Questions on Sprite Drawing.

[A_Civilian]

If anyone has experience in this...

1) Can you get more detail out of a small sprite (50*50 pixels) by starting the drawing as a large image (say 500*500 pixels) and then shrinking it down to the desired size? Or is it better to just start the drawing out with the small size and detail as much as possible?

2) Is there such thing as too much color-blending through gradients? If so, what does it look like, and how much is a good limit?

[Pixel_Outlaw]

It's all a matter of taste. If you want to create traditional style sprites the answer to questions is no. If you don't care and just want to make smudgy sprites as in today's games then you can do both.


Oldschool sprites look oldschool because of 2 key things.

1. Low color resoultion
2. Low resoultion

Both of these factors mean that you have to be REALLY wise in your colors and shapes.

[Herr Schatten]

1) Can you get more detail out of a small sprite (50*50 pixels) by starting the drawing as a large image (say 500*500 pixels) and then shrinking it down to the desired size? Or is it better to just start the drawing out with the small size and detail as much as possible?

It depends. In any case you'll have to touch up the final image, often resulting in redrawing it completely and using the downscaled image only as a rough guideline. I've used this method to great effect, but it needs some experience. You also tend to make the final image too detailed, because you see all those little bits and leftovers from the larger image and feel the urge to include them all, making your sprite look gritty.
Mostly it's better to just draw sprites in their original size. Downscaling larger images without retouching them later looks like ass in any case.

2) Is there such thing as too much color-blending through gradients? If so, what does it look like, and how much is a good limit?

Definitely. Too much colour blending will make your sprite look smudgy. As a rough guideline I'd say that you should not use more than 8 shades per colour. Often less is more. Also: Try not to use anti-aliasing. You'll think it makes your sprites look jaggy, but once they are in motion, they'll look much more crisp.

[Ixmucane]

1) Can you get more detail out of a small sprite (50*50 pixels) by starting the drawing as a large image (say 500*500 pixels) and then shrinking it down to the desired size? Or is it better to just start the drawing out with the small size and detail as much as possible?

You can put only a limited amount of details in a small sprite; what matters is putting in the right details.
Since you are trying to make a stylized drawing, one that is good looking and recognizable despite the low pixel budget, you shouldn't even try to "detail as much as possible".

2) Is there such thing as too much color-blending through gradients? If so, what does it look like, and how much is a good limit?

Less pixels, less shades. If a gradient is 3 pixels long, it contains three colours. If the sprite is three times as large, you might spend a few of the corresponding 9 pixels on rounding down the gradient size and adding borders, but a gradient of 6 or 7 different colours might be too much.

[gray117]

Art needs to be done 'for purpose'.

In general much 'key' artwork is indeed done at a higher resolution and then reduced before being touched up. Key can refer to particular points of interest/key frames or any of the above.

However - especially with small animated sprites with hard transparent edges - sometimes it will be will be more simple to paint at size - and prevent those urges to over complicate something. The other most common thing is a softening of detail upon resizing due to the sampling - you simply need to play with the sampler you use to reduce something and/or how you sharpen after reducing.

No matter which way you do it if you think something looks wrong it probably is and often you just need to get in there and dab it up per pixel.

How and when best to do this depends on several factors of judgement and, as always the best thing to do is to have at least one key concept, lock down the design, and test it - see what detail you can include - see what detail transfers well - or not - and most importantly see how that might transfer into a test screen of your game. Find an ordered system to manage your work and go for it

technical: If working with strict palettes and/or frame managing needs take a peek at some specialised programs such as www.cosmigo.com/promotion/ ... oh and whatever panting you do, you'll probably find it's at least 3 times faster with a tablet ...

... sorry if some of this is obvious, clearly i just got going

[320x240]

2) Is there such thing as too much color-blending through gradients? If so, what does it look like, and how much is a good limit?

If you look at the works of people new to making game graphics you will see that the main thing they do 'wrong' is using to many shades of one color. Dependant on the size of the object you are coloring there is a limit on how many different shades you can apply before the object ends up looking too flat. At lower resolutions at least, less is more. An old 'standard' for pixel graphics is using one shade for base, one for highlights and one or two for shadows. This works good for smaller objects.


The use of a tablet get's a vote from me too. In fact, my tc1100 is the only computer I've got right now.