Raster art for beginners.(Tools,problems,tutorials)

The general solution to the resolution issue is often to just draw your sprites as either really large at a high resolution (The largest they'll be seen on the biggest target device), or indefinitely tiling depending on whether it's a one off sprite, hero character or environment tilesheet.

"Raster art tutorials for gimp" won't get you anywhere. Photoshop tutorials will probably translate fine, fyi, what you'll want to look up is something more akin to "2D game art tutorials", "2D game assets tutorial beginner" or "how to paint in Gimp". The tool doesn't matter so much as the knowledge of how to actually make the art; unless you're stuck on something more specific, like what kind of assets you'll need.

The general solution to the resolution issue is often to just draw your sprites as either really large at a high resolution (The largest they'll be seen on the biggest target device), or indefinitely tiling depending on whether it's a one off sprite, hero character or environment tilesheet.

"Raster art tutorials for gimp" won't get you anywhere. Photoshop tutorials will probably translate fine, fyi, what you'll want to look up is something more akin to "2D game art tutorials", "2D game assets tutorial beginner" or "how to paint in Gimp". The tool doesn't matter so much as the knowledge of how to actually make the art; unless you're stuck on something more specific, like what kind of assets you'll need.

Hmmm. For example, lets say that my target device is pc. If am not wrong, monitors average highest resolution is 1920 x 1080. What happens if a person plays my games on an even higher resolution monitor? What does indefinitely tiling mean?

Welp, past 1920 x 1080, a lot of games just kind of scale it. It's stuff I don't know much about, my 2D assets are aimed at mobile + I am just an artist so my tech knowledge is limited.

Reguarding indefinitely tiling textures, I am very sleep deprived right now and that is a very redundant textures. I just mean "Tiling Texture", like these:

The general solution to the resolution issue is often to just draw your sprites as either really large at a high resolution (The largest they'll be seen on the biggest target device)

Dramatically down-scaling images can end up look bad. Some people create their hi-res versions, and manually downsize them using the better algorithms of art programs (instead of the faster and sloppier real-time resizing algorithms), then touch-up the down-sized versions to make sure they look fine, so they end up with 3 or 4 different sizes (Huge, Large, Medium, Small), and then choose the closest-matching size at run-time.

Especially with text - you want to choose a font size that is as close as possible to what you want on-screen. Taking hi-res rendered text and downsizing it a huge amount looks ugly.
Same thing with characters or other things with lots of sharp details - you don't want to loose pixels arbitrarily, but you need finer control over it.

Though, it seems to me, some indie games just render at a fixed resolution, even tiny ones like 800x600, and then resize the entire screen (or let the monitor resize it, when it's at fullscreen). I think Braid was one of these 800x600 games. Just be careful you aren't twisting your game's aspect ratio out of proportions (you don't want things stretched out or squashed).

With the top screenshot, Spelunky, I don't know what they do, but they could just show more cave area, until some preset max resolution is reached (i.e. where the character and GUI elements still occupy enough percentage of the screen real-estate to see clearly), and then switch to up-scaling from there (or rather: let the monitor upscale).

Also, for styling: The Art of Braid

The general solution to the resolution issue is often to just draw your sprites as either really large at a high resolution (The largest they'll be seen on the biggest target device), or indefinitely tiling depending on whether it's a one off sprite, hero character or environment tilesheet.

"Raster art tutorials for gimp" won't get you anywhere. Photoshop tutorials will probably translate fine, fyi, what you'll want to look up is something more akin to "2D game art tutorials", "2D game assets tutorial beginner" or "how to paint in Gimp". The tool doesn't matter so much as the knowledge of how to actually make the art; unless you're stuck on something more specific, like what kind of assets you'll need.

I am curious. If i were to do high res art( raster art), how would my art process be? How do you do it? I mean i have heard that some draw on a paper and then scan.Then, he/she would edit in an art program. Some just use tablet to do draw it. But as an artist what process do you use or recommend to be productive as an artist? Thanks for the explanation.

The general solution to the resolution issue is often to just draw your sprites as either really large at a high resolution (The largest they'll be seen on the biggest target device)

Dramatically down-scaling images can end up look bad. Some people create their hi-res versions, and manually downsize them using the better algorithms of art programs (instead of the faster and sloppier real-time resizing algorithms), then touch-up the down-sized versions to make sure they look fine, so they end up with 3 or 4 different sizes (Huge, Large, Medium, Small), and then choose the closest-matching size at run-time.

Especially with text - you want to choose a font size that is as close as possible to what you want on-screen. Taking hi-res rendered text and downsizing it a huge amount looks ugly.
Same thing with characters or other things with lots of sharp details - you don't want to loose pixels arbitrarily, but you need finer control over it.

Though, it seems to me, some indie games just render at a fixed resolution, even tiny ones like 800x600, and then resize the entire screen (or let the monitor resize it, when it's at fullscreen). I think Braid was one of these 800x600 games. Just be careful you aren't twisting your game's aspect ratio out of proportions (you don't want things stretched out or squashed).

With the top screenshot, Spelunky, I don't know what they do, but they could just show more cave area, until some preset max resolution is reached (i.e. where the character and GUI elements still occupy enough percentage of the screen real-estate to see clearly), and then switch to up-scaling from there (or rather: let the monitor upscale).

Also, for styling: The Art of Braid

So its like doing a character in Gimp in 1920 x 1080. Then, resize it to multiple sizes and edit it. Well that does explain a lot. I have read that usually raster art usually cost on target devices memory. Is that like accurate? I mean if i were to make an mobile game with raster art would it limit my game's scale in sense of content in art?
BTW thanks a lot.

So its like doing a character in Gimp in 1920 x 1080. Then, resize it to multiple sizes and edit it.

That's really extreme. You could make it that hi-res, but I very much doubt it'd benefit your game.

What is the screen resolution of your target devices? How big will your character appear on those devices? Unless you are having a close zoom-up on the character's nostril hairs, 1920x1080 resolution of a character seems excessive. Ofcourse, I'm not sure what kind of game you are making. You posted screenshots of three side-scrolling games - the characters in those screenshots only are taking up a very tiny portion of the screen. I wouldn't make those characters very large at all.

You can, if you want to, draw your characters using a tablet or pen and paper, and then scale down the characters before adding finer detail - if that's easier for you. But I wouldn't ship 1920x1080 resolution characters with the game. I wouldn't even ship 256x256 res characters! Well, maybe, what with the iPad's stupid-large resolution displays, but 256x256 would be about as high as I'd go, and even that is pushing it for me.

If this is your first game, it's probably more important to release a game, then to worry too much over resolutions.

Well that does explain a lot. I have read that usually raster art usually cost on target devices memory. Is that like accurate?

Entirely depends on the game.

I mean if i were to make an mobile game with raster art would it limit my game's scale in sense of content in art?

Not really. It depends on the nature of your game, though. If you are using tile-art or otherwise assembling areas out of pieces of graphics, it's unlikely to be a huge restraint. The primary restraint is on the total amount of memory your game has loaded at one time. By re-using art pieces (either as tiles, or as textures arbitrarily placed and scaled and rotated), you can have very large worlds.
There's also some restraint on how large, byte-wise, your game is when downloaded over the internet, but that's also not too big of a deal for 2D games - as long as you aren't shipping absurdly high resolution artwork.

However, if you are hand-drawing each area as a huge large image, then yeah, that'd quickly add up in a bad way.

What is the screen resolution of your target devices? How big will your character appear on those devices? Unless you are having a close zoom-up on the character's nostril hairs, 1920x1080 resolution of a character seems excessive. Ofcourse, I'm not sure what kind of game you are making.

Well I want to make a game which is much like Zelda or Hyper Light Drifter or Binding of Isaac.(But not pixel art or flash art.)So its like a 3/4 game with high res art.
These images are similar to my game in sense of the point of view and how far the camera or point of view is.
I could not find high res art with 3/4 view. I am planning to make an indie rpg game with high res art since the indie market is over saturated with games with pixel art.

I trying to make my own specific style for game art.

If I were you I would seriously focus all of my efforts into my artistic training and only worry about the technical matters later, when I'm already producing high quality content.
Any of the artists involved in the games that you referenced have already gone through extensive artistic training — studying theory, life drawing with a sketchbook, digital painting, producing raster images and vector images etc.

It is easy for an experienced artist to learn and adapt to most of the technical restrictions — working under a target resolution, a specific art direction, sprite size, scaling, limited palletes, framerates etc.
An experienced artist will still produce good content with restrictions like that, whereas a novice will not.

- http://welcome.deviantart.com/
- http://forums.cgsociety.org/forumdisplay.php?f=166
- http://www.epilogue.net/
- http://www.conceptart.org/forums/forumdisplay.php/132-ART-DlSCUSSION
- http://conceptartworld.com/

Also make sure to follow other artists. They link to each other's blogs and you can always find inspiring material.

- http://adamscreation.blogspot.se/
- http://tabletmonkey.blogspot.com/
- http://artsammich.blogspot.se/
- http://floony.blogspot.com/
- http://gh-graphics.blogspot.com/
- http://mindyleedoodles.tumblr.com/
- http://willterry.blogspot.com/
- http://dalo-artspell.blogspot.com/
- http://helgesonart.blogspot.de/

Also make sure to follow other artists. They link to each other's blogs and you can always find inspiring material.

- http://adamscreation.blogspot.se/
- http://tabletmonkey.blogspot.com/
- http://artsammich.blogspot.se/
- http://floony.blogspot.com/
- http://gh-graphics.blogspot.com/
- http://mindyleedoodles.tumblr.com/
- http://willterry.blogspot.com/
- http://dalo-artspell.blogspot.com/
- http://helgesonart.blogspot.de/

If I were you I would seriously focus all of my efforts into my artistic training and only worry about the technical matters later, when I'm already producing high quality content.
Any of the artists involved in the games that you referenced have already gone through extensive artistic training — studying theory, life drawing with a sketchbook, digital painting, producing raster images and vector images etc.

It is easy for an experienced artist to learn and adapt to most of the technical restrictions — such as working under a target resolution, a specific art direction, sprite size, scaling, limited palletes, framerates etc.
An experienced artist will still produce good content with restrictions like that, whereas a novice will not.

- http://welcome.deviantart.com/
- http://forums.cgsociety.org/forumdisplay.php?f=166
- http://www.epilogue.net/
- http://www.conceptart.org/forums/forumdisplay.php/132-ART-DlSCUSSION
- http://conceptartworld.com/

Thanks for the links.

I would also check out Krita. I prefer it for painting with my wacom over gimp.

I'm not the greatest artist in the universe but I was able to produce these with Krita:

seemless bricks

Well I want to make a game which is much like Zelda or Hyper Light Drifter or Binding of Isaac.(But not pixel art or flash art.)So its like a 3/4 game with high res art.
These images are similar to my game in sense of the point of view and how far the camera or point of view is.
I could not find high res art with 3/4 view. I am planning to make an indie rpg game with high res art since the indie market is over saturated with games with pixel art.

Perhaps you might be mistaken about what 'hi res' means? You can draw realistic looking low-res art. You can also draw hi-res pixel art.

You can draw realistic low res, medium res, and high resolution artwork.
You can draw cartoonish low res, medium res, and high resolution artwork.
You can draw pixel-art at low res, medium res, and high resolutions.
You can eat it on a train, you can eat in in the rain, you can... Oops, I got sidetracked a second.

My point is, the resolution of your artwork doesn't dictate your art style (though it can affect it).

Making artwork higher resolution does not automatically make it look better or more realistic.

If you think you need your character to be 1920 x 1080 to look realistic, you are mistaken!

How you draw the art determines your art style, not what resolution it is.

I would also check out Krita. I prefer it for painting with my wacom over gimp.

I'm not the greatest artist in the universe but I was able to produce these with Krita:

Well I tried out krita. Guess it did not suit me. Also i could find more reference or tutorial for gimp and quite a lot of people recommend Gimp when a person asks for no price charged art software. Although, your art does look nice.

Perhaps you might be mistaken about what 'hi res' means?

Well that is an understatement. Hahaha.

can draw realistic low res, medium res, and high resolution artwork.

You can draw cartoonish low res, medium res, and high resolution artwork.
You can draw pixel-art at low res, medium res, and high resolutions.
You can eat it on a train, you can eat in in the rain, you can... Oops, I got sidetracked a second.

My point is, the resolution of your artwork doesn't dictate your art style (though it can affect it).
Making artwork higher resolution does not automatically make it look better or more realistic.

If you think you need your character to be 1920 x 1080 to look realistic, you are mistaken!
How you draw the art determines your art style, not what resolution it is.

Got the message though.

For me the GIMP is invaluable as an image editing program, I use it almost every day. It is not Photoshop, but it's the closest thing that you can get for absolutely no money.
For actual painting I use MyPaint, but you need a Wacom digitiser tablet to use it to its full potential:
http://mypaint.intilinux.com

Additionally, in the same way that the GIMP is the open-source Photoshop alternative, Inkscape is the open-source Illustrator\CorelDRAW alternative. You use it for producing vector graphics:
http://www.inkscape.org/en/about/screenshots/

You can always buy software as well, some products are not that expensive after all. When you pay for something you usually get a better quality product with more focus on the user experience.
There's Paint Tool SAI, which is one of the most used painting programs for artists on a budget. A lot of art has been done with it. It originally comes in Japanese, so you need to download the unofficial English language pack:
http://www.systemax.jp/en/sai/
http://detstwo.com/sai/

Another commercial software for digital painting that's very cheap is Artweaver:
http://www.artweaver.de/en

I guess im silly for using Photoshop and illustrator to make my stuff. :(

Hardly. Those are industry standard tools.
But the trick is to make amazing art regardless of what you're using.

Sure enough, i remember when I first started doing computer art.... i said "who the hell needs layers... wtf are they for anyway?" LMAO those were pain shop pro days... when photoshop was too expensive for a lowly 10 year old!

Sure enough, i remember when I first started doing computer art.... i said "who the hell needs layers... wtf are they for anyway?" LMAO those were pain shop pro days... when photoshop was too expensive for a lowly 10 year old!

lol, layers are sweet. I use Paint Shop Pro XI (about 7 years old, now), and it has layers and does a decent job. Probably not as feature complete as Photoshop, but alot cheaper.