Hi. I'm working on an adventure game with 8-bit style graphics like, for example,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3gKyF5Muw8
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jWYCXneCn8
which is going to feature a great deal of animations and cutscenes. Can anybody recommend me a good program for creating long animations which is at the same time handy for pixel art? I'm currently using Graphics Gale, but it's clearly not cut out for the job.
Cosmigo Pro Motion 6 all the way! Not free though :( But it has a trial available!
Yes, I would echo that sentiment with interest. Every game I've worked on in the last 10 or so years has been with Pro Motion. Not only do I beta test it but I've contributed to feature requests with Jan Zimmerman, Pro Motion's author. As far as pixel art and animation, believe me when I say it's the best there is at what it does and the price is extremely reasonable.
"Ask me about Loom ProMotion" :D
Yeah, ProMotion is also my #1 choice.
Anyhow the free options are:
GraphicsGale http://www.humanbalance.net/gale/us/
and
Aseprite http://www.aseprite.org/
Since it is fitting in here I hope it's okay for Barney if I ask in this thread:
Has one of this programms features that support paralax scrolling (for amateurs)
or can someone recommend another program for to create gif's that include paralax scrolling?
Cosmigo confuses the hell out of me (for example onionskinning or even something simple as erasing is unintuitive as hell - two things that should be a big ass button each, I can make a million brushes with two clicks (which is a good feature), but erase a pixel, that I tried to do for 15 minutes), although some things are slightly better than Graphics Gale in some aspects.
Photoshop still has the best shortcuts logic from all these softwares (except Aseprite which has the same shortcuts, but only drawback is it lacks a separate window for layers and/or frames and onionskin, instead you have to Tab to view frames/layers window). That said PS is really not suited for animating sprites (but it's not bad for making pixel art in general).
My choice would be GIMP
Is pretty much like Photoshop but free and open source
Personally I think that the tool doesn't make the man, it doesn't matter which program you use,
Just do it with effort and dedication
Good luck with your game!
http://www.gimp.org/ (http://www.gimp.org/)
http://pyxeledit.com/
I thought I'd mention it, but I haven't tried it yet as I like PS very much for everything.
Tried Pyxel, and it's exactly what I have been looking for ever since ProMotion kept crashing on me when working on layered tilemaps.
Thanks very much for the link!
I use GIMP, to me it has a lot of nice shortcuts that make pixel art a lot easier.
For animating, I use the photoshop Timeline feature.
For pixel art itself, no bullshit, I use MS paint (the nice version bundled with win7 and up)
I start with low res, and if you click the magnifying glass it does a perfect 4:1 ratio enlarge, so you can just print screen and you've got a higher resolution and/or more pixels to play with if you want to go further with shading and detail, repeat as needed for higher resolutions.
I just can't do pixel art in photoshop for some reason, despite how awesome layers are. I always just start really small and work my way up by resizing through magnify and print screen. I'm by no means a master at pixel art though so it's definitely a beginner tool if you're just starting out. (paint, not photoshop)
Quote from: amateurhour on Mon 25/03/2013 20:39:45
I just can't do pixel art in photoshop for some reason, despite how awesome layers are. I always just start really small and work my way up by resizing through magnify and print screen. I'm by no means a master at pixel art though so it's definitely a beginner tool if you're just starting out. (paint, not photoshop)
Sorry, what and why do you do this? :confused:
Why do you resize and why do you resize by using printscreen?
Pyxel looks very nice indeed, except apparently the (planned) animation features aren't implemented yet? It is beta after all I guess. But yeah, this could be the long-awaited free Pro Motion alternative for me! Exceptional find!
I switched from Photoshop to GraphicsGale a couple of years ago and really like using it. Sadly, you have to buy the full version (about £15) to be able to save gifs though.
aseprite.org is my favourite.
Quote from: Anian on Mon 25/03/2013 20:48:43
Quote from: amateurhour on Mon 25/03/2013 20:39:45
I just can't do pixel art in photoshop for some reason, despite how awesome layers are. I always just start really small and work my way up by resizing through magnify and print screen. I'm by no means a master at pixel art though so it's definitely a beginner tool if you're just starting out. (paint, not photoshop)
Sorry, what and why do you do this? :confused:
Why do you resize and why do you resize by using printscreen?
No I fully understand that it's a batshit crazy ass backwards way of doing things, but it works, and it's quick (at least the way I do it) and it's kind of like working on a painting. I can add or take away a little bit at a time pixel by pixel, I just have to remember to keep multiple progress saves while I'm working.
It's just my weird process.
Quotephotoshop still has the best shortcuts logic from all these softwares (except Aseprite which has the same shortcuts, but only drawback is it lacks a separate window for layers and/or frames and onionskin, instead you have to Tab to view frames/layers window).
100% disagree. I find pro motion extremely easy to use and photoshop often unnecessarily kludgy.
Khris- you wouldn't have been using one of the pirated beta versions, would you? Those are notoriously unstable. The most recent release has no crash issues I am aware of (though the previous build and 6.0 beta did, typically stack overflows).
Ultimately you should use whatever is easiest learn and satisfies as many of your needs as possible. If Pro Motion had a 32-bit graphics version for high res and filters I'd probably never use another 2D art program.
I was using 6.0.0.168, but it could've been the trial, too. I'm not sure where I got it. I'd buy the current version, but $78? Not for something I use once every other month.
When Pyxel starts supporting changing palette colors within the sprite, it'll be doing everything I need.
I'll lend my vote to Photoshop and the timeline feature for animation. Plus, the content-aware feature can be amazing. I'm not technically an artist, but if I need to edit something from my artist real quick and if its a landscape, content-aware can work miracles.
I use the ASEprite by Allegro (for backgrounds and short animations) and the Autodesk Animator. These are really oldschool tools, but they work very well.
Thanks for your advice, people. I'm going to try all of the aforementioned programs to see what best suits my needs.
Just thought I would stick my oar in here.
I've tried various different art programs over the last few years and I find that different ones aid different art styles.
Photoshop and Gimp are in my opinion for hi-res Peeps and far too tooly for low res artists,
Graphxgale is great, but paying for the ability to export Gifs is not for me as I'm still practising,
ASEprite is amazing for low res art. I only just found it and now I'm hooked. The tools are so easy and accessible.
MS Paint "Look I just got AGS and now I'm gonna give it a go"
For me Aseprite is the way forward.
This is a great thread. I've always used Photoshop and I thought I knew all the alternatives yet I'd never heard of pro motion (or if I did it got stored in an unused part of my brain)! I'm going to be testing this and pyxel edit now.
I have tried most all of the programs in here... still, I always end up back in Photoshop. I've been using Photoshop since before it had layers (v2.x) and I'm just so completely familiar with it that it's my comfort zone. It feels, by far, the most "polished" of software (some of the others feel like the software was put together by a blind 2 year old with no idea of margins and proper spacing/design aesthetics). That probably doesn't bother most people though.
Dunno... some people feel Photoshop is horrible for pixel-art but they are wrong, it's just horrible for them. The only real negative Photoshop has is the price, which is ridiculous.
Unless you have either an eye-patch or a peg leg (or a parrot). Then the price isn't so bad. Not that I would EVER do and/or condone such behavior.
**Arrggghhh no** Shut up parrot.
QuoteDunno... some people feel Photoshop is horrible for pixel-art but they are wrong, it's just horrible for them. The only real negative Photoshop has is the price, which is ridiculous.
Finally someone who agrees. Photoshop is fine for pixel art.
All I ever use.
Photoshop's okay but the pencil tool at 1px makes staircases when you draw diagonally, not a true 1px line. This is something that bugs me even in some programs specifically made for pixel art.
It depends on the speed; if you draw fast enough, you won't get double pixels. But of course you can always click at the start of the line, then shift-click at the end to get a perfectly straight 1px line.
Quote from: Trapezoid on Tue 30/04/2013 03:01:07
Photoshop's okay but the pencil tool at 1px makes staircases when you draw diagonally, not a true 1px line. This is something that bugs me even in some programs specifically made for pixel art.
Gotta clean up lines anywho :P
True. Actually, now that I try I can't think of any program that doesn't draw like that. Maybe I just specifically first got annoyed with it in Photoshop.
Just gotta set it up for pixel art and learn some of the tricks and your golden.
Damn, I just realized there's no Flow option for the Pencil tool in Photoshop. Why? You can change opacity. I don't see why Pencil can't gradually "fill in" as you sketch over the same space.
There's also still a Hardness slider that, as far as I can tell, is totally vestigial.
Actually, why is there even a difference between Brush and Pencil? Why doesn't Brush at 100% hardness completely remove feathering? That would be effectively the same as Pencil.
(http://i.imgur.com/fySUgqv.png)
As it is now, there's no step in between these two levels of feathering. Seems like a big gap in control to me.
But that's not actually how you fill in surfaces when doing pixel art, is it? Might as well use the brush, not the pencil tool. I don't really understand what's bothering you.
If you really want to control randomness of a Pencil tool, in the Brush settings (F5) you can set Spacing and Angle Jitter (under Shape & dynamics), which will randomly paint, if that's what you want.
And about the hardness setting for the pencil...I think it's more that it has the same interface as the brush so it's there. For a while now PS has feathering in everything except the Pencil tool.
I know about jitter settings! They're useful.
I'm talking about the Flow setting, which is really helpful for drawing textures in stuff like rocks, dirt, fabric. Especially in backgrounds, where manually placing each pixel (like you might with sprites) is usually unthinkable; you really need tools to help add noise and life to surfaces.
(http://i.imgur.com/zNACVrn.png)
The shape on the left was drawn with photoshop's Brush tool at 1px with Flow at 20%. The one on the right was done with Gimp's pencil tool, which has an "Incremental" checkbox that serves as an equivalent to Flow.
For pixel art, I prefer the look of the one on the right. Photoshop's 1px brush is just too damn fuzzy and indistinct. Full color anti-aliasing looks great at 1x, but for games that are blown up by 2x or 3x, it makes you squint. I see it all the time in AGS games, even ones with very good artwork.
(Also, the one on the left uses 73 colors; the one on the right uses 6.)
Edit: A note, you can actually produce lines like the ones on the right with Photoshop's Pencil tool at a low opacity setting, but the difference is you have to start a new click/stylus drag each time you want to blend lines, which takes longer and quickly eats up your undo history.
Quote from: Trapezoid on Fri 10/05/2013 22:49:19
(http://i.imgur.com/zNACVrn.png)
Yep, that settles it. I need GIMP.
Quote from: Trapezoid on Fri 10/05/2013 22:49:19
Edit: A note, you can actually produce lines like the ones on the right with Photoshop's Pencil tool at a low opacity setting, but the difference is you have to start a new click/stylus drag each time you want to blend lines, which takes longer and quickly eats up your undo history.
I prefer it that way, especially when filling shapes with a low opacity setting on the brush/pencil and I'm not so sure about the shape yet. Also stopping the current bushstroke in your example give you time to think about where exactly you want your shadow to be as crossing the line with low opacity adds up on opacity then.
Quote from: Saltwater Taffy on Fri 10/05/2013 22:58:13Yep, that settles it. I need GIMP.
Yeah, I'm just messing around with it right now. Seems cool-- layers while in Indexed mode! Editable palette in a dock! But I'm already running into weird limitations... converting to Indexed mode lacks some of the options Photoshop has (like noise dithering, or variable diffusion, as well as a live preview while you fine-tune these settings.)
Quote from: selmiak on Fri 10/05/2013 23:24:27I prefer it that way, especially when filling shapes with a low opacity setting on the brush/pencil and I'm not so sure about the shape yet. Also stopping the current bushstroke in your example give you time to think about where exactly you want your shadow to be as crossing the line with low opacity adds up on opacity then.
I guess that's true, I'm just used to shading things in like you would with a real pencil, with repetitive back-and-forth retracing.
So Trapezoid, do you use a Wacom (or similar device)? Because you can simply set the Photoshop pen tool to 1 pixel (or larger if you prefer) and use the pen pressure to control the opacity (Brush Settings > Other Dynamics > Opacity jitter 0%, Control: Pen Pressure).
Works fine for me :)
Oh, that's a really good point. I do have a Wacom, but I'm not great at it. Or drawing in general. Could use some practice.