HD Index Painting in Photoshop

[Indigo]

I posted a blog covering a new method I've been developing allowing you to index paint in Photoshop - but with a fundamentally more powerful process which retains HD data to manipulate the pixels.  It's a bit lengthy but I figured you guys would find it useful.

Blog post here:
http://danfessler.com/blog/hd-index-painting-in-photoshop

Here's what you can do with it:

Pixel-bush, AA-brush, Soft-brush


Procedural Dithering


Dither Sampling


Smudge


Gradient


AA transforms


Alpha-blending


Blend Modes


Fixed index Adjustments


Dynamic index Adjustments


Dynamic re-indexing

Let me know what you think

[Cyangmou]

definitely useful and workflow wise much more forgiving for higher resolution pixel art pieces than the more traditional approach.
Looks cool for certain fields of use

Dunno how useful it will be for small scale were you define details with 1-2 pixel details by hand or minor cluster arrangement. For that it seems not to be necessary.

For larger areas and pixel painted background pieces (cloudscapes) it will definitely fasten things up a lot

Over all it seems to be a lot like grafx2, I wonder how it works with more than a single straight ramp.

@Edit:: ah well, just saw you also added the link of how to do it... jus thave seen your examples earlier at TIGsource.


Well one question:
which version of photoshop do you need to get it work?

[Pix3M]

There's something about index painting that makes it have a more authentic old school look. Been wondering if it could still be done today, then this came along 

I'm bookmarking this so I can look at this when I have the time

[r1k]

Ill definetly have to give this a try at some point too.  Never did index painting before, but seems useful for large background elements.

[Indigo]

definitely useful and workflow wise much more forgiving for higher resolution pixel art pieces than the more traditional approach.
Looks cool for certain fields of use

Dunno how useful it will be for small scale were you define details with 1-2 pixel details by hand or minor cluster arrangement. For that it seems not to be necessary.

For larger areas and pixel painted background pieces (cloudscapes) it will definitely fasten things up a lot

Over all it seems to be a lot like grafx2, I wonder how it works with more than a single straight ramp.

@Edit:: ah well, just saw you also added the link of how to do it... jus thave seen your examples earlier at TIGsource.


Well one question:
which version of photoshop do you need to get it work?

Yeah it definitely has it's strengths and weaknesses.  I wouldn't pixel super small sprites with it.  Interestingly I have found good use of it on chasm on quite small tiles.  Just depends on the situation.  Compared to GraFX, this method can do a heck of a lot more - but I suppose the price for that is it's a bit clunky doing so.

To answer your question, I'm note sure.  The basic features to do this have been there since CS3 I believe.  There might be some things you have to work around with older versions such as a lack of a black-and-white adjustment layer or the lack of the same eye-dropper settings, but for the most part you should be able to get it working in pretty old versions of PS.

[Conzeit]

I'm pretty sure it works on cs4, not because I've tried this exactly but because on a design job I needed to take the colors out of a photo and match it to a different color ramp (I was thinking of threating colors LIKE pixelart but obviously didnt try to fully replicate it like you achieved) so this doesnt look too far off.

EDIT: just tried it in cs4. works fine. you tricky little devil I never would've thought of using posterize :p

this method is great, I think I'd actually welcome having each layer be a different ramp.

This kind of stuff is exactly what we need. I think the future of pixelart is applying all of the lessons in many different mediums, effectively making it simply an aesthetic. Hexels, employing color ramps and modifiable colors like this,  voxels, lo-poly, ascii art...even just tile art and generally modular art are all things we should be looking at

[huZba]

Oh booger, I was so eager to try, but it seems this thing has gotten so much attention you exceeded your bandwidth.

[Indigo]

Site is back up - sorry about that.  Looks like I'm going to have to pay for some extra bandwidth this month

[Lanarky]

Is there a way to do this in GIMP? I've been trying to figure it out, but I can't seem to find the equivalent of Photoshop's Effect layers. If not, is it possible to index paint with GraphicsGale? I notice quite a few people on the forum use/recommend the program.

I already know ProMotion can since I've tried the trial, but it's a little too pricey for me right now.

[Conzeit]

you can do some form of index painting on ProMotion, but that wouldnt reallly be equivalent to this.

You can use promotion to draw with a brush that can draw with different blending effects in real time, if that's what you want out of this you can do that with ProMotion, but that isnt really what Indigo is talking about here.

The big thing is the "non commital" part that Indigo keeps emphasizing, that's exactly what adjustment layers (you called them effect layers) are about.  What's different about this is you're basically drawing within a color ramp with normal photoshop tools, and you get to decide after you've drawn it how many shades it should have, what hueshifting it should have and chose between a variety of dithers.

I know how I could set up all the layers in photoshop but I still dont think I'd come out with the same results as indigo, he has acquired a certain level of comfort with this tool that anybody just trying it doesnt have. That's the part that many reading the tutorial might not get, it takes a very specific way of painting to get this to look right, this is isnt a shortcut to drawing tiled backgrounds of the level of quality that there is in the Owlboy game or Indigo's work. Like indigo said, just a tool.

I suppose what you could do in gimp is find an alternative for posterize and alternative for gradient map and apply those effects on an image you've drawn in grayscale. if you know exactly how you have to draw it every time I guess you could come up with similar results but you wouldnt be drawing pixelart with "dirty" tools in real time.

Dont you have any friend that has photoshop CS3 or higher? just take the psd to his house and mess around with it, you'll see what it is about, you'll calm your curiosity and know whether you NEED this or not :p