General Pixel Art Discussion Thread

Who uses the new MSPaint?

Hey guys, I used to be a big sprite artist for a bunch of MegaMan hacks. I gave up on it a few years back. Now that I have a new computer all I have is the 'new' MSPaint, does anyone use it still? I feel like it is so much different from the old.

I know that there are some people who still use MS Paint, even though the newer programm seems to be a little bit more annoying than the old one. I think I've used it a couple of times and finally installed Gimp which serves me quite better (also normally I don't use Windows anymore so I have to use alternatives to MS Paint xD).

I tend to just use it for spriting whenever I feel like it, just for fun. I prefer it over other programs. I just find it a lot easier to use and not much of a hassle.

It all comes to matter of preference to be honest. But having the basic tools is enough, pixel art shouldn't require fancy tools, gradients and all of that anyways as that starts to cross the line of whether it is pixel art or not. There are amazing pixel artists out there that only use the original Windows XP Microsoft Paint.

Previously, the whole Art forum use to have an official request thread that was later nuked mainly due to inconsistency and inactivity. Do you guys think it would be used if I made a little sticky thread over on Pixel Projects for requests?

Any ideas about this would be helpful, although it seems fairly simple to me. Requests can be made from several people and whoever wants to do a request would post the result and/or PM/VM the person who requested. This was the previous format of the old old old odldododldodldodollddldlldldd pixel art request thread.

Having a sticky in Pixel Projects might be a good idea. Although that probably still won't stop people from posting request threads in this section. :/

I'm sad. I see so many trainer sprites lately but no entries to the WPC. ;-;
i had to scrap it so, I'm going to be thinking and making a new one.

I have a suggestion of the next WPC, Logie. How about Mega evolutions? Since that's like the latest thing now, maybe people can make Megas based off other Pokemon.

blackmoonflower said:

I have a suggestion of the next WPC, Logie. How about Mega evolutions? Since that's like the latest thing now, maybe people can make Megas based off other Pokemon.

Click to expand...

I'm seconding this. No doubt people are fantasising on which Mega-Evo they'd like to see, and how they'd want it to look.

heej there, Im new to the whole spriting, but I've been wondering a few things and thought this might be the right place to ask.

Ive read some tutorials on trainer sprites and making pokemon sprites. Some give you a limit on the color palet for trainers (16) and even less for pokemon, why is that? and are there some sort of rules for tilesets as well? The few trainersprites I made through fusing some existing sprites I've kept limited to 16 colors, but some just require more colors to be how they were intended..

I'm pretty sure the limit is always 16 colors. (That's 15 + transparency as a 16th color) I'm not sure about tiles since I don't really make tiles, but for Pokemon and Trainer sprites, that's your limit if you're planning on inserting them into a GBA or higher hack. If you have no intention of using the sprites in a hack, then you don't really need to worry about the color limit.

Does the same count for fan made games, 16 color limit? Or is it not relevant there either?

15 (plus transparency color) color limit if you're hacking a ROM (It applies for trainersprites, pokémon and tiles). If you're making a fangame with an engine like RPG Maker or Game Maker, etc, there's no color limit unless you want to strictly follow the "rules".

I have a question to you guys about anti-aliasing: Is there a secret to it?
Anti-aliasing has always been a hard technique for me to master, there are so many types of anti-aliasing.

Like for example take a look at these mugshots: (Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors)



The shadows are pretty basic, but the anti-alias between them it's too 'perfect'. I was just wondering, what reasoning do you guys use to apply anti-alias to your works?
I'd like to know what different "methods" do you employ on this subject.

I'm no pro at anti-aliasing, but what I try to do is use a mid color between where two different shades touch, like your base color and your shadow for example. Placing so much as one pixel of a color that's a shade somewhere in between those two colors, usually along somewhat jagged edges, makes for a smoother transition and makes it look more "natural". I don't know if I really explained that right. It's 6 in the morning and I haven't slept yet. I might try to provide a visual example later on to better explain what I'm trying to say.

Anti aliasing (AA) is a very interesting technic.
It allow you to play easyli with colours, its very important.

Pixel artist use it in order to smooth their sprite or to allow some strange colours palettes in a sprite.

Here's an exemple with a really smooth piece, due to the AA
http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/78101.htm

For exemple, this guy use anti aliasing in order to make some variation of tone.
http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/76805.htm

Personally I use AA naturally, its a part of my style. I think its coz I like smooths colours..


You can read this tutorial, if you want increase your pixel skill
http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11299


There's a lot of possibility on pixel art, with anti aliasing or not, srsly.


Hovewer, you speak about a secret.. s

Hmm I can say something.
There's just one secret,in pixel art.
Just try everything. Pixel art is'nt just gamefreak,or mario or whatever,don't care about people, try everything, its the more important thing on pixel art, be free.

Thanks for the info, that's was really helpful.
According to the terms used in the tutorial, it seems that I'm not mixing sel-out and AA properly. Of course, it all depends on the look that I need for the work but most of the time I just use one of the two techniques.

Now that I'm free to use the number of colors I want (I used to make sprites for hacks and stuff like that), I'll be trying various combinations of techniques in order to get different results.

Finally I can have a deeper approach to Pixel Art (:

Silversnk said:

Thanks for the info, that's was really helpful.
According to the terms used in the tutorial, it seems that I'm not mixing sel-out and AA properly. Of course, it all depends on the look that I need for the work but most of the time I just use one of the two techniques.

Now that I'm free to use the number of colors I want (I used to make sprites for hacks and stuff like that), I'll be trying various combinations of techniques in order to get different results.

Finally I can have a deeper approach to Pixel Art (:

Click to expand...

Just remember that by AAing more than usual, you can get to blend in two colours that normally wouldn't go together. This is especially useful in sceneries, where the elements in the background don't blend in due to the dark outlines.

You must also remember to never overdo AAs, since that could make the outlines too thick and essentially ruin the image. If you're going for a more detailed style, however, you can use much AA and smoothen your image.

AA can also be used to make pixel versions of digital art (thick outlines, much blending, etc.) for showcasing. It just depends on the approach, as you may know :)

problem with pokepicDS (inserting new sprite)

I'm trying to insert a new sprite into diamond, i'm replacing the charmander first of all with my new pokemon just to see if it works, the front sprite is absolutely fine, however, the backsprite keeps messing up, in that certain shades are black ish and looks as if they are in 'negative' kinda, ill show you what i mean:

Here is my sprite im trying to insert (in the case, it's Avalugg):

http://i44.tinypic.com/2ustuet.png

However, this is what it looksl ike in POKEPICDS when i go back to it after scrolling through other images:

http://i43.tinypic.com/j0e9sw.jpg

What's going wrong here? My image is only 16 colours, my image is 160x80, 8bit depth, Al attributes, i'm using the exact same background pallete, whats going on? Even if i change the background pallete colour it won't change, it just reverts back.

Any help would be great.

Krakanous said:

I'm trying to insert a new sprite into diamond, i'm replacing the charmander first of all with my new pokemon just to see if it works, the front sprite is absolutely fine, however, the backsprite keeps messing up, in that certain shades are black ish and looks as if they are in 'negative' kinda, ill show you what i mean:

Here is my sprite im trying to insert (in the case, it's Avalugg):

http://i44.tinypic.com/2ustuet.png

However, this is what it looksl ike in POKEPICDS when i go back to it after scrolling through other images:

http://i43.tinypic.com/j0e9sw.jpg

What's going wrong here? My image is only 16 colours, my image is 160x80, 8bit depth, Al attributes, i'm using the exact same background pallete, whats going on? Even if i change the background pallete colour it won't change, it just reverts back.

Any help would be great.

Click to expand...

This is more of a rom-hacking question, but I'll leave it here for grabs. I don't know much about ROM-hacking tools myself, so I apologize. This is a pixel art sub-forum after all..