
2D game art for programmers - jstrieb
http://www.2dgameartguru.com/
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ENTP
How do programmers like myself meet decent pixel artists with common
interests? Art has always held me back in gamedev. I imagine there are people
with the opposite problem?

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brudgers
Make the common interest a contract that pays the artist for their work. The
trope of an 'ideas guy' who wants a programmer to build their idea is a pale
shadow of the designer/artist experience of strangers and acquaintances who
want free design/art. Finding things to work on for free is not a problem for
artists, the problem is finding work that pays well.

One reason for the asymmetry is that volunteering to work on an open source
software project often produces systems or tools that make a programmer's job
easier (i.e. they scale), for example algorithms or frame works or functions
created while developing a game can potentially be reused by the programmer
and their friends and associates many many times. On the other hand, the
nature of art and design is that it is a one-off and creating art for the game
doesn't make creating art for another game easier for the artist, their
friends or their business associates.

The closest analog in programming is writing documentation and tutorials.

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asrp
> On the other hand, the nature of art and design is that it is a one-off and
> creating art for the game doesn't make creating art for another game easier
> for the artist, their friends or their business associates.

I have noticed this too. But why is it this way? Couldn't the process be made
more modular?

The artist sometimes gets tool proficiency and workflow improvement out of it
but the gain and reusability is not nearly as important as with programs.

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Namrog84
Kenney is one who does try and do modular artistic things. He even made a
studio program to help non artist do this exact thing.

[https://kenney.itch.io](https://kenney.itch.io)

His main site is down at moment or else I'd have linked that. Also I have no
association with Kenney, only an appreciation for what he does.

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asrp
Oh wow! Thanks for sharing this!

Is there a write up on how the accomplish the modularity side of things?

> Linux users: Kenney Studio works using Wine on Ubuntu and other Debian
> distros. We unfortunately can't give any support for this.

Oh well, this is a rather unfortunate. There doesn't seem to be a video
preview either.

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vog
Very nice introduction. I find it especially interesting to see that in
graphics design, simplicity is almost as important as in software development
- and moreover, for very similar reasons: So it is easier and faster to
change, so you can faster try more variants.

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j1436go
I miss the days of pixel art and 90s anime. I just can't appreciate
contemporary game art.

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tannhaeuser
I'm guessing that's because games and animations are created using 3D tools
today almost exclusively because everything else is prohibitively expensive.

While every fool (even me) can create/CAD-out a 3D model and then render it
(and there are spectacularly bad specimens out there even I would be ashamed
of publishing), 2D is an artistic interpretation of reality and takes real
craftmanship. Far as I know, most animation is produced in Asia in huge
studios and the workflow is such that you record the audio (voices), and draw
some key frames _after the voice timings_ by chief artists. The intermediate
product is then called a "Leica". Then the artists of the big producers "ink
out" the rest.

Personally I can't stand the animation of the 3D variety; it might have been
fun/innovative back when Shrek came out, now its just stereotypical and cheap.

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0xcoffee
I'm not sure if OP is owner of the site, but the BlockBuddies download doesn't
seem to be working. I click 'download for free' and nothing happens. Very
generous giveaway however.

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SpriteAttack
That's odd. I checked and it works fine for me. Try and refresh or use and
alternative browser. I will leave it free a little longer.

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SpriteAttack
Thanks for the mention.

