3D pixel art?
polycounter lvl 8
This is kind of a strange question to ask around here, but if anybody knows the answer it might be you guys.
Im finally working on my very first video game! As the sole artists on the project designing icons, buttons, and small 2d representations of in game assets for the interface ended up on my to do list. I have never actually done anything like this before, so I just did what came naturally and modeled the whole thing in 3d to take renders from. I took those renders into PS, cut them into their required sizes, cleaned up the edges and indexed the colors.
I thought it all came out pretty nicely, but afterward I decided to do some research into how pixel art is normally done. I was a little bit surprised to not see any references to this method at all. It seems like it would be much faster than painting individual pixels, especially if there is complex lighting or any sort of animation involved. So my question is: Did I do something wrong, is this a secret pro method that nobody talks about, or is what I did called some other name that I should be researching other than "pixel art"?
Im finally working on my very first video game! As the sole artists on the project designing icons, buttons, and small 2d representations of in game assets for the interface ended up on my to do list. I have never actually done anything like this before, so I just did what came naturally and modeled the whole thing in 3d to take renders from. I took those renders into PS, cut them into their required sizes, cleaned up the edges and indexed the colors.
I thought it all came out pretty nicely, but afterward I decided to do some research into how pixel art is normally done. I was a little bit surprised to not see any references to this method at all. It seems like it would be much faster than painting individual pixels, especially if there is complex lighting or any sort of animation involved. So my question is: Did I do something wrong, is this a secret pro method that nobody talks about, or is what I did called some other name that I should be researching other than "pixel art"?
Replies
Donkey Kong Country, Killer Instinct, Warcraft, Uniracers, *RISE OF THE ROBOTS!* and many others have that for playable characters even.
From the thread title I thought you were building your pixel stuff with liitle 3d cubes in a 3d program, like a blocky lego hehe.
It's all about thinking outside the box!
Even if hand-pixel art is widely documented around the internet because of it's oldschool, fun appeal, that doesn't mean this is the only way to create a sprite...
As for the edge cleanup ... If you take a realtime viewport grab it will give you cleaned pixel edges for free :P
Basically, what makes for a good 3D model does not necessarily make for an attractive 2D sprite. There are certain generally accepted standards that set 2D pixel art apart from 3D renderings. Of course, if you address these differences, than 3D-sourcing for pixel sprites is actually quite feasible. (and it sounds like you are taking these into account)
One of these elements is edging. Traditional pixel sprites always have some degree of outlining so that they will stand out from the background. The more complicated the background is, the greater the need for effective edging. In early 8-bit games, there wasn't as much of a need for edging, as the background was often little more than a single color. But with 16-bit games, edging became much more prominent. With the graphical fidelity of modern games, it is almost required.
By going back and retooling the sprites after they have been rendered, it should be possible to provide them with a more traditional edging. A popular technique is to simply use a darker shade of the dominant color near the edge, all the way around the sprite. This is often more attractive than just using a single black outline, while still being effective at setting the sprite off.
There is also the possibility of using different rendering techniques for your model to give it a more palletized appearance when rendered.
as a classical animator turned pixel artist learning 3d -_-; ... I'd have to say it's not incorrect, it's definitely another way to do things, and if it works, that's great.
Your method would be great for making simple locations or cars/ships anything mechanical with few moving parts... but you may start running into problems when you start animating characters. Depending on what platform you're working on, framerate could be an issue, and if all you got to make a walk cycle is 2 frames to work with... there's no point in modeling, texturing etc for just 2 frames, in this case, drawing by hand would be faster, unless of course, you are looking for a very 3d look like DKC or the games listed above.
Also if you ever need to build tilesets, the amount of detail in 3d would be overkill for a 16x16 pixel tile.
Using polygonal models it seems like fine-tuning animation would be a lot more fun. (Though if, as Richard Kain says, you do a fair amount of touch-up by hand it could still be time consuming to make changes later).
If you're interested in more traditional pixel art, there's a pretty neat community at
http://pixeljoint.com/default.asp
You might want to check them out if you're interested in picking up a few tips and tricks for hand-detailing your render. Your project sounds fun, can we see samples of your work when you're done?
http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=3467.msg43823#msg43823
edit: Just noticed pixeljoint already has a link to wayofthepixel, oops