Pixel art for game developers

As a kid, did you ever get right up close to the TV despite your parents’warningsthatitwillmakeyoucross-eyedandturnyoureyes into bloody stumps? If you did, you would have noticed that the images werecreatedwithtinydotsofbrightcolor.Thosetinydotsarecalledpixels. PixelscomposetheimagesthataredisplayedonTVs,computermonitors, tablets,phones,andmostotherdigitaldevices. Computer graphics were originally built by manipulating those dots of color one pixel at a time, which became the early history of Pixel Art. In some cases, those pixels were controlled through cumbersome programmingscriptsbutovertimecomputerartprogramsbecamemorecommon andthequalityofrepresentationimproved. Pixel Art grew out of technical restraints from a generation ago. Game systems had much less memory and worked with much smaller pixel dimensionsthantoday,soitwasatechnicalnecessitytoworkwithintight restraintsonsizeandcolor. As games grew in quality and sophistication, it became important to makethemostoutoftheaestheticswithinthetechnicalrestraints.Outof thisera,some“bestpractices”grewoutoftheprocessandhaveevolvedinto whatwenowthinkofasPixelArt. BeforestartingtorantonthemanyusefulaspectsofPixelArtingames and applications or even explaining what Pixel Art is, I want to give examplesofwhatitisnot. 3D graphics are not Pixel Art (Figure F.1), despite that they are being createdbypixelsonscreen.

Descripción

As a kid, did you ever get right up close to the TV despite your parents’warningsthatitwillmakeyoucross-eyedandturnyoureyes into bloody stumps? If you did, you would have noticed that the images werecreatedwithtinydotsofbrightcolor.Thosetinydotsarecalledpixels. PixelscomposetheimagesthataredisplayedonTVs,computermonitors, tablets,phones,andmostotherdigitaldevices. Computer graphics were originally built by manipulating those dots of color one pixel at a time, which became the early history of Pixel Art. In some cases, those pixels were controlled through cumbersome programmingscriptsbutovertimecomputerartprogramsbecamemorecommon andthequalityofrepresentationimproved. Pixel Art grew out of technical restraints from a generation ago. Game systems had much less memory and worked with much smaller pixel dimensionsthantoday,soitwasatechnicalnecessitytoworkwithintight restraintsonsizeandcolor. As games grew in quality and sophistication, it became important to makethemostoutoftheaestheticswithinthetechnicalrestraints.Outof thisera,some“bestpractices”grewoutoftheprocessandhaveevolvedinto whatwenowthinkofasPixelArt. BeforestartingtorantonthemanyusefulaspectsofPixelArtingames and applications or even explaining what Pixel Art is, I want to give examplesofwhatitisnot. 3D graphics are not Pixel Art (Figure F.1), despite that they are being createdbypixelsonscreen.

Detalles