There are some thing you should consider when working with pixels. I'm starting off rather gloomy, but don't worry! It's all uphill from here. :wink.gif:
Investment of Time and Effort
Working on pixel art is a time-consuming and often difficult process. The more time you spend working on, and then refining a piece, the better it will look. This can often take hours, though the rewards are well worth it.
If you are not prepared to invest the time on your work, then it will look poop, regardless of how many tutorials you read.
Basic Art Skills
Basic art skills - knowledge of colour, texture, perspective, form and anatomy, as well as a fair bit of experience of looking at things, transfer just as well into this digital medium as they do into others.
Any inability to produce a sprite you are happy with may be due to a defiency in this area. If you can't draw a person on paper - or at least tell good art apart from bad, you may well struggle with pixels.
If this is the case, then brushing up on your basic art skills is a must.
Nothing Ever Works First Time
The first few iterations of your lineart or shaded image may often look terrible. Don't be disheartened - even the most seemingly hideous mistakes can be edited into something decent.
I quite often find myself working by the process of refinement. Once the latest version of your piece is complete, sit back and take a good look at it before fixing it. This 'tweaking' usually breaks down into a simple, 3 step cycle :
1 - What is wrong with it?
2 - How can I fix it? (Often defined by 1)
3 - Fixing it.
Look at this image, it took 20 minutes to get it the way I wanted it. Imagine what the 128x128 textures had to go through.
The Use of References
Often, you can make up for a lack of knowledge of your subject by working from relevant photos or other images. These can be found from a variety of sources, the most immediate being via a search engine on the internet, Google images is your friend.
You can also find new and interesting colours from photographs and other people's pixel art. Remember that direct plagiarism, including the editing of other people's work, is distinctly un-cool.
BLACK is the colour traditionally used for lineart. You might like to try experimenting with other colours.
For smaller game sprites, this lineart is often most easily produced using the single-pixel-width, free draw tool (with help from line and other shape tools), often placing down a single pixel at a time.
It is strongly advised that you edit every line down to a single pixel thickness.
This is a boring chore at times, but it does improve the appearance of your sprite. Failure to put in this effort shows in the reduced quality of the final piece.
SHADING
All objects have prescense in three dimensions. Their form becomes powerfully defined under a light source. Planes facing towards the source are illuminated. Planes facing away are starved of light and remain dim. On a two-dimensional computer screen, it is the job of this shading to convey a sense of form and depth.
Now that we have shape from our lineart, and the foundations of colour, we can variate that colour to really bring our piece to life.
Establishing Light Sources
In order to begin shading an object, it is important to first establish where light falling upon it is coming from.
For outdoor settings, or indoor areas with consistent overhead lighting, it helps to pick a constant direction for light to fall from. Some people like their light to fall from the upper left corner of their image, the right is good too.
This common kind of light all strikes your object at the same angle.
The Shading
With our light source firmly established, we can finally shade our object, starting with the simple example of a sphere.
But first, an example of what not to do :
This called 'pillow shading', a great evil spoken of by pixel artists in hushed tones. It is the work of the devil, and appears to assume a single point light source hanging directly between us and our object.
Do not, under any circumstances, shade a shape this - it looks rubbish. This sort of radial tone gradient is suitable only for a surface lit by a very close light source - like the burning torches above.
As stated above, however, our light falls uniformly from the top-right corner of our image. Bearing this in mind, I like to start shading an area with two new tones - one darker than the base tone (lower RGB values) and one brighter (higher RGB values)
The lighter tone should be applied to surfaces facing towards the light source
The darker tone should be applied to surfaces facing away from the light source
Our sphere immediately gains form and depth. We can enhance this effect by adding even more tones, above and below our two new ones.
A this point you may find your object appears to light or too dark and need to correct the tones you are using. This is not uncommon.
These principles apply even more simply to a flat-sided shape.
Thats the basic Tutorial! Heres how to render your work so it doesn't look like crap.
What not to use :
.BMP - 16 million possible colours for each pixel. Extremely inefficient for pixel-art storage.
.JPG - Lossy compression will smudge your nice crisp art in a variety of horrible ways.
What you should use :
.GIF - Saves images with up to 256 different colours. Small filesize allows fast loading. Loss of image quality only occurs when you excede 256 colours, though it is unlikely you will reach this point unless you are saving a composite of many sprites.
.PNG - Similiar to gif, except that it will allow you to save images with more than 256 colours without image loss. Technically better, but not well supported by Internet Explorer (boo, hiss).
I did make a TL;DR but I recommend you read this whole thing anyway.
Alright, where to begin...
Every single texture I have is made differently. When first beginning my texture pack, I used the default as a base instead of another HD-pack so that I wouldn't be tempted to simply copy their textures, change a tiny bit, and call it mine. Instead of grass, the first texture I did was smooth stone. Since I am horrible at pixel art, I used a real life image. As a tip to you, don't do this only. You must edit the hell out of the image that you get. This is why my texture for stone looks nothing like the image I began with. There are an immense amount of filters that I used to achieve that look. Next tip: when I started making other textures, I would use my own stone texture as a base. If you couldn't already tell, my dirt texture is basically just my stone texture with a bit of bumps and made brown . Tip: Use a professional image editor to do stuff. This kind of software will let you apply filters, shadows, noise, blur, bevel, etc. Pixel art is good for items, not blocks, in my opinion. Final tip: look at what you like in other packs. I used to be a painterly-fanatic. Thus, I looked at the blocks & items I loved from the painterly pack to inspire me to make my own variations of rhondox's work. All right that's it. Get to work .
TL;DR:
-Use the default as a base
-Use real life images for ideas/editing
-Make new textures out of your own older textures
-Make use of advanced filters found in professional image-editing software
-Pixel art is better for items, not blocks
-Look at other packs for inspiration
"Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say that there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe." -Frank Zappa
I don't know why I did this or even thought of it, because its normally a habit. As you see in my example I did that took me 20minutes to make it right the image text and image is a bit blurry. Why? Well I was an idiot and rendered (saved) the photo as a BMP. Image shack didn't help with the quality either. But my other examples are fine... Why? Because I rendered them as GIF. These steps are important. They might not seem like much but you will notice a difference.
I would like to point out that if you're creating a texture pack, it's very important that your light source be EXACTLY the same on every single texture and item... yeah it's really hard work, there's hundreds of them... but trust me, it pays off.
Another thing which is purely stylistic and optional- I never use pure black, even for lineart. Use dark gray instead. It will look black, but when you compare it to pure black you will see a clear difference. You will rarely find anything in real life which is pure black unless there is no light source (then how would you see it anyway?) Not to mention Minecraft of course applies shadows to your textures. (But light sources in game do not make them lighter, except for textures that give off light themselves, like the sun and moon.) So it is best to draw your textures as if they are receiving full sunlight, or else you will have a very hard time seeing anything in caves and such.
And never use pure white, unless you want to simulate a blown-out effect, which can be useful in some places but is very hard on the eyes.
Finally, I almost never use pure gray, my grays always have a little bit of color in them, even if you might not be able to tell. (one of the biggest things that bugs me about default is that it uses pure gray on all the stone textures...)
Investment of Time and Effort
Working on pixel art is a time-consuming and often difficult process. The more time you spend working on, and then refining a piece, the better it will look. This can often take hours, though the rewards are well worth it.
If you are not prepared to invest the time on your work, then it will look poop, regardless of how many tutorials you read.
Basic Art Skills
Basic art skills - knowledge of colour, texture, perspective, form and anatomy, as well as a fair bit of experience of looking at things, transfer just as well into this digital medium as they do into others.
Any inability to produce a sprite you are happy with may be due to a defiency in this area. If you can't draw a person on paper - or at least tell good art apart from bad, you may well struggle with pixels.
If this is the case, then brushing up on your basic art skills is a must.
Nothing Ever Works First Time
The first few iterations of your lineart or shaded image may often look terrible. Don't be disheartened - even the most seemingly hideous mistakes can be edited into something decent.
I quite often find myself working by the process of refinement. Once the latest version of your piece is complete, sit back and take a good look at it before fixing it. This 'tweaking' usually breaks down into a simple, 3 step cycle :
1 - What is wrong with it?
2 - How can I fix it? (Often defined by 1)
3 - Fixing it.
Look at this image, it took 20 minutes to get it the way I wanted it. Imagine what the 128x128 textures had to go through.
The Use of References
Often, you can make up for a lack of knowledge of your subject by working from relevant photos or other images. These can be found from a variety of sources, the most immediate being via a search engine on the internet, Google images is your friend.
You can also find new and interesting colours from photographs and other people's pixel art. Remember that direct plagiarism, including the editing of other people's work, is distinctly un-cool.
BLACK is the colour traditionally used for lineart. You might like to try experimenting with other colours.
For smaller game sprites, this lineart is often most easily produced using the single-pixel-width, free draw tool (with help from line and other shape tools), often placing down a single pixel at a time.
It is strongly advised that you edit every line down to a single pixel thickness.
This is a boring chore at times, but it does improve the appearance of your sprite. Failure to put in this effort shows in the reduced quality of the final piece.
SHADING
All objects have prescense in three dimensions. Their form becomes powerfully defined under a light source. Planes facing towards the source are illuminated. Planes facing away are starved of light and remain dim. On a two-dimensional computer screen, it is the job of this shading to convey a sense of form and depth.
Now that we have shape from our lineart, and the foundations of colour, we can variate that colour to really bring our piece to life.
Establishing Light Sources
In order to begin shading an object, it is important to first establish where light falling upon it is coming from.
For outdoor settings, or indoor areas with consistent overhead lighting, it helps to pick a constant direction for light to fall from. Some people like their light to fall from the upper left corner of their image, the right is good too.
This common kind of light all strikes your object at the same angle.
The Shading
With our light source firmly established, we can finally shade our object, starting with the simple example of a sphere.
But first, an example of what not to do :
This called 'pillow shading', a great evil spoken of by pixel artists in hushed tones. It is the work of the devil, and appears to assume a single point light source hanging directly between us and our object.
Do not, under any circumstances, shade a shape this - it looks rubbish. This sort of radial tone gradient is suitable only for a surface lit by a very close light source - like the burning torches above.
As stated above, however, our light falls uniformly from the top-right corner of our image. Bearing this in mind, I like to start shading an area with two new tones - one darker than the base tone (lower RGB values) and one brighter (higher RGB values)
The lighter tone should be applied to surfaces facing towards the light source
The darker tone should be applied to surfaces facing away from the light source
Our sphere immediately gains form and depth. We can enhance this effect by adding even more tones, above and below our two new ones.
A this point you may find your object appears to light or too dark and need to correct the tones you are using. This is not uncommon.
These principles apply even more simply to a flat-sided shape.
Thats the basic Tutorial! Heres how to render your work so it doesn't look like crap.
What not to use :
.BMP - 16 million possible colours for each pixel. Extremely inefficient for pixel-art storage.
.JPG - Lossy compression will smudge your nice crisp art in a variety of horrible ways.
What you should use :
.GIF - Saves images with up to 256 different colours. Small filesize allows fast loading. Loss of image quality only occurs when you excede 256 colours, though it is unlikely you will reach this point unless you are saving a composite of many sprites.
.PNG - Similiar to gif, except that it will allow you to save images with more than 256 colours without image loss. Technically better, but not well supported by Internet Explorer (boo, hiss).
-If you read this whole thing your a trooper!
Websites to help you:
Natomic
Google
Colinbr96 Gave me a Great Tip for HD TP Creators(Creator of Silkcraft):
SilkCraft Texturepack can be downloaded here: http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/251110-32x165-silkcraft-16-support/
I did make a TL;DR but I recommend you read this whole thing anyway.
Alright, where to begin...
Every single texture I have is made differently. When first beginning my texture pack, I used the default as a base instead of another HD-pack so that I wouldn't be tempted to simply copy their textures, change a tiny bit, and call it mine. Instead of grass, the first texture I did was smooth stone. Since I am horrible at pixel art, I used a real life image. As a tip to you, don't do this only. You must edit the hell out of the image that you get. This is why my texture for stone looks nothing like the image I began with. There are an immense amount of filters that I used to achieve that look. Next tip: when I started making other textures, I would use my own stone texture as a base. If you couldn't already tell, my dirt texture is basically just my stone texture with a bit of bumps and made brown . Tip: Use a professional image editor to do stuff. This kind of software will let you apply filters, shadows, noise, blur, bevel, etc. Pixel art is good for items, not blocks, in my opinion. Final tip: look at what you like in other packs. I used to be a painterly-fanatic. Thus, I looked at the blocks & items I loved from the painterly pack to inspire me to make my own variations of rhondox's work. All right that's it. Get to work .
TL;DR:
-Use the default as a base
-Use real life images for ideas/editing
-Make new textures out of your own older textures
-Make use of advanced filters found in professional image-editing software
-Pixel art is better for items, not blocks
-Look at other packs for inspiration
Thanks Colinbr96!
Thanks to http://www.natomic.com/hosted/marks/mpat/ for the tut!
Thanks for the reference I will put it in the tutorial!
Thanks :smile.gif:
Thankss <3 :biggrin.gif:
Thought I would help the community, seeing some people are having troubles why not dedicate my time to help.
I don't know why I did this or even thought of it, because its normally a habit. As you see in my example I did that took me 20minutes to make it right the image text and image is a bit blurry. Why? Well I was an idiot and rendered (saved) the photo as a BMP. Image shack didn't help with the quality either. But my other examples are fine... Why? Because I rendered them as GIF. These steps are important. They might not seem like much but you will notice a difference.
No thankyou, when my TP comes out I will credit you more! Why? Because im that cool, lol just kidding because you helped me alot with a great tip.
Another thing which is purely stylistic and optional- I never use pure black, even for lineart. Use dark gray instead. It will look black, but when you compare it to pure black you will see a clear difference. You will rarely find anything in real life which is pure black unless there is no light source (then how would you see it anyway?) Not to mention Minecraft of course applies shadows to your textures. (But light sources in game do not make them lighter, except for textures that give off light themselves, like the sun and moon.) So it is best to draw your textures as if they are receiving full sunlight, or else you will have a very hard time seeing anything in caves and such.
And never use pure white, unless you want to simulate a blown-out effect, which can be useful in some places but is very hard on the eyes.
Finally, I almost never use pure gray, my grays always have a little bit of color in them, even if you might not be able to tell. (one of the biggest things that bugs me about default is that it uses pure gray on all the stone textures...)