

Ask HN: Graphics creation for games? - SingAlong

Hey guys,<p>I just began to tinker with Pygame this morning. I have decided to do another hobby project using Pygame to create a nice little 2D game.<p>I took a look at some 2D games and also some indie games being sold. Most 2D games that are being sold now seem to have their graphics made using 3D programs (guess thats why they look 3D-ly).<p>Wondering if you guys here are using nice free drawing tools other than Blender (to make cartoonic graphics if not 3D)?
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J_McQuade
For simple 3D modelling (and just the modelling, mind), I've become very much
a fan of Wings3D. Ignoring the geeky bias I might have because it's written in
Erlang, it has a very shallow learning curve and, in combination with Blender,
you should be able to get some usable renders pretty quickly.

If you want to go witth straight-up 2D, though, I've found it fairly easy to
get simple and stylish results from Inkscape. That way might be better anyway
- why do what everyone else is doing?

Either way, I'd recommend just throwing something together quickly until
you've got a good 'working model' - then you can either spend a bit more time
on the graphics, or consult someone who knows their way around a wacom!

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hvs
Which tool you use to design your graphics won't mean anything if you don't
have some artistic ability. I speak from experience. That said, if you decide
to go 2-D, I would highly recommend a vector graphics editor like Inkscape or
Adobe Illustrator. I would argue that vector-based drawing, especially for the
less experienced artist, is _easier_ than bitmap drawing.

As recommended by J_McQuade, toss some images together at first and really
focus on the actual code instead. Once the infrastructure is there, the images
can easily be replaced.

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erik
I have two suggestions that are somewhat contrary to your question.

First, learn to draw. I recommend a book called Drawing on the Right Side of
the Brain by Betty Edwards. That and lots of practice.

Second, learn to produce and animate pixel art. You'll be surprised by the
results you can get with the retro/nostalgia look. Google will find you plenty
of tutorials.

While not 3d modeling, these approaches have low barriers to entry, and what
you learn will help your future efforts artistically.

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triplefox
I'm going to speak in terms of techniques rather than tools. These are the
best/fastest techniques I've found:

1\. Procedural generation in your own code. People forget about this option
because classical 2D games were too processing/memory-constrained to allow for
anything but tiles loaded direct from ROM, but it's really great for
environments. It works out to be very fast to produce because you can iterate
and randomize and come up with a lot of variations without extra work, but you
have to know what you're going for first. The download size savings is a bonus
too.

2\. Characters are cheapest to do with 3D only because of animation time. If
you don't have a lot of anims, hand-drawn tends to give a more lively result,
especially in low-res pixel art styles, but even then, painting over 3D will
reduce your error rate. Invest in a Wacom if you want to get serious about
drawing on computers, but start with the smallest size: you rarely need more.

3\. When I need a clean cartoony look I drag out Inkscape and do a vector
trace over the image I'm working with. This can take quite a while, but the
results are really good when you go all-out and use two vectors per outline to
give them variable width.

~~~
SingAlong
Thanks!

I was looking at Wascom as soon as arubin suggested me to do so, found address
of local stores from their website.

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cellis
I think Blender is your best bet for true 3D, if you're going to do the art
yourself. But perhaps you don't really need full-on 3D-baked in your 2D game?
If you're trying to commercialize it then yes, otherwise i'd say go with
isometric or pixel art.

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aaronblohowiak
Many cartoons you see on tv (and cartoon-y games) are actually 3d rendered
with a 'cel' shader.

For instance, check this out: <http://www.crazycoder.co.za/wp/?page_id=36>

Anyway, your best bet is to actually team up with an artist. Working with
people you like is fun, and artists think differently than programmers, so it
can be invigorating and expanding.

~~~
SingAlong
could speak more about cel shader? Thats exactly the kida of graphics what I'm
looking to produce. I can work with Python, Ruby and surely learn blender if
it requires. Any mores links on how to do this? The link you suggested was in
C++

~~~
aaronblohowiak
A cel shader is a technique for rendering 3d scenes. You still have to have
your 3d models, which you might want to buy from <http://www.3drt.com/> to get
started. A more detailed explanation that should explain the theory to you is
this:
[http://www.tjgalda.com/EducationAndTrain/Education%20and%20T...](http://www.tjgalda.com/EducationAndTrain/Education%20and%20Training/645629E6-14F7-4D19-B1F2-9B101E84364E.html)

Now, i dont think ou can write shaders in python, but you should be able to
use glsl shaders in pygame. You shouldn't have to actually learn glsl for most
common shaders, instead you can copy and paste from the internet! Example:
<http://www.lighthouse3d.com/opengl/glsl/index.php?toon3>

~~~
SingAlong
thanks!!!

I just found a webpage with a python script to do cel shading.
<http://www3.sympatico.ca/emilio.aguirre/>

and also a Blender toon shading tutorial here
[http://download.blender.org/documentation/oldsite/oldsite.bl...](http://download.blender.org/documentation/oldsite/oldsite.blender3d.org/80_Blender%20tutorial%20Toon%20Shading.html)

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SingAlong
I was just lurking on #gamedev and found a nice 2D graphics program called
Graphics Gale (for pixel art). There's a free version and a shareware version.
the shareware version is around $20

here's the link <http://www.humanbalance.net/gale/us/>

Anybody knows a better free alternative for this?

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jcromartie
I have to say that I don't really like the 2D-sprites-from-3D-models look. I
much prefer hand-drawn pixel graphics... but that might just be the taste of
someone who grew up playing SNES instead of Xbox.

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xsmasher
I use blender (for modeling and animation), Daz3d (for human figures and the
large content library) and of course Photoshop.

I'm still in need of a good tool for combining multiple .tga frames into a
single sprite sheet. It takes too long to do the task in Photoshop (load into
a stack, change canvas size, distribute layers, resize) and I can't preview
the animation until it's saved and built in the game engine.

Any suggestions for a tool (free or paid) that would help stitch multiple
frames into a sprite sheet?

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yeti
You can always go into Second Life, there are a bunch of cartoon avatar shapes
you can start with then customize..and then take high res screenshots to
process in GIMP or other

~~~
xsmasher
The models in Second Life are almost certainly protected by copyright. You
can't use them in your game any more than you could use Mario or Gordon
Freeman - even if you customize the avatar and add a funny hat.

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TomOfTTB
This might help...

<http://www.tdt3d.be/articles_viewer.php?art_id=99>

