AuthorTopic: Pixel Art Wiki  (Read 30298 times)

Offline tcaud

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Pixel Art Wiki

on: July 27, 2013, 01:06:20 pm
I've been thinking that a pixel art wiki would be a useful resource. A wiki would serve two purposes:

  • educate visitors about pixel art technique
  • tag copyrighted pixel art for easy reference

Regarding the technique issue, a look around Moby Games reveals that there were and are many independent techniques for designing pixel art, each with their merits and drawbacks. Studies of these techniques could educate a new generation of pixel artists and result in improvements and refinements of existing technique.

The purpose of the art library is to observe technique in action. It would also serve as a source of inspiration and discussion. While there are archives of pixel arts already available, they tend to categorize by game (Spriter's Resource) or by entire sheets at the discretion of the contributor (OGA). There is need for a resource that permits viewers to observe the history of an artistic idea in all its variation and detail. A wiki (or content management site) could make this feasible.

Offline Ai

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Re: Pixel Art Wiki

Reply #1 on: July 27, 2013, 01:39:04 pm
.. Use the search function. It's been discussed (and tried!) before.
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Offline tcaud

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Re: Pixel Art Wiki

Reply #2 on: July 27, 2013, 01:47:24 pm
Why not? Why not use the search function and just sort through reams and reams of posts interspersed over dozens of pages, taking 16x the amount of time to get the basic idea as you would with a single well written debrief?

Offline Mathias

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Re: Pixel Art Wiki

Reply #3 on: July 27, 2013, 01:49:29 pm
There's a new version of Pixelation in the works. It could have a built-in wiki. Canon, to the believers.

Offline tcaud

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Re: Pixel Art Wiki

Reply #4 on: July 27, 2013, 01:57:10 pm
There's a new version of Pixelation in the works. It could have a built-in wiki. Canon, to the believers.

Don't you think a continuation of Tsugumo's original endeavor, in wiki form, would be good for the site?

Offline ptoing

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Re: Pixel Art Wiki

Reply #5 on: July 27, 2013, 03:34:29 pm
We have discussed this probably 2 - 4 times now. The conclusion that we who run this place have come to, and I am sure many members agree to as well, is that just having some tutorial somewhere would take away from the human interfacing and back and forth, which is a big part of learning.

Also there really is not enough technique in pixelart to warrant a full on wiki, unless you wanted to have super specific entries on stuff like grass and dirt tiles, which imo would be pointless as well.
There are no ugly colours, only ugly combinations of colours.

Offline Pix3M

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Re: Pixel Art Wiki

Reply #6 on: July 27, 2013, 04:06:27 pm
Also there really is not enough technique in pixelart to warrant a full on wiki, unless you wanted to have super specific entries on stuff like grass and dirt tiles, which imo would be pointless as well.

Is it more pointless than I realize?

I've seen enough badly executed knockoffs of SD3's grass tile to know that people LOVE to use super-specific tutorials like that. Not to mention, while it would be kind of obvious to the more serious artists that we ought to use references from real life and of other artists's, maybe such super specific tutorials can be useful. Only difference from other tutorials floating out there on the internet is that we introduce special considerations that come with the medium, and we cover the range of possibilities (fully textured vs simplified approaches).

Maybe tutorials aren't as great as their users think they are, but people still love them.

Offline ptoing

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Re: Pixel Art Wiki

Reply #7 on: July 27, 2013, 06:57:34 pm
Learn to draw, observe nature, abstract shapes and textures from nature into pixel things like grass tiles.
This will get you further and you will learn more than just reading some grass tile tutorial.

If someone would want to go through the forum and search for super helpful threads, like the ramblethread and such, it might be viable to move those all into a childforum under pixelart or something. That I would not have anything against. But a Wiki is overkill.
There are no ugly colours, only ugly combinations of colours.

Offline tcaud

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Re: Pixel Art Wiki

Reply #8 on: July 28, 2013, 01:48:35 am
I didn't intend a wiki for tutorials, but for analyses. Notes that one particular artistic goal was accomplished in several different ways, with an accounting of each way and its draw. Something that a newbie wouldn't find interesting, but that a serious artist could learn well from. And I don't think such a wiki would reduce discussion at all... if anything, it would increase knowledge of specific techniques and create a reference point for the same. Now of course if you're just gonna rehash the same old thing over and over and focus on communicating that knowledge one person at a time, then I suppose a forum-only solution is indeed superior (or a chat room). However, this won't make the best artists any better.

Offline tcaud

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Re: Pixel Art Wiki

Reply #9 on: July 28, 2013, 10:39:45 am
Alright well, I'm going to make such a system/service/whatever on my own. Because although a forum is a great way to exchange ideas, it's a piss poor reference system. If there are any who want to participate, mail me at tcaudilllg@gmail.com. I have my own site for the purpose, so that's not an issue.