal Slug not only looks leagues better in stills, it has some of the most insane animation in any game ever on top. Saying it's not realistic is silly when it's completely doable, normalgays just don't want to buy it.
>if some homosexual spends 2 weeks on a single static 200x300 pixel image with no animations or anything, then how the FRICK do you expect to carry that same level of detail across an entire video game?
Multiple artists, tilesets, inbetweeners etc. Once you have a style and designs down, making the final assets is a breeze, games these days take 5+ years to make on average anyway.
>tilesets
the ironic thing is that if you actually broke down most of these types of artworks into a tileset, it would be incredibly unoptimized
games aren't made this way, you don't start with a fully rendered artwork and then break down the tiles into what you need, you can't do crazy baked-in rendering with a tileset because tiles need to be flexible and versatile
What the frick are you talking about, the point is that you can reasue drawings and don't need to draw the e.g. pillar in the background four times you can draw it once and copy it across the entire game, we don't even need tilesets these days with how powerful engines and layers are
use your fricking eyes and look at the artwork again
nearly every single pillar is done differently, the moss, ferns and cracks are placed differently, there is a unique part where the stairs are casting a shadow over the pillar, most of it completely unique
it's not that this type of tileset would not be technologically achievable - it's so bloated and it would require so many tiles to the point that it would be an unmanageable clusterfrick
also SNK games don't do this type of shit either, for obvious reasons
Nah anon it's mostly reused stuff that's then fudged around a bit to make it more unique, such a pass wouldn't take too long for a full game though if you just left it without the pass most people wouldn't notice.
>also SNK games don't do this type of shit either, for obvious reasons
Yeah they draw full unique background art for every scene at a much higher resolution and with more colors which is far FAR more time consuming than what was done here.
Gottem.
Is it just me or should the fishman statue be a bit darker? It stands out a little too much for a backround prop.
don't be a reductive c**t, it's not JUST rearranging tiles, it's also blatantly using unique tiles for very niche and specific parts of the level as well
the shadow from the stairs is a prime example of a tile that has no reason to exist
>such a pass wouldn't take too long for a full game
yes it would, think about the logistics of this
it would require the game to be already 99% finished and set in stone, without the ability to rearrange anything after this point
then a phase of looking over each individual screen of the game in order to see what can be added
then a phase of adding baked-in stuff like rendering and detail on top
then a phase of turning those additions into new tiles
then a phase of pain-stakingly implementing said tiles in their correct positions
nobody does this, because like you said, most people wouldn't even notice
Anon like I said you don't have to make the game using tile logic anymore, you can just use tiles to make the whole scenes as images which will be shipped as assets, pixel art background PNGs are so small you can just make the entire game one giant PNG even if there's tons of repetition because it'd be like 10MB for the whole game at worst.
>the shadow from the stairs
not a /vr/gay so I might be missing something, but is there any reason why you can't just have the shadow be part of the stair sprite and draw it on top of the pillar tile?
that idea mostly doesn't apply in a /vr/ context, especially not 8-bit consoles
you can't have shit hanging off of tiles, the shadow would have to be its own tile
but nowadays you can use lighting and shaders, pretty much anything as long as you plan it out properly
I didn't really mean shaders or anything, but just overlaying, same way you can gave the player character sprite on top of the background without obscuring a full square of whatever's behind it
...which I'm assuming wasn't possible at the time either, and you'd just get a blocky "shadow" following you around as you went, your sprite replacing the background tile?
actually wait what am I saying, you can see what I mean with the player's sprite overlaid atop the background right here
on the left
Bottom, top looks too plastic. Might look better in motion though.
Right, looks like classic arcade graphics, Belmont looks kinda goofy but it's fine.
Not sure. If right is animated but left isn't then right, I guess. Something is off about it.
I don't like either of these. Bottom, if I have to pick.
Right.
I hate Twitter pixel art redraws like this or whatever you call them. It's not impressive when it's not actually a game.
The use of negative space and black backgrouds in the NES games led to a sense of otherworldliness and uneasiness, especially during the boss fights. While it was the result of technical liminations (usually making the boss a background), it led to an artistic eeriness which is inseparable from video games for me. Shame this art is gone.
That's also why 8-bit games are probably the best creepypasta foils.
I love the use of black in Mario 3 and none of the other games have that sort of feeling to them. A reason why I disliked the SNES remake
In the bottom one, the skeleton is readable. The top example, he blends in.
The right example is competent, but misguided in both art direction (not art style, that drives me crazy) and that there's a lack of separation between the gameplay and the scenery. A player should never have to guess what they can and can't interact with unless it's like an easter egg. In the original, the black is crucial to make sure your character and the enemies pop so you can immediately detect any changes as the screen scrolls.
This one works for me, the strong cel-shaded look gives off Capcom vibes. Since there's more detail, the little details like the shelf bowing from the perspective and the shopkeep's head turned just slightly are nice touches.
>The top example, he blends in
Your eyes need checking.
I like pixel art better. 2D drawn art never looks quite right in sidescrollers to me.
I've only seen a few games that managed to do it right
Both look awful
Raster art is pixel art, dumbfrick.
Other way around, all pixel art is raster art but not all raster art is pixel art
voxels
why did they turn that statue into a real man?
why do i get bara vibes from right
>2nd pic
Why is there a thick curtain of smoke right behind him? Did something catch on fire?
fart gas
Value separation to make him and the foreground stand out against the background and make their silhouettes stronger, otherwise you get busy stuff like the right on here
Ironically you don't need that separation in this case since it's a static shop scene, whereas in the Castlevania example the separation would be useful since it'd be hard to tell apart the playable area and characters/enemies from the decorative background, you'd constantly be hunting around the screen
>Raster art or pixel art
that's the same thing
see
Programmer art or artist art
soul vs soulless
Right is literally TOO good for this mobile-looking shit.
Yeah it's a travesty what snake chooses to spend his time on, dude should be the art director at Square Enix's remake department
I like Pixel better but it's more a mater of the color and contrast used. Like if they recreated the bottom in a raster style near exactly, I'd still like it more than the top. Though the Player Character needs a redesign, dude is the least noticable part in the whole picture.
Vector art so I can zoom infinitely
Bottom still needs work, the characters are less pronounced than the background. Ground tiles are awful. Needs more doodad in the scene.
the wonder boy remake literally gave more soul to the game
Both are soulful
top is better
but wonder boy remake, streets of rage 4 and the future shinobi game all look awesome
top pic looks awful because reddit artstyle
bottom pic looks awful because it's
1. purposefully drawn to look like average SNES shovelware
2. disproportionate with the size/look of the item and health GUI, zero effort put in
Wonder Boy 3 came out in 1989 dumbass
oh then it just looks like shit naturally my bad
>reddit artstyle
?????
Both of those are okay. I'd take whichever has nicer animation, with a slight preference for left.
The top isn't really a problem but why the frick did they made the road completely iced over and insert a billion trees? The original looks better in that regard.
pixel
>left
>165x65
>right
>338x206
woah old pixel "artists" sure were dumb... why didn't they just triple the size like our modern pixel artist GODs??? it's just common sense
so glad we're out of the videogame dark ages their stupidity brought on......
Bad raster art > bad pixel art
Good pixel art > good raster art
better art > art
Don't care. Just give me good gameplay.
bump so I can post some shit once I'm outta bed
Top except done like bottom would be the best. Top just lacks the same vibes.
top looks better because it's good raster art
bottom looks worse because it's only competent pixel art, although it does look more gamey and easier to read
overall I think pixel art is much easier to make look good if you have little art skill, since you can just go for NES / GBC style or just minimalism in general, which requires a bit more art knowledge in raster lest it look like a bad flash game (which raster has connotations with in general)
another example with pico-8, the color palette does a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of art since the choices are already made for you in such a limited palette and resolution
Wonder Boy 3 is one of the game's I'm most fond of. I still remember the wonderful days I spent as a child playing it with my parents. I miss you Mom, and I'll always love you.
I miss your mom, too.
Pixel art sucks outside of its time period. Dont make pixel art in 2024.
On the other hand Raster art never looked good and will never look good.
shit taste
Nah pixel art looks good