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[Dacke]

Whooops! I edited away, which is kind of cheating but I didn't want to make the epic thread this way.    :D

I use a big document for spell checking and it seems I managed to copy paste all the pages from it into that post.

[Cheater‽]

Dacke! He edits like a witch! A witch! A witch!

Ahem. I actually think Pixel art hasn't that much to do with nostalgia (although I'm sure nostalgia plays and important part for some people) but it's an artistic style. It's like wondering about why some people continue taking black and white photos.

[Melly]

Much like it's been said, pixel art is a style. It's minimalistic and restrictive, and making something look good within those restriction is still tough. You can't draw the details, so you have to imply them. This is what separates average pixel art from the best ones. It also lets you focus on other, widely considered more important aspects of art, like color theory.

[moi]

Yeah limitations create the genius. Without limitations, no art, no skills, no genius.
If you take a 2 color pixel art character, there are great chances that it will have a much bigger artistic value than any next-gen character in full 3D and shaders.

[Shambrook]

See I think I didn't represent myself well in my first post. I don't think that pixel art is bad, I think there's some absolutly gorgeous pixel art out there and admit that it can be done fantasticly, and I'm deffintly not talking about doing games in 3D. It was deffintly never ment as a slight against the pixel artists here, I've seen shit done by guys on the forum that I couldn't even touch.

But I started drawing in traditional mediums, then moved onto using tablets and shit on the computer wich I guess is why pixel art confuses me. It seems to lack a certin sense of fluidity that I love about drawing.

On the complexity thing, it just seems far more time consuming to be indvidualy placing every pixel then it would be just to draw it freehand.

A question for the guys that do pixel, when you start a sprite do you draw it first then pixel over it or do you just go straight to pixeling it?

[Powergloved Andy]

For me, pixel art is totally a nostalgic type of art to me, and I prefer it because it reminds me of my childhood. It's a throwback to the games I grew to love.

[Dacke]

I'm a bit curious; can anyone give a good example of a non-pixly/freehanded animated sprite? I would really like an example from a platformer.

[muku]

Um, Braid?

[Shambrook]

I'm a bit curious; can anyone give a good example of a non-pixly/freehanded animated sprite? I would really like an example from a platformer.

Alien Hominid, Castle Crashers, Wairo Land: The Shake Dimension, The later megaman X games on the PS1, Odin Sphere.

There are criminaly few.

[Zaphos]

On the complexity thing, it just seems far more time consuming to be indvidualy placing every pixel then it would be just to draw it freehand.

And then you know how some people are all like "who can actually enjoy putting all those little dots down? It's pointless and masochistic!" That sort of annoys me, 'cause it's not like we're actually placing the pixels one.at..a...time. It's no less complicated or tedious than drawing on paper, really.

 ... depends how you approach it, I guess.

[Annabelle Kennedy]

I'm a bit curious; can anyone give a good example of a non-pixly/freehanded animated sprite? I would really like an example from a platformer.

Alien Hominid, Castle Crashers, Wairo Land: The Shake Dimension, The later megaman X games on the PS1, Odin Sphere.

There are criminaly few.

the megaman x games on PS1 im fairley sure they used pre rendered cell shaded things.. to mimic the old pixel art look at a higher res it didn't look good. generally speaking i thought these games weren't even very good sort of stale really.

i cant say i really like the 'vector look' that the behemoth's games have although it is well done.  it just sort of looks like something you'd play in a browser.. and as lame as an argument as it is browser games generally aren't good - so just the 'flash look' gives me a bad taste in my mouth

odin sphere i suppose is an exception, it was very well done looks great!.. but for every one game that does the 'non pixel' look right about ten hundred others do it really really poorly.

[Shambrook]

but for every one game that does the 'non pixel' look right about ten hundred others do it really really poorly.

Couldn't the same be said of pixel art, and well... basicly any art style?

[Atnas]

Pixel art is like no other art form in that the smallest unit, the pixel, is capable of so much and so little. The artist has complete control over the medium, yet is forced to work with a grid. This makes for interesting uses of geometry, color theory, and overall design, while limiting most small scale sprites to only incorporate the key elements of what they represent.

This makes the medium perfect for games, intentionally or not. This is because some of the most important things for game graphics in general are color identity and readability.

 

[Zaphos]

odin sphere i suppose is an exception, it was very well done looks great!.. but for every one game that does the 'non pixel' look right about ten hundred others do it really really poorly.

The wario land game doesn't also get to be an exception?  I thought it had really slick animation
( here's a video:

)

Also I'm not sure where the ten hundred others doing it poorly thing is coming from, really, since it seems more like there's just not that many people doing 2d side-scrolling games with non-pixel sprites.

[Melly]

The new Wario game looks absolutely amazing. It's really like a good saturday morning cartoon in game form.

[Shambrook]

This makes the medium perfect for games, intentionally or not. This is because some of the most important things for game graphics in general are color identity and readability.

These things are acheivable in any other medium too though.

[Brother Android]

My honest opinion... vector graphics lack character, 3D graphics are too hard, I don't have a tablet, I don't have a scanner, and I don't think there's a sixth type of graphics. I guess the nostalgia thing is a big factor, too... as is the fact that artistically speaking, I suppose I am a minimalist. Regardless of the medium - music, writing, drawings, games - I don't like clutter or wasted space, and I believe in doing a lot with a little - starting with simple source material and taking it far. This isn't to say I'm there yet, but it's my goal... which is a large part of why I like pixel graphics. And I just like the way it looks... it shouts VIDEO GAME and all the things I love about video games, to me.

I'll admit - it's merely a preference. I won't claim that somehow it makes better games than any other type of graphics, because it doesn't, necessarily.

[Xion]

Yeah limitations create the genius. Without limitations, no art, no skills, no genius.
If you take a 2 color pixel art character, there are great chances that it will have a much bigger artistic value than any next-gen character in full 3D and shaders.

Okay, see, here, I think it's getting away from a medium thing and more towards a process thing. Generally speaking, pixel art characters are usually done by a single, or maybe two people, afaik, especially in the indie scene, which really brings the art to a personal level. The artists are much more invested in their creation, or at the very least, since they're working on it so closely, their own style shines through. A next-gen character in full 3d and shaders on the other hand, can have a team of people working on it, so any artistic value not intrinsic to the initial conceptualization is diluted through the artistic processes of a dozen people with different ideas. That's not to say it [the 3d medium] is incapable of having great artistic value in the context of games, it's just that the process it goes through does nothing to encourage a beauty of its own.
That may be why, I think, games with relatively small teams of artists tend to look better (in this case meaning more evocative) than those with armies of slaves: because those few artists are able to more clearly see, communicate, and consequentially implement their vision for the project.

But maybe I don't know what I'm talking about.

Also, new Wario looks delightfully ossum.

Also also, I think Behemoth is an example of vector graphics being done exceedingly right. The animations have character, (and so do the characters, for that matter), and nothing reeks of the laziness usually associated with vector graphics, like tweens, and paperdolling, etc.

[deadeye]

This makes the medium perfect for games, intentionally or not. This is because some of the most important things for game graphics in general are color identity and readability.

These things are acheivable in any other medium too though.

Yeah but it's hard to play a game done in acrylics on canvas.  At least in real-time.

[Annabelle Kennedy]

your right about the wario game definitely it looks fantastic..

Also I'm not sure where the ten hundred others doing it poorly thing is coming from, really, since it seems more like there's just not that many people doing 2d side-scrolling games with non-pixel sprites.

go to any 'flash arcade' and experience poor handling bad performance and ugly flash graphics : D

granted im way more bitter about this then i should be dont take me too seriously i know there are exceptions im sorry!!

(its just a personal preference)