
A Pixel Artist Renounces Pixel Art - dsil
http://www.dinofarmgames.com/a-pixel-artist-renounces-pixel-art/
======
nyolfen
“Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium
will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital
video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated
as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art
is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits
and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too
loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked
voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that
releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white,
is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned
to record them.”

\--Brian Eno

~~~
broken
Speaking of that 8-bit sound, check Rob Hubbard's outstanding composition for
'Monty on the Run' (1985)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EcgruWlXnQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EcgruWlXnQ)

~~~
pestaa
A friend of mine composed a great list of chiptunes:
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtCIrnpefsWr_nJJENh9o...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtCIrnpefsWr_nJJENh9oiVm0b10pMxZE)

------
zeidrich
A big thing about pixel art and it's issues today is that what he mentions as
pixel art, isn't so.

I mean, he argues about the way the devices scale his art up and change aspect
ratio etc.

But on the other hand, he compares a picture of Yoshi at the end to an
algorithmically smoothed version.

However, Yoshi was never intended to look like the leftmost image. The thing
is, pixels aren't square. In fact, when we played it on the SNES, it was
rendered very differently, it was interlaced, scanlines were distinct, and
each pixel was a bit of a blob.

Because of this, an image like Yoshi looked just fine, because we weren't
looking at a blocky grid of squares. The brighter colored glowed around the
darker colors, the darkness between the scanlines caused your brain to
interpolate the lines. We got a nicer looking image.

When you blow it up to 500% on a crisp LCD panel it doesn't look the same.
What used to be smooth lines are now stair steps. And just the same way that
he complains about Auro being blurred or stretched, when you display pixel art
designed for a CRT on an OLED display at 600% nearest neighbor scaling, it
doesn't work.

I like the symbolic style of pixel art. But we don't have the same
limitations. When people made great art for the NES, it's because that's what
they had to work with. We have more to work with.

It's one thing to represent things in a symbolic, simplistic or minimalistic
style. It's another thing to feign technological disadvantage.

~~~
soup10
I agree with your sentiment, I think the author makes some decent points but
is pretty biased towards an aesthetic he prefers and the art tools he's most
familiar with. The sf4 example is particularly demonstrating of that, people
that do 3d modeling know that it's not as easy to get the arbitrary distortion
effects you can do with frame by frame animation, that doesn't make it lower
quality animation, it's a trade off of the medium. And art is about the
overall impression it leaves on the viewer, not the technical specifics about
how the pants look odd on 2 frames of a 100 frame motion

~~~
the_af
How can he be biased, beyond his love of pixel art? He more or less concludes
pixel art is not the best choice, and he _sides with the public 's opinion on
this issue_. Read the comments. He is not blaming anyone for this "pixel tax".

To my eyes, the SF4 Chun Li is _infinitely_ inferior to SF3, and I'm not even
an animator. And haven't played either game, so I truly have no preconceptions
at all in this case.

~~~
saint_fiasco
The Chun Li comparison reminds me a lot of the messy transition between 2D and
3D of games like Final Fantasy and Mortal Kombat.

In Mortal Kombat, the typical shaolin monk character has a typical "shoot
fireball" special move. In the latest SNES game, a badass dragon made of fire
shoots out of his hand and explodes on contact with the enemy. In the next
game, for the PlayStation, it looks like he is flinging a flaming turd at his
opponent. Final Fantasy had similar problems in the transition from awesome 2D
(FFVI) to awful 3D (FFVII).

Both Mortal Kombat and Final Fantasy eventually got 3D high definition
graphics right, in my opinion. I hope eventually the artists will be as good
and as experienced at making 3D art as they were at making 2D art in the SNES
era.

~~~
bitwize
The thing that set Mortal Kombat apart back in the day -- besides blood and
gore -- was its use of digitized video of live actors as its character
sprites. This couldn't be done in the 3D era, and up Through Mortal Kombat
(2011) the 3D character models looked hella goofy when compared with real
people.

------
gavanwoolery
It is the duty of an artist to fulfill their vision, not someone else's. For
this reason, many prominent artists go unknown in their lifetime. The masses
are attracted to "bad" art like Thomas Kinkade (I use quotes because the art
is not actually bad, just lacks the originality that art connoisseurs seek). I
would actually argue that you will have to make a choice between being a
popular artist and being good artist (there is some overlap though). And it
may well be the case that you don't have the luxury to make this choice.

For me personally, I think that good pixel art is timeless (emphasis on
"good"). It gives an artist a limited canvas and forces them to be creative.
You can instantly deduce an artist's skill based on how well they can convey a
concept with a limited palette and resolution. An unlimited palette and high
resolution actually magnifies the flaws in art, IMO (leaves less to the
imagination). I find that in many modern 3D games, the suspension of disbelief
is destroyed when I walk up to a character and see blurry textures and pointed
polygonal edges.

For an idea of what good pixel art looks like (at least according to my
opinion and many others), check out Henk Nieborg's work:

[http://www.henknieborg.nl/gallery_pixels.html](http://www.henknieborg.nl/gallery_pixels.html)

~~~
Goronmon
_And it may well be the case that you don 't have the luxury to make this
choice._

Which, unfortunately, is usually the case when it comes to game development.

~~~
pan69
Or any sort of development for that matter. I've never worked with a client
who said; "Yeah, sure. What ever you think is best". When someone else pays
the bills, you're either used as extension to Photoshop or used as a glorified
typist.

~~~
gavanwoolery
[http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell](http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell)

~~~
leppr
If you consider yourself a visual _designer_ and can't begin to understand how
to make a design "pop", "edgy" or "less liney" I think the problem is with
you. Just call yourself a developer and be done with it.

------
DanAndersen
This article reminded me of a trend I noticed when reading the book "Masters
of Doom," which discussed (among other things) the graphical improvements that
made games like Wolfenstein and Doom so impressive. Very often, the book's
prose would start sentences something along the lines of "though the graphics
were crude, etc etc etc."

These sorts of lines, constantly repeated, irked me, not because they weren't
technically true or anything, but because it's such a "looking-backward" point
of view. At the time, that's not how people saw it. It was all about pushing
forward the state of the art, and we miss something when we look back on it in
that way.

I guess in a similar way I've had the same feeling about "modern" pixel art,
where it often seems to miss the point. By treating it as just an art style,
it turns it from an exercise in conveying a vision despite limitations, into
an effort to simplify and downsample because those are the most easily-
recognized surface-level hallmarks of that period.

For me, the magic of that era comes from seeing techniques like color cycling
(
[http://www.effectgames.com/demos/canvascycle/?sound=0](http://www.effectgames.com/demos/canvascycle/?sound=0)
), where the desire to get a certain effect led to interesting workarounds,
rather than being satisfied with limitations because it's "retro."

~~~
vacri
When Half Life came out, it was amazing. I went back to retry it half a year
ago, and it looked awful. And what was a wonderful intro sequence was now
unskippable minutes of a slow ride past crude polygons and very low detail
environments. It was interesting seeing how my opinions had changed.

~~~
Terr_
I think Deus Ex offers a contrasting example. It's almost as old as Half Life
(2000 vs 1998), but I think it ages better because the appeal is different.

Story/dialog/writing/role-play don't go out of style as quickly as
graphics/gun-play.

~~~
Drakim
I replayed Deus Ex recently, and was surprised at how bad it looked,
especially the character models. It was so bad that it was ruining my
immersion.

However, my brain eventually forgot about this and I could continue play, and
eventually I stopped seeing crude low-poly models and instead saw just
"people".

~~~
Terr_
I think the most bang-for-your-buck comes from upgrading the rendering system,
so that the shadows/shading works better. Having ten shades of olive-black in
dark environments was always annoying.

------
emptybits
I worked in games in the early and late 1990s. It's hard for me to know if my
love of _great_ pixel art and _great_ chip tunes is some romantic attachment
to my childhood and early professional career, or if it's a sincere
appreciation of _great_ art in absolute terms.

But I'm inclined to agree with Igor Stravinksy:

"The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self. And the
arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution."

------
Mithaldu
It's a little weird that he spends so much time criticizing others and doesn't
even once acknowledge that his art style (proportions, anatomy) look
definitely weird. (Downright ugly and off-putting to me.) Part of the reason
his art gets put down by others might be that they also feel it's ugly, but
don't quite know how to express it and pin it on the pixels.

Further, as someone who works on games, the decision as to what kind of art
style is used, most often is not a decision to aim for something specific, but
a question of money. Art doesn't happen on its own, you either have to make it
yourself, or find someone else to make it (who makes something that looks
good) AND then pay them, often also for many many revisions and additions. For
a small team simple sprites that remain appealing and consistent even when
scaled up can be the choice simply because anything else is prohibitively
expensive.

~~~
jimminy
I agree, that he fails to acknowledge the issues with his own art. I agreed
with him through most of the article, but when it came time for him to get to
his stuff, the forced dithering was immediately off-putting, and is actually
something that causes older games to feel dated to me.

Pixel-art is great, when it is crisp. Most of his examples are crisp and well
animated, until you get to his. The characters are oddly proportioned, but I
can deal with that, and at least they were pretty crisp, but the interface
around them was horrible.

~~~
DinoFarmBlake
Author/artist here!

I'm sorry you're not into Auro's art, but I just popped in to clear something
up.

At no point do I laud my own work as all that great. I can't speak to how good
I am. I do my best, and that's all I can do. Full disclosure, the only reason
I included it at all was to plug it. We're a small, new company and need all
the help we can get.

I also think it's a little strange to hear that I spend no time on my art's
issues when the whole article is basically saying the entire art direction was
a big mistake.

I'm not a graphic designer, yet I had to make every art asset in the game. I
have to wear many hats, and I wear some better than others. I'm always
learning, always pushing, always questioning, always trying to improve. Pretty
much every example I gave of pixel art is insanely better than I am. That
doesn't bother me. There will always be someone better, and there will always
be someone worse. Besides, even if my work was the most ghastly thing you've
ever seen, it wouldn't make my arguments any more or less valid. If you think
my positions are incorrect, I don't see how that has to do with how much or
how little I discuss my own work. That said, I'll be the first to fuss and
fuss and fuss over the flaws and shortcomings in my work. I'm my own worst
enemy. Does it make you feel better to hear that?

------
fgsfdsfgsfds
Sounds like they should have been developing for PC instead of mobile. The
average mobile user plays exploitative "freemium" garbage to kill time in
lines. How can you expect them to appreciate the art behind it?

Meanwhile, "retro"-style games are doing gangbusters on Steam, selling to
people that actually appreciate those styles of art, music, and game design.

~~~
dragontamer
While you have a point (and I've given you a +1 vote because of it), the fact
remains that the "average person" I know thinks that Street Fighter 4
animations were better than Street Fighter 3.

The Chun Li discussion happens a lot in my circle of friends, and I'm always
in the minority. Very few people appreciate classic pixel art.

~~~
Tyr42
So, if we look to the digital art like Pixar, there are a lot of guidelines
from traditional animation to make a scene come alive.

* Squish and Stretch * Fallow through * Secondary Action

These principles really help make dynamic scenes. If you look at the Chun Li
animations, you can see that the older one does a better job of using these.

I feel like if the HD version took advantage of these, it would look the best
out of all of them, but it failed to reach its full potential in it's medium.

Watch this early Pixar short:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4NPQ8mfKU0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4NPQ8mfKU0)

See how alive and full of emotion the little lamp is?

~~~
JohnBooty
I can't directly compare the SF3 and SF4 animations: they're just totally
different art forms.

That said, as somebody who loves pixel art, I still really love what Capcom
did with SF4's art style.

The artists of SF4 definitely took a bold direction; the SF4 games don't
really look like any other 3D fighting games. The characters are cartoonish
without falling back on the crutch of cel shading; they're realistic without
looking like drab psuedo-photo-realism. To me they look like childrens' action
figures, fighting it out on the screen.

As the author says, SF4 _could_ have been animated better. Specifically it
probably would have benefited from some squash-and-stretch as he suggests.

It's also worth noting that SF3's traditional cel animation, while _awesome_ ,
also has room for improvement. The animation style isn't very consistent from
character to character. In a lot of cases (Chun Li in particular) it's not
even consistent between her various moves.

A great critique here: [http://www.finalformgames.com/uncategorized/style-
study-moti...](http://www.finalformgames.com/uncategorized/style-study-motion-
blur-in-street-fighter-3/)

~~~
dragontamer
> The artists of SF4 definitely took a bold direction; the SF4 games don't
> really look like any other 3D fighting games. The characters are cartoonish
> without falling back on the crutch of cel shading; they're realistic without
> looking like drab psuedo-photo-realism. To me they look like childrens'
> action figures, fighting it out on the screen.

Actually, Arc System Works ironically was the one who pushed the envelope
here.

SF4 took a huge number of cues from Battle Fantasia. The "Super-Attack Zoom-
in" animation, the dynamic camera movement, "Super Freeze", and so forth.

Its ironic, because Arc System Works made Battle Fantasia as a "learning
project". In various interviews, Arc System Works noted that they had very
little 3D skill and needed to train everyone up on 3D Animation skills, and
the best way to do that was to make a 3D-animated video game.

Then a few years later, Capcom basically takes all the cues from Battle
Fantasia and added a decent-style on top of it (the "Black Lines" and a unique
style of cel-shading). And of course, Capcom's SF4 cast was much larger, more
detailed animation and all that. Nonetheless, it is clear that it was Arc
System Works that pushed the envelope in their experiments with the one-off
Battle Fantasia.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZDJenxXPuM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZDJenxXPuM)

IMO, Arc System Works has done 3D a massive favor here with Battle Fantasia,
and they are once again pushing the envelope with Guilty Gear Xrd.

Not to hate on SF4's style of course. I think I prefer Capcom's SF4 style over
say... Tekken, DOA or even MvC3. And Capcom definite added a lot of "love" in
the art-style. But the _core_ of the animation techniques were more or less
copied from Battle Fantasia years earlier.

Super Smash Bros always had the right idea with the attacks however. If you
watch SSB:M carefully, the bones of the various characters expand with the
hitboxes. For example, Mario's FAir attack has a _huge_ exaggerated fist, and
other characters shrink/ grow with their hitboxes. (Which adds for some
interesting strategies / counter-strategies, since hitbox / hurtbox
manipulation is a major element of high-level Fighting Games).

The Super Smash Brothers series has been the best at communicating the
hurtboxes and hitboxes in a 3D environment. And it looks like Guilty Gear Xrd
is finally a 2nd series that _finally_ communicates those important cues as
well.

\----------------------------

Still, it is clear that the 3D Artwork style of SF4 is still relatively new
and isn't as a refined of artwork. Again, the Chun-Li animation from SF3 is
near the peak of Capcom's animation prowess, while SF4 is probably better
described as a great first step for Capcom (even if it is in many ways copied
over from Battle Fantasia).

Despite that fact, people are wow'ed by the the zooms, the buttery smooth
animations, dynamic camera angles and automated shading. Things that honestly
didn't take much effort on the part of SF4 artists. Heck, all of those things
basically come for free when you use 3D Models.

~~~
JohnBooty
I wasn't impressed with Battle Fantasia's animation at all. I thought it was
kind of poor, actually, compared to other 360/PS3 efforts like the Soul
Calibur games of the day. That's not to say you're wrong; we just had very
different impressions of it. What animation techniques are you referring to
when you talk about Battle Fantasia's innovations? (I'm not an animator; I'm
surely missing some things there)

~~~
dragontamer
Again, Battle Fantasia was a learning project for Arc System Works. It was
_never_ meant to be an advanced artform. Which is why it is deeply ironic that
almost all modern 2D fighting games using 3d art are based on Battle Fantasia
camera mechanics.

Compare the super-attack animations between SF4 and Battle Fantasia. And note
the following similarities:

1\. The 'Super Zoom' that changes the camera angle, to focus on the character
performing the super-attack. 2\. The 'freeze frame' mechanics: which "pause"
all other 3D animations while the super-attack user remains fully animated.
3\. The way the background melts into a new environment, and then melts back
into the stage as the super-attack either hits the opponent... or misses.

True, SF4 has better character models, better backgrounds, and better
animations. But the camera mechanics were all invented and pioneered by Battle
Fantasia.

~~~
JohnBooty
Hasn't the zoom thing been around forever? It goes back at least as far as
Rival School and probably earlier games I can't remember - I think Soul Edge
did it too?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wb5rTtSrP3E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wb5rTtSrP3E)

Rival Schools also changed the background during supers/knockouts, although it
was just "fade to blacks" and 2D overlays rather than a new environment. But
looking at this video of Battle Fantasia supers (been so long since I played
it!) that's all that game did as well:

[https://youtu.be/3TXk38j1wUc](https://youtu.be/3TXk38j1wUc)

The "freeze other animations while the super move executes" thing is such a
minor stylistic thing that I'm having trouble really thinking of it as an
innovation and to boot... is that even what Battle Fantasia does? I mean look
at this super: the steam in the background is still animating:

[https://youtu.be/3TXk38j1wUc?t=115](https://youtu.be/3TXk38j1wUc?t=115)

------
ilitirit
The irony about KOF XIII is that purists _hate_ the spritework in that game
and it's predecessor because it's not true pixel art.

[http://www.noe-v.com/images/articles/terry_sprites01.jpg](http://www.noe-v.com/images/articles/terry_sprites01.jpg)

KOF XII/XIII sprites were rotoscoped from 3D models. They did this because
pixel art is far more expensive. For reference, SNK stated that it costed them
around $1m per 3D character in KOF XIII. But the savings come with tweaking
the models when they rebalance moves. They can just alter the model. 2D
sprites have to be redrawn.

SNK Playmore published a great article which I cannot seem to find now with
details on their technique.

The reason purists don't like the look of the game though is because SNK was
traditionally known for _superb_ pixel art.

[http://images.wikia.com/snk/images/e/e8/Kof99park3bglite.gif](http://images.wikia.com/snk/images/e/e8/Kof99park3bglite.gif)

------
dragontamer
I should note that Arc System Works has also renounced Pixel Art as per Guilty
Gear Xrd. :-( (Arc System Works are the masters behind BlazBlue's Pixel Art)

Granted, their 3D Artwork is quite good now, so maybe they can succeed in the
transition. But fewer and fewer major developers (and even small, niche
developers) are producing pixel art.

"WayForward Games" has an interesting vector art style however which gets the
classic feel down. Its technique is more akin to a high-quality Newground game
however, as opposed to the nostalgic Pixel Art feel. And artists know that
vector art is easier to do. Still, WayForward (Ducktales Remastered, Shaente
Half Genie Hero) might be one of the last great 2D Artists still around today.

------
agumonkey
Beatiful article, slightly off into animation territorry but still. Taking
distance from current technology and future is good.

The Chun-Li dissected animation reminded me of Disney classes on how to convey
emotions rather than simulate movements. And for Jazz lovers, search about
Mitsuo Iso : www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvx7p6-lABw

~~~
dragontamer
I've been trying to explain to people why Fire Emblem sprites were better than
modern 3D Fire Emblem animations.

Old GBA Game: [http://lparchive.org/Fire-Emblem-Blazing-
Sword/Update%2063/1...](http://lparchive.org/Fire-Emblem-Blazing-
Sword/Update%2063/18-swordmaster.gif)

Fire Emblem Awakening: [https://youtu.be/ls0Nn_-
hv-8?t=3m35s](https://youtu.be/ls0Nn_-hv-8?t=3m35s)

I showed this to multiple people, and a lot of them seem to think the 3D
animation was better. :-(

~~~
kibwen
Some of the Fire Emblem sprites were breathtakingly fluid, and you can't deny
that they often look better than the jaggy polygons of the modern DS titles
(similar to how the OP contrasts Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and Diablo).

My favorites were always the sprites for the "hero" unit:

[http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/fireemblem/images/3/38/F...](http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/fireemblem/images/3/38/FE6_Hero_Critical.gif/revision/latest?cb=20140207032928)

~~~
dragontamer
Good point. Heroes probably had the best attack animations. Either them, or
critical hit from the paladin.

My favorite animations overall though were definitely swordmaster,
specifically their "dodge" animation. They only moved like 3 or 4 pixels, so
it was hard to tell that they actually dodged. But once you saw it, it was in
fact amazing.

------
rnprince
Schoenberg, on writing four-voice chorales:

"Even in the limitations of the individual voices, in their relative
incompleteness, there are advantages.* The necessity for utilizing them within
the narrow range of their effectiveness demands characteristic usage and
treatment consistent with the material. Thus the pupil learns by this simple
example to heed an important principle of handicraft: to make characteristic
use of the strengths and shortcomings of the material at hand.

"*I am taking such pains with these things ... to establish explicitly that
these principles are not derived from aesthetics but from practical
considerations. If what is known as aesthetics does in fact contain much that
is merely practical handling of the material, and if what is known as symmetry
is perhaps often not much more than an organization of the material that
reveals a sensible regard for its properties, yet I consider it worthwhile to
set down these observations. For the conditions of practicality can change, if
we take a different view of the material and if the purpose changes."

\--Arnold Schoenberg, Harmonielehre

------
emsy
Pixel art games nowadays all look more or less the same. Actual games from the
90s didn't look alike at all. Also most games use pixel art as an excuse for
lazy animations with a little amount of frames. I really wonder why everyone
likes it so much and I often think maybe something is wrong with my taste :/

~~~
MollyR
I often wondered if indie games tend to like pixel art because its cheaper and
faster to produce.

~~~
dragontamer
Except when you look at the development methodology of the best-of-the-best
pixel art games (BlazBlue, King of Fighters), the teams did 3D Animations for
all of the characters and then re-traced them into 2D Pixel Art.

Everyone who actually _does_ high-quality pixel art understands. Good Pixel-
Art is much MUCH harder to do than good 3D.

It lothes me to say it, but the blogpost is correct. Very few people
understand this fact except for the artists who actually do go pixel art.

~~~
kibwen
It's true that superb pixel art is harder to pull off than superb 3D models
because of greater self-imposed limitations. However, it's also true that if
you just want your art to be _passable_ , it's easier to achieve that via low-
res pixel art than via amateur 3D modeling. IOW, pixel art has both a lower
barrier to entry and a higher skill cap.

~~~
dragontamer
If you want your 3D art to passable, you download a few models from online for
a few hundred dollars and tweak the bone animations.

IE: What Archer does with all of its 3D models of cars it sticks into the
show.

~~~
kibwen
Which is exactly my point: if we're resorting to external assets, there are
infinitely more spritesheets available online for the low, low price of _free_
, because making decent sprites is such a comparatively small effort that even
artists themselves attach less value to the task.

(Which still isn't to devalue the effort that it takes to make good-looking
sprites; I've tried, and _damn_ do I suck at it.)

~~~
dragontamer
That's not useful at all.

You need a baseline of art, and then you need to tweak the animations to match
your video game. A model may not have a "double-jump" animation but you can
easily add one through bone manipulations with any 3d model.

But if a sprite-sheet were missing the double-jump animation? You're either
doing it yourself (hard pixel art style) or hiring someone else to do it.

------
EdSharkey
I think pixel art by itself is rad and has an audience that appreciates it.
For games though, even beyond the problem of the audience not getting the
point, in the age of retina displays there are many technical roadblocks with
getting the pixels to stay blocky and render the way you want.

If one was so inclined to stick with blocky pixel art, one could always render
the bitmaps' pixels as filled vector rectangles and the target display would
autoscale those rectangles without blurring them (unless they became subpixel-
sized.)

But, I personally think a high resolution pixel art style in games is just
going to confuse the consumer. Box shots no longer sell a game, trailer videos
do. Are you going for high detail but low color count and 24fps animation?
That does seem like a strange choice when I write it like that.

Low resolution pixel art (320 pixels wide or tall) makes a statement, and I
think the consumers get the "retro" style the developer is going for there.
But then why would an artist with a pencil and a budget ever want to restrict
themselves like that?

I don't know what Ubisoft did in recent Rayman titles, but it looks like 3D or
2D vector art. The animations are super fluid, scale very nicely, and are
super fun to watch! I suppose as the author suggests at the end, hand-placed
curves could be a good substitute for hand-placed blocks.

~~~
kibwen
The new Rayman games are absolutely a joy to behold. The majority of the
visuals in the game are 2D, though the engine also supports 3D models, and I'm
not certain if the 2D assets are sprites or vector illustrations. There's a
pretty neat demonstration of the engine here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoLpPw864eA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoLpPw864eA)

~~~
keeganpoppen
that engine looked really cool. the level editor setup the have is especially
cool, and very Bret Victor-esque.

------
csbrooks
This part struck home to me:

'Many developers who try to achieve the retro aesthetic overlook how much
magnification is going on, resulting in not one, but several different
resolutions at once. Not only can this be unsightly, but it’s “showing its
strings,”which defeats the purpose of limiting your resolution in the first
place.'

For some reason I find that really jarring.

------
eigenbom
Pixel art may have come from the limitations and formats of the past, but
it'll continue to evolve and change like other art styles. It's simple to get
into and complex to master.

There are some good points in the article, but pixel art in games (or art
heavily influenced by pixel art) is a style that many people enjoy, especially
when it is done well. It's very puzzle-like and you have to think economically
when creating larger pieces. Pixel art and low poly art are fundamental art
styles of gaming, I think partially because they are so overtly digital.

I think my favourite pixel artists show how the medium is always changing and
getter better, e.g., Paul Robertson, Pixels Huh, Yuriy Gusev (Fool), Barney
Cumming, and Mrmo Tarius.

PS. I'm a game developer and also run a pixel art on community on Twitter
called @Pixel_Dailies. Come check us out sometime. :)

------
dunstad
It was interesting to see that the game Aero uses very nice looking (high
resolution?) pixel art. I'm familiar with it in old games and in newer ones
that choose to adopt a retro look, but I'd never seen someone attempt what
they did. I probably would have been one of the people complaining about the
game's 'pixellated' art, as a result.

That said, I quite enjoyed the article, and some of those modern pixel art
pieces linked were very impressive. I think overall his decision to make the
switch is a good one though, if I can consider myself any kind of sample of
his audience.

------
ryanobjc
This feels like a "modern art" moment.

The key question is, who is your audience?

For a lot of modern art the audience is other insiders. And also, possibly,
buyers. The average person may not find it so compelling.

And so it is here as well.

------
sparkzilla
This article has several very important points that any creator should keep in
mind 1) The medium is the message. In other words the medium determines the
art. In his case, the higher-resolution of phone screens determines that his
message must change to take advantage of the screen's capabilities. For
example, when TV started it used radio and play formats for presentation. It
wasn't until years later, that people began to explore the visual storytelling
aspects of the media. It takes a while for people to discover how each medium
should be used most effectively. 2) The meaning of a communication is the
response you get [1]. When your audience is saying that your game is retro and
old-fashioned, they are not lying -- that's what it means to them. You can try
an educate them, but you are going against their understanding of point 1, or
you can work to their expectations. Good luck to the guy, he really gets it.

[1][http://coachingleaders.emotional-climate.com/nlp-
presupposit...](http://coachingleaders.emotional-climate.com/nlp-
presuppositions-8-the-meaning-of-communication-is-the-response-you-get/)

------
spoiler
This is great! It reminds me of some of the stuff I did once upon a time.
Here's a small collection of what I saved/salvaged over time[1].

We were a small group of friends who wanted to make a Harry Potter MMO (post-
trio era, if anyone cares). Well, we did make it, but we were young, didn't
know how shit about marketing and that stuff, and it never launched properly.
So, the first M of MMO was never achieved, sadly[1]. I still know shit about
marketing and that stuff, now that I think about it.

In the end there was a big (personal) argument and people divided into two
groups and we parted ways on not-so-good-terms.

[1]:
[http://nino.miletich.me/public/pixel_art/](http://nino.miletich.me/public/pixel_art/)
Note: not all of it is my work, in fact most probably isn't. I don't even
remember what is what isn't; we colaborated on a lot of stuff. I was mostly
the programmer/developer and not the artist for the project.

[2]: Maybe not so much sadly, since WB is apprantly very aggressive towards
fan-made products that get a bit of attention.

------
pshc
Yes! Thank you. I love the old pixel aesthetic, but today's art should fit
today's constraints. Those classic games will always be around, awaiting your
next nostalgia rush. Screw stagnation.

Likewise, I like old Victorians and Art Deco, but I wouldn't be excited about
one built today. No one would respect a 2015 medieval-style castle quite like
one from 1515.

~~~
Tideflat
However, a medieval-style castle would still be cool if it was built in 2015.

~~~
marshray
Pretty sure the pyramids were the original massively pixelated structure.

------
amelius
A lot of this also applies to rendering fonts at small point sizes.

------
Htsthbjig
Agreed.

Some of the greatest film movies ever created are black and white, ironical
because most of them were recorded in two colors but the color was lost(as the
only copy that not degraded over time were the black and white television
copies).

But if you tried to make a film that last 20 seconds like the first Lumière
movies, or without sound like Chaplin most people won't understand it.

Even Chaplin got nearly bankrupt trying to stay with silent pictures.

Most people can't understand that making a movie without sound is actually
harder than with it, as a movie without sound feels weird and you have to
apply lots of work in order to fight this limitation.

So it just does not make economical sense when 99% of the people do not
understand the work behind and you have to make something 99 times more
expensive to those that do in order to live of your work.

~~~
javajosh
_> But if you tried to make a film that last 20 seconds like the first Lumière
movies, or without sound like Chaplin most people won't understand it._

For _any_ given object, over a large enough population, most people won't be
exposed to it; those that are won't understand it. Hit TV shows might reach
10M viewers in the US - out of 350M.

FWIW I think the OPs move is slightly premature: there's a movie coming out
soon called _Pixels_ that will certainly raise the profile of this style:
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2120120/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2120120/)

~~~
sukilot
Maybe, but that movie looks like a ( bomb from here. The animators didn't read
this blog post or understand how to make good looking pixelated art.

------
cyxxon
While I understood the obsession with pixel art, I never really emotionally
"got it". For me, it is more about what to do with the technology available to
do, and then making the best out of that. And that does not mean going
photorealistic if you can, but just create a look that fits the product. XIII,
Borderlands, World of Warcraft come to mind - competing products of the same
time had a much more "real" look, but these titles actually stood out and aged
well. The author mentions Grim Fandango, which is in the same vein. None of
these is retro or pixel art, just done with an overarching style that is not
at the maximum of what was possible at the games creation.

------
bitwize
I love pixel art.

And I'm going to keep making games with pixel art. Why? Not because I want to
evoke retro nostalgia. Simply because the asset pipeline is easier to manage.
I avail myself of high resolutions and millions of colors, but even with those
you can create great pixel art even in a simple paint program and from there
it is easy to load into a game and draw on the screen. Plus, well done pixel
art reads incredibly clearly -- compare pixelated Mario with the 3D-rendered,
mushy Mario used in _Mario vs. Donkey Kong_.

For 2D gaming pixel art gets the job done and requires minimal tooling and
middleware. That's why I love it.

------
wodenokoto
This is a great article and I feel one of the most important points are being
drowned in discussing the merits of pixel art or what art is here in the
comment section.

The most important thing is the part about speaking the language of the users.
And especially "the users don't owe you their time"

These are principles that are extremely important if you want to build a
product that reaches people and change their lives. Be it in the marketing
department, engineering, UX or as this article, art work.

Another great point is that we _can_ produce great art/products/UX while
speaking the users language.

~~~
DinoFarmBlake
Author/artist here! Thank you so much for bringing it back around. And it's
important to point out that I am in no way proposing that we "dumb down" or
"pander." I think we should always be pushing as hard as we can and producing
ambitious, excellent work as much as we can. We should sacrifice money and
time to see it through and really add something of value and enrichment to the
world! I just think we should do that in a language people already speak.
That's a lower level than all these finer points, fun as they are to discuss
;). Thanks for reading!

------
beloch
Limitations often breed art. Compare what George Lucas did when he was on a
shoe-string budget to what he did when money was no object... frequently
directly to what he made when he was on a budget. Pixel art is appreciated by
people because they can see the limitation and appreciate how the artist
worked around it. However, restricting yourself to pixel art does mean
adopting a limitation voluntarily when you probably also have a lot of other
ones to deal with too. Sometimes one more limitation is one limitation too
many.

Pixel art is very trendy right now, but it probably won't remain so forever.
Shooting film in black and white used to be all that was possible. Then it
became what was cheap. Today, we still see some B&W films for aesthetic
reasons, but it's very uncommon. Pixel art will probably become very similar
to B&W film eventually. Seldom used, but used for a specific effect when it is
used.

There's room for plenty of aesthetics besides pixel art and "HD" though. With
modern displays, there's no reason that games can't borrow aesthetics from
other mediums. Watercolors, comic book print, you name it. Heck, even though
it's similar to pixels, I'd kill to see a good game created to look like a
Byzantine mosaic! Adopting these limitations when appropriate offers artists a
chance to take on problems nobody has seen handled before, and it's therefore
more interesting than just working with the same artificial limitation
everyone else is currently working with.

I'd just like to expand on the idea of a mosaic aesthetic a little bit more.
It may seem like mosaics are just irregularly shaped pixels, but it's actually
much more than that. Mosaics were made out of a variety of materials that
scattered and reflected light in very different ways. Some tiles were matte,
some colored glass, and others backed in gold leaf to amp up their
reflectivity. Mosaic tiles were also angled to reflect light very
strategically, allowing the artist to make some features grab your eye. A
mosaic-based game would require a virtual mosaic toolset that would give
artists the ability to simulate different tile materials and angles and a
lighting engine to render the results. The resulting image would have
complexity on a much smaller scale than a single tile.

------
karmakaze
The 'depixelize' reference [1] is an MS page with samples. I mostly find the
hq4x (upto 8x) then EPX most pleasing. The 'Ours' (presumably meaning MS/Xbox)
makes everything look like Inuit art completely losing any original sense.

[1] [http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/um/people/kopf/pixelart/...](http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/um/people/kopf/pixelart/supplementary/multi_comparison.html)

------
Eric_WVGG
The thing that bothers me about pixel-art is that too many young artists are
obsessed with the past, and not exploring the possibilities of the new
technologies, tools and modes of thinking that are available to them.

It's as if every musician under twenty was content to play in the Jon Spencer
Blues Explosion.

Don't get me wrong, I love pixel art — Paul Robertson and the Sword & Sworcery
guys are doing some of my favorite work — but if the artists of yesterday were
stuck in their own pasts… you know?

------
TrevorJ
As technology moves forward, more and more tools are at our disposal. The
trick then, is choosing the right tool for to communicate the look and feel
you want, in support of the story and world you are creating.

I feel like the author is so close to the issue that they lost the forest for
the trees: there will always be some games that benefit from the pixel art, it
just takes a full and proper understanding of what they style instantly
communicates to your audience.

------
Grue3
There are some great-looking pixel art phone games out there. Pixel Dungeon,
Game Dev Story (and other Mobage games by the same developer). I haven't seen
anyone claiming that the graphics are shit in those. This guy's game doesn't
look all that great to be honest. However the points he's making about the
public misunderstanding the craft that goes into pixel art are valid.

------
erikb
I have to agree deeply. Purism just for the sake of it is not dealing with the
end users demands. A pixel artist does pixel art because he deeply cares about
the pixels. But the user doesn't necessarily about the pixels. Most of them
care more about that the game's story and interactions are as convincing as
possible. Finding the right tools to achieve that is the right way to go.

------
toxicFork
Here's the discussion on the gamedev subreddit:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/35poc6/a_pixel_arti...](http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/35poc6/a_pixel_artist_renounces_pixel_art_an_article/)

------
yzh
This is relevant: [http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/um/people/kopf/pixelart/](http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/um/people/kopf/pixelart/)

~~~
pyrocat
yes, they bring it up in the article several times.

------
_pmf_
I think today it's much, much more effort to make a decent pixel art game than
to make a generic Unity 3D game (which look all the same to me; I hate them).

------
StronglyTyped
Isn't all computer art pixel art?

~~~
cosarara97
No.
[http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11299&PI...](http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11299&PID=139318#139318)

------
vacri
I found it interesting that the author denigrated a fighter from Street
Fighter IV with 'arms don't work that way', then immediately turns around and
says that the pixel art for the next fighter is far better because 'she looks
like a whip cracking', despite spines not working that way. It feels like the
author is applying different standards at times.

~~~
DinoFarmBlake
Artist/author here! To be clear, when I said her body is like a whip cracking,
it's because a kung fu artist doing that kind of movement in real life would
look like a whip cracking. When I said arms don't work that way, I mean that
his anatomy is literally deformed to the point of not even looking human.

I am not using a double standard. Though, even if both figures were deformed
beyond what is absolutely realistic, there could still be well-executed and
poorly-executed iterations.

~~~
sukilot
Oh come on. SF3 Chun-Li is absolutely not a low-res sample of how a human body
actually looks. It is a stylized exaggeration.

------
Kenji
Plebs: 1

Artists: 0

(I agree with him)

------
forrestthewoods
Reads heavily like sour grapes to me. =\

------
YogeeKnows
I hate pixel art anyway. One thing I'm pretty sure I always hate is pixel art.

