Hello, I am looking for someone to make a series of animation sequences for a tiny low res one color player sprite. The sprite is sort of like a stick figure, and I have and example of it already with a run cycle.


Other sequences I will need such as walk, jump, climb..etc

I hope this project will be out onto the market within no more then 2 month. We can discus a % or set amount assuming the game sells, but also your name will feature prominently as being the animator of the player sprite.


I am hoping since the sprite is such low res + one color + simple stick figure type shape that it will be relatively easy, quick and fun to produce a series of animations for it.

If anyone sounds like they can help me out it would be great, either leave a reply here or pm me.

Hey folks

Once, perhaps twice I used the onion skin feature in graphics gale, a while ago.
Now.. its simply never works, dose nothing at all.
I have no idea what the hell is going on here.

I have googled and googled looking for the issues, found some semi-related posts but nothing with solutions to this.


Dose anyone have issues with gale and its onion skin feature?

No matter what I do,  it NEVER works.. dose not even try.

For example i have a blank canvas

I make 3 frames, I put one black pixel down, then go to the next frame .. where is the previous faded frame? I have tried setting the useless tool to forward, back, forward and back... still dose nothing.

I have tried creating 2 layers, one for the black dot, then creating 3 frames... on frame 1 i stamp down one black pixel on its own layer, next frame., nothing.. what is the point of this tool? how dose it work? Yes I have read the docs. It simple says the obvious, which im doing, but its not working.. never works

So i try set up elaborate layers including alpha chans..  make a bunch of frames, try to make a modification on first frame, any modification.... i click next frame... nothing..

I have re-installed this 3 times
I have re-downloaded it from the site 2 times.
Re-booted my pc
Scanned for virus..etc etc etc

Nothing makes this onion skin work... and what really frustrates me I HAVE used this before only 2 months or so back...  it worked fine, did as you would expect,, only used it a couple of times.

And now that I really need it fails, not just fails, but is non-existent

Dose anyone know what is with this tool?

Heya folks

I am about to ask something that may not go down so well with certain folks, in particular pixel purists, but the reason I want to ask is a genuine curiosity and has been poking at me for some time now.

I might like to start first by saying that I am relatively new to pixel art, and this forum, however my background is in graphic design and art (if you could call it art) so I do have some experience in the creative arts arena. I might also like to say that I have got much pleasure and inspiration from seeing the creative works people post on this forum no matter what the level of ability or quality. I have this forum partly to thank for pushing me into a pixel art direction which is all pretty new to me in the context of creating it.


And I suppose I might also mention (since it might have a baring on peoples reactions of what I am about to say) that I am not a youngster, I have been dabbling with game design for a number of years so I understand "some" of the technicalities that go into producing game across a wide variety of modern platforms. I am also old enough to recognize the history of pixel and understand its iterations through history from a technical / hardware limitation point of view and also evolution in pixel art styles either based on those restrictions or beyond those restrictions.
Although I am new to creating pixel art I am not new to pixel art itself, how its come to be, and my deep appreciation and admiration for it from all styles, even if those styles are restricted due to a technical aspect of either the software or hardware.

OK so , the core question is, and and don't mean to come across disrespectful of a discipline (which believe me I am not trying to be), but I may as well be blunt.

Why dose there seem to be this unsaid orthodox obligation for people, in particular newbies, to conform their creative works to ridiculously tiny pallets (for 2017) almost as if, if any more colors from their tiny 6 (or whatever) color pallet are introduced, their piece suddenly transcends authentic (perhaps descends to some) pixel art and becomes pseudo pixel art or something else.


But dose this pressure, on particular newbies to make their works "pixel art cool" by using as little colors as possible exist? or perhaps it is just a general impression I get not just on this forum but in general across the wider game art / pixel art community. I am not only interested to hear from pixel pros, and pixel purists, but I really would like to hear what newbies think about this too.

Do you really feel a pressure or some obligation that the general idea behind pixel art is to be as efficient with colors as possible? (efficient in the context of numbers of colors used)


Don't' get me wrong here, as I have never seen anyone actually say "this is not genuine pixel art because you are not using x amount of colors" from anyone where, nor has anyone ever criticized me for using x amount of colors or said its not genuine pixel art because of it. This is more of a "general" impression I get due to a number of factors, one being the sort of questions new people are asking with regards their first pieces, other factors like the amazingly helpful and feedback from other members of the pixel art community, from pros to intermediates, from purists to newbies, whether on this forum or on other communities, and the wonderfully detailed documentation, tutorials, and general advice experienced pixel artists have provided across these communities.
As said, it is a general, perhaps vague, impression I get that there is an unstated obligation to conform to as small a pallet as possible or its not "genuine" "pixel art". It may not actually exist and I might be indeed just imagining it which is why I am asking the question in particular to newbies themselves.

Yet I question why I consistently see people new to pixel people posting works trying to represent something using tiny pallets and asking questions like "how can i make this look better" , "how can i make this look right" ... " this doesn't quite look right is it my shading?" .... and in most cases the first and obvious start to answer those questions is to simply use more colors, among other advice such as where to put the colors.

So I get the whole "style" aspect here. I realize that there is an appeal to have something "look" like it came from a time that there was color restriction for good reason, be it software, hardware or some other technical barrier to using more colors. I stress that again I GET IT.. i get the want to make something look as retro as possible I get the whole style thing so please .. I get it OK?

Perhaps this is more of a case that pixel art in the greater public eye has IMO become inextricably associated with the concept of "less is good", "more is bad", and this core concept has evolved (but has it evolved?) obviously in history due to technical restrictions. Alas it is 2017 to my understanding and even the most low end modern tech can push pallets in excess of 8 bit, well beyond it. I say modern tech since I can only assume that the vast majority of newbies to pixel art would have some context to their works being used as a concept for a game, or an actual asset for a game or something pertaining to it being designed in a video game context, or just a once off art piece made to look like its using a video game aesthetic, whatever.

I love all types of pixel art, from ultra low res/res color right up to higher res 16bit+ pallets, I adore the full spectrum of styles whether they are conforming to a retro look, or not, or something in between.
I deeply admire, respect and am constantly inspired by the purist approach too no matter how orthodox and restrictive it is... the more restrictions the more clever you have to be and I get much pleasure from studying certain purist styles in awe how it was done with so little. So I am not having a dig at the concept of purist pixel art, if anything the biggest inspiration I have had in all art not just pixel art is minimal.. I love anything minimal its a core of my personality, from visual arts, to music, to architecture ..whatever.



As some of you reading this might be already aware that I have been trying to help folks with some suggestions and sometimes examples to go with the suggestions for the very short period I have been on this forum, well my first advice whether stated or not will always be to encourage folks to not necessarily use more colors, but rather not to feel so much pressure to pivot their whole piece around a a tiny set of colors that have been set in stone. If something can be made to look more like what the person is trying to represent without it necessarily being more "realistic/photo realistic" looking then I just don't see the reason why not to start to introduce more colors. If its a case people are working on specific game engines that have locked pallets then I also get that too.

Sure I like to be lavish when its appropriate with colors, but at the same time I am big into being subtle with colors in other contexts, Just because there are 16million colors in a pallet doesn't mean you have to use them.. so even if people are not conforming to a restricted pallet there is still importance in being subtle , perhaps clever with your colors. You can very easily make something retro looking and have it consistently retro looking, but using a few more colors just to emphasize certain things. In a game context, sure you want that "authentic" looking retro look, but at the same time your players are not pausing the game , taking screenshots and going off to scrutinize the color count on every frame to make sure its only ever using x amount of colors, if not the feeling of them playing a retro game is lost.

There is a discipline and skill to to sticking to restrictive pallets but for me "Pixel Art" be it "authentic" or "whatever" is more then that, its bigger then that, it encompasses so much more. Orthodox retro styles are only ONE of many types of pixel art styles, and I would say to newbies to please never feel afraid to use as many colors as you think best represents whatever you are trying to represent.

From a newbie point of view (and in general art) sometimes its best to make something look as best as you can without restriction, get used to that, THEN refine that by starting to explore more stylized looks of which 8bit look is just one... I don't mean per-piece i mean as an evolution of learning a new discipline, i.e. in this case "Pixel Art"

Is the use of restrictive pallets pushed a bit too much , in particular on newbies when there is no real necessity in this day an age to do so beyond a specific style/look?

Would love to get some feedback on this, I am dead curious to know what pros,purists and newbies think.

Also keep up the AMAZING work , no matter what discipline or style. The work on this forum astounds me.

Ahoy..

Was curious to know if anyone had ever seen the official music video for Flairs - Truckers Delight, and what they thought of it.

I realize the subject content is.. um, extreme might be good word,, hehe, but I was curious to know what people thought of the pixel art, the animation, and generally how it is put together. I  think it is  absolutely amazing and one of the best applications of pixel art I have seen in a film context, most defiantly in a music video context.

If your over 18 and not too sensitive and have not seen this before, do your self a favor and check it out.

Hello everyone,

I thought to repost this from another forum I posted into.

A quick tutorial on how to get a nice effective old school CRT look.


Ok so I really like that old CRT  look, in particular when it comes to pixel art. Over the years I have seen various games and emulators try to simulate various styles of scan-lines and CRT looks, however I have rarely (if ever) seen ones that try to simulate the actual RGB component to each cell on a CRT screen. This style may not be to everyone's taste though.

Anyway I thought to try come up with something effective and thought to post my method here on the AGS forum since many of you are working at the pixel art level.


For this method you must upscale your artwork to at least 300%. This means for every pixel of your art work it will now have 9 pixels of detail, this will be needed for 2 reasons,  the first reason is to get Red Green and Blue going horizontally across each of your pixels, and the second reason is you will simulate the CRT cell beveling at the top and bottom of this 3x3 pixel.

This up-scaling of art work may not work with some projects  in particular low res games, but it might be nice to use on static images, or other contexts.


Ok here are the very simple steps, and underneath are images of the process and underneath that is another image demonstrating how effective it can be.


Step 1:
Up-Scale your raw pixel art work up by 300% using nearest neighbor scaling (to avoid aa/blurring)
then zoom right in on one of your artwork pixels (which is now 3x3 pixels), then simply paint 3 vertical lines of 3 pixels, Red, Green and Blue. (Make sure to keep neatly inside your art work pixel)

Step 2
Now to simulate the slight bevel you see on CRT cells if you look close enough. Either apply a bevel or just paint lighter shade of Red,Green, Blue on the top row of 3 pixels, then at the bottom row of 3 pixels paint in darker R, G, B colors.


Step 3
Now you simply (but very carefully) copy and paste this to make a row,, then copy that row to make a block, and copy that block.. and so on. But its very import to take care that in each of your art work pixels the RGB cell is sitting in snug, with the highlight of the bevel on top and the dark part on the bottom and the Red component starting first.

Step 4
Once you have the whole of your image covered , simply use a "Soft Light" layer blend and your done. No need to touch Opacity settings. In this example I am using PS, however most GFX software that has layers will have a close equivalent to PS Layer Blends.

Step 5
On zooming right in you can make sure you didn't go wrong with the copy/pasting of the cells/rows..etc





And here are some examples of how effective this overlay filtering can be. , I have also provided you with a strip of overlay filter at the very bottom that's on a transparent background so if your too lazy to make it your self, just grab that and copy/paste until you have your image covered. (you will still need to apply a layer blend such as Soft Light)
You could bake this overlay effect into your image, or in theory it could be used as a real-time screen overlay filter in a game engine however I am not sure AGS could do that.




There is one disadvantage to this CRT effect in that it darkens the image slightly. It is a bit unavoidable. You can try play with the contrast/color balance of art work to compensate. In the example images I could have de-saturated the red component a bit, but you can mess about with the 3 colors, and how its blended to get some really interesting results.

Anyway have fun with it, hope it's useful to someone out there.