HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

⬐ nathandaly

Their software page: https://nevercenter.com/pixelmash/

⬐ rlv-dan

Looks cool but, but I can't help thinking there is something about this that looks like "modern" pixel art. Probably works excellent for kids that like "pixel games" but for me something is missing compared to oldschool hand pixelled graphics.

⬐ shahar2k

I think a lot of what you're seeing is the rather basic color palette, snes and a lot of older games were very creative with their use of colors and much more subtle about doing things like adding basica textural detail to items, as well as just a general use of the "outline" which very few older pixel art games used (see anything by the bitmap brothers, or secret of mana for example) which can easily be fixed by removing these options.

these kinds of apps, while they get non-artists about 80% of the way... as the saying goes, the last 20% is 90% of the work :)

⬐ jimbo1qaz

Maybe autogenerated pixel art has less pixel-level detail than handcrafted art. Much like http://www.dinofarmgames.com/a-pixel-artist-renounces-pixel-... .

⬐ Adverblessly

There was some discussion of that post here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12505615

It is quite amusing to be that you bring up that post, because the 2nd comment thread (admittedly started by me) is about how the blog poster's own art looks like it was poorly downsampled from higher fidelity art, which is sort of the whole point of this post (except for the "poorly" part, obviously).

⬐ bluedino

The graphics have a EGA-vibe to them. Looks like shareware PC graphics (Commander Keen, etc)

⬐ rcthompson

I think it's because this is just down-scaling high-resolution art to lower resolutions. Old-school pixel art is not just regular art at a lower resolution (at least, not for the games that people remember fondly). It was designed to look a certain way on the CRT monitors of the time, which were very much not simple arrays of solid colored squares.

There's a really good article here about all the complexities of emulating a CRT monitor: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/KylePittman/20150420/241442/C...

⬐ Retra

Was it actually designed that way, or was it a happy accident? It probably wasn't designed that way for most games in any event. That article gets cited a lot, but IMO, it doesn't actually represent the main distinguishing stylistic differences that make these things appealing, which are more to do with mental inferences from missing information. A smiley is a relatable presentation of emotion because it doesn't present any subtle features to you. Lack of detail means greater generality, which becomes 'charm'. CRT noise probably isn't a major factor.

⬐ rcthompson

The behavior of pixels on a CRT is important because CRT pixels really don't behave like colored squares. For example, a diagonal line might look smooth rather than jagged because of the way the pixels blend together, even though the same pixels viewed on a modern LCD would clearly look like a zig-zag of squares. The people making the pixel art for games in this time period were definitely aware of how CRTs displayed their pixels and were designing accordingly.

Of course, you're right that it's not just a question of an old CRT being effectively a different artistic medium than a modern LCD. The best pixel art is carefully crafted to convey the impression of an image of much higher resolution than the actual pixels. There's several good demonstration of this idea in this article: http://www.dinofarmgames.com/a-pixel-artist-renounces-pixel-...

⬐ rlv-dan

Fun anecdote: One of the first graphics I made was a font, complete with smooth round edges. I had an Amiga connected to a CRT. Proud me took it to my friend to show off. He had a real monitor. My font looked like blocky crap :-)

⬐ Retra

>The best pixel art is carefully crafted to convey the impression of an image of much higher resolution than the actual pixels.

This is the kind of thing I'm arguing against. The "best" pixel art doesn't not convey what a higher resolution picture does. It conveys the important stuff and leaves the mind to interpolate the rest. You can do the same with high resolution art, as has been done in anime since forever. Leave noses off, don't draw lines between teeth, etc.

The article you linked, and the article about CRT filters are both over-cited and missing the big picture. (FFS, if the guy who "quit pixel art" knew what made it good, he wouldn't have had to quit it and publish a whiney article about how everyone else doesn't appreciate it.)

Good pixel art isn't good because someone designed it for a specific output or because it mimics high res art. It's not good because it blurs well on a CRT. It's good because it conveys something the observer can relate to and understand, just like any other art. The low resolution means that you have a medium which expects you to convey what is important from a distance and with a palette which allows ambiguity. Which is a major boon if that's what you're trying to do. (For instance, to avoid projecting a characters' emotions onto the player and instead let the player interpret their own emotions in the art.)

And the CRT article also manages to assert -- without any evidence whatsoever -- that the designer of old games made good art because they purposefully accounted for rendering on a CRT, rather than the equally likely possibility that this was an accident and that they were simply designing art within constraints that required them to choose what they really wanted to convey at the expense of other features. AKA, that they were just good artists regardless of medium.

⬐ rcthompson

How could the designers of old games possibly do anything other than design for CRTs? They were almost certainly looking at their art displayed on CRTs, and if it didn't look right on a CRT, they would adjust it until they did.

As for saying that pixel art conveys or implies a higher resolution image, I worded my point so poorly as to be wrong. It has nothing to do with resolution per se. You explained what I was trying to say much better: good pixel art presents an image with few details but conveys the impression of a much higher-detail image by encouraging the viewer's mind to interpolate. And you also make a good point that this feature is not unique to pixel art.

I also agree with your claim that the best pixel artists are simply good artists who happen to be working in the medium of pixel art.

Anyway, my original point was that you can't really get pixel art that properly conveys the important details and encourages the viewer to imagine the rest simply by down-sampling higher-resolution art.

⬐ Retra

They designed on CRTs, not for them. There's a subtle difference.

Imagine I'm trying to optimize a computer program. If I do it on machine A, then I'm optimizing on A, but only for A if I pay particular attention to the architecture of A to drive optimization decisions. On the other hand, if I'm making high-level optimizations -- like using more efficient data structures -- I'm still optimizing, but my program will still run just as fast in other environments, because the specific optimizations I'm doing aren't special features of machine A. So when you go for the low-hanging fruit first, you are satisfying general optimization principles.

I see no reason to believe that these artists were analyzing their art in the context of making it look good on a CRT rather than just making it look good, with the CRT being an incidental tool. I would imagine that most of this art was probably developed on paper before it was programmed, and most corrections thereafter were applied only to fix glaring mistakes. It's quite a stretch for someone to claim that this is processes intentionally took CRTs into account during the design, or that CRTs naturally make this style of art look 'better.' CRTs might provide some quirky nostalgia, but I don't buy it that we're somehow missing out on the 'intended' experience by not using them. That's just moral preening unless we've got an industry artist willing to detail the actual process they used and support the claim. (Like someone is trying to tell my burritos aren't 'authentic Mexican' enough to taste good.)

⬐ jcelerier

the app looks beautiful, they put Qt widgets to their best looks. I wonder if the idea was inspired by the demo pixel art program : http://blog.qt.io/blog/2018/03/06/slate-basic-pixel-art-edit...

⬐ huangc10

Might give it a try, but I like to draw pixel art by hand with graphing paper :) Just oldschool me.

⬐ yummybear

Interesting - I'm not sure it will be able to replace products like aseprite, but it might supplement them.

⬐ None

None

⬐ veli_joza

It's interesting to consider why pixel art is still around. Obviously it's not just retro nostalgia. One reason is that self-imposed constraints (both resolution and palette) are known to boost creativity and result in more consistent art. Another reason is that some gamers actually want low-resolution graphics, they can use imagination to fill in the details.

Personally I consider pixel art a very bad return-of-investment from artist time. This product tries to solve it, but given examples are very hand picked. I'd like to see how more complex situations are handled, like scaling of eye and touching/overlapping assets. Also, most of editor features would be better to have in runtime so that assets can respond to changes in lightning.

⬐ setr

At least part of it, I think, is that its easier to program a 2D game than a 3D game (and most pixel art is 2D), and its easier to have consistent and tested animations for pixel art than 3D art (far fewer frames, no tweening, less interactions, etc). It puts more of the burden on the artist, and less on the game developer.

I'm not quite sure about this, but I believe its also a lot easier to have a more performant game with 2D art than 3D, for both custom and standard game engines (outside of say, abusing unreal engine into a 2D pixel-art game), and I'm pretty damn sure its easier to have "acceptable" artwork out of pixel artwork than it in blender. ie misunderstandings of human anatomy shows up in both, but its a lot clearer in 3D than a low-res pixel art.

In other words, its time-consuming, but less skill-intensive, for sufficient results. If you have an artist who actually knows their shit, and a programmer/pipeline who can deal with it properly, you're probably better off with 3D (in terms of production rate), but if you're running solo and only really know one or the other (or perhaps neither?), pixel art is likely much easier to actually produce something.

>Also, most of editor features would be better to have in runtime so that assets can respond to changes in lightning.

I can't really think of any pixel-art game with properly dynamic lighting; at most a color pallet for light/dark areas, and maybe an opacity filter near special-cased objects like torches. Most granular really being two-pallet, with it switching colors at a pixel-scale due to a torch, which is just radially applied.

But like actual directional light, I can't really think of. Some 3D games with low-res qualities ie Devil Daggers, but nothing for 2D pixel-art

⬐ veli_joza

There is this popular 'trick' for 2D pixel art to use normal maps for dynamic lightning. I call it a trick because it uses 3D hi-res technology (shaders) to enhance 2D lo-res artwork. There are several indie pixelart games that use this effect and also many tools that help you create normal maps from pixelart. Here's an example: https://www.codeandweb.com/spriteilluminator

This shows there's a need for such feature. Embedding this editor's capabilities into engine would enable more control over result and more creative freedom.