Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: nessx007 on May 28, 2016, 11:32:44 am
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Hey guys, newcomer here, not just to this forum but to pixel art in general! My background before starting the whole game dev thing was actually in video/graphic design, so naturally I felt most comfortable in Adobe products when I started to explore pixel art. Photoshop took some serious settings tweaks and tricks to make pixel art friendly, but over the months I've gotten to a good place and able to work quickly/frustration free.
...that is, until I start animating. At first, I was thrilled to find Photoshop had a timeline with layers (reminded me of After Effects, which I was also very familiar with). But I quickly found it to be very stubborn and lacking keyboard shortcut options. I typically use a lot of layers as I work, like if I need to be overlaying multiple animated elements over a base animation, or having all 8 directions for a character animation in one project file, the layer situation can get really out of hand. Just so you have an idea (these "layer stairs" go on much longer in both directions btw):
http://i.imgur.com/8aydSSR.png
Things like trimming layers with a keyboard shortcut, or being able to shrink the vertical height of the layer chunks(so I can see more of my stuff in one view), or even applying multiple duration changes to a group selection, just don't exist. Not sure if it makes a difference, but I am still using CS6, and I was curious to ask anyone else that might be using newer versions of Photoshop (like CC) if their timeline options are a little more fleshed out. Or if they have any advice in general for the version I have currently. I've googled around without too much luck regarding whats new with the timeline stuff. Just wanted to see if I'm not the only one here fighting these battles!
Thanks for your time!
edit: and just to clarify, overall I think Photoshop is great and on the right track, the parts of the timeline that do work as expected let me do things that always felt awkward in their old Frame Animation system. I feel like it gives me a tighter control and better visual reference when I have a lot of separate moving parts. I just wish I was doing more with my keyboard and less one-at-a-time-click-and-dragging with my mouse.
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most people here use photoshop and tend to switch to something else after a while, so we dont rely on layers nearly as much. a character's animation will most likely be all the animations one after the other....so not sure there will be a lot of replies. That said some people do use photoshop for pixelart and love it, hope there's someone like that around and you get your reply :p
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hello, i usually use photoshop to make sprite animation, but it's a bit tricky.
this global explanation is to make a sheet of sprites with photoshop with 1 line of any sprites you need for each animation (each line = 1 animation)
I can explain you the general idea and if you want to use it, i can make a proper tuto + download of the script file needed
- use "animation/windows" with image by image option : you can see your current animation with load option
- export the current animation with "files video renderer" : you'll obtain 1 picture by animation frame ; pict1.png, pict2.png etc
- use a script layertoanimation.jsx : select all your pictures and the script will load all the selection + make a proper line with all sprites
- save your sheet !
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I'm one of those people who still uses Photoshop to animate cause it's what I work in. Conzeit you mentioned that people move onto other programs. What programs are people using to make their animations?
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I use aseprite. It's pretty basic as far as animation editors go, no animated objects or anything, but it's still solid for my frame-by-frame work and It's probably one of the easier ones to work with.