Pixel Art Class - The Importance of Character Scale

[@retrocademedia-announcements]

YEAAAAA PIXEL ART CLASS IS BACK!!! Genuinely, there's no series I've watched that has helped me improve my pixel art ability nearly as quickly as this. Adopting the more painterly style (throwing down big blobs and refining them later) and beginning to create my own palettes almost immediately improved my pixel art, and for that I am immensely grateful.

[@pixeldesireblnr]

can anyone tell me what are the scale for character and map for Blasphemous II? i want to create the detailed character look that fit perfectly in canvas. is the character 128x128 and the map is more than 154px ?

[@SPEEDYDIM2]

What the heck I was literally struggling with character sizes and this video comes out best timing

[@pureatheistic]

You're BY FAR the best pixel art education youtuber. Your explanations are perfect for someone with and without an artistic background really well. And you cover soooo many topics most others take for granted the viewers already know.

[@KreeTerry]

Adam I can’t think you enough for the all learning and knowledge you have shared. I have learned so much from all your videos, seriously thanks so much 🙏

[@SyreDoesThings]

I love that when he talked about his game you could see him smiling like he was either proud or embarrassed to show his game in progress 🤣

[@edulz_]

duuuude, this was so so useful. The insight on character size x screen size x where the action will be happening really unstucked me. Thx for the video!

[@VectoRaith]

Thank you sir, this tutorial is very important. For a game dev artist, this is probably the MOST important of tutorials. Failure in art scaling will affect gameplay, and in extreme cases, it will end your project straight away. I learned this in a hard way back then when I must redraw about 120 different character sprites - all animated.

[@apoxfox]

This is perfect timing because I have been workshopping my characters over the last month, love your vids pal!

[@RealRelaxHappyMind]

i will draw pixel any pixel art do you want my service

[@amrlynch]

Man you are such a great teacher. Tons of design wisdom in this video. Watching your design process makes me realize how much I'm getting lost in the pixels, rather than giving real thought to the character, their motivations, and the actual physics of motion

[@psyboyo]

What a wonderful channel! You take time, explaining and sketching, dedicating your time to the viewer and not youtube metrics. Well done, instant sub, thank you.

[@hiiambarney4489]

Thinking about character size compared to screen based on which genre of game we are talking about is simply a stroke of genius. This is why you are my (sort of) Mentor.

[@LongestYardstick]

if it weren't for your youtube commentaries i don't know what I would do -- this makes SO MUCH SENSE -- thank you, sincerely

[@SgtBrutalisk]

Your tutorials changed my life for the better. I was mortified of drawing but Aseprite helped me overcome the analysis paralysis.

[@LongestYardstick]

Thanks!

[@Ravisherrr]

You always come around and teach me something. I respect how humble you are considering your skill as a dev. That seems hard to come by. 👍

[@RealRelaxHappyMind]

i will draw pixel any pixel art do you want my service

[@RealRelaxHappyMind]

i will draw pixel any pixel art do you want my service

[@Daco812]

Loving the sketch-work for Quick Knight - also, the revamped sprite design looked awesome. Great content as always - cheers, fam.

[@piekz96]

Awesome, questions about best practices, conceptual guiding and covering do's and dont's well reasoned are so worth gold to a beginner. Thanks for the video, Adam!

[@PchipsPresents]

Greetings Adam! I have watched nearly all your pixel art class videos now, just a few left. Super inspiring and helpful, I feel like I'm ready to put thousands of hours into pixel art now for my games. Anyhow, I wanted to suggest a video class you might be able to have a crack at: CUTSCENES. The way you approach topics is great, focusing on the history, mechanics, practical use, and overall level of involvement to make a game-opening or game-ending extended cutscene would be a really exciting topic to watch you dissect. Cheers and much love from Colorado!

[@AdamCYounis]

Cut-scenes are really tough, even for me. There's a lot of variety in the definition of what constitutes a cutscene, from in-game characters walking around between dialogue boxes, to full AMV's being played with an in-game video player. It's something I spend a lot of time figuring out what fits best for my game, and I've got a lot of thoughts on it (even today, considering breaking up a lot of Insignia's cutscenes to provide more interactivity). I'd love to make a video discussing what I've learned when I feel confident enough with my understanding of how they're best used and constructed, but I don't know if I'm there yet.

[@PchipsPresents]

@@AdamCYounis Thank you so much for your response, it's an honor to share a conversation with you. I completely understand your choice to solidify your understanding of the topic that is cutscenes before engaging in your dissertation-like tutorial approach that is always so enlightening. I will be super stoked if you do one. Cheers!

[@Voidsworn]

I was just thinking about this the other day, relating to games like Metroid II for the Game Boy and an early demake of Castlevania:SotN. Given the resolution on the GB/GBC is only 160x144, as much as the large sprites looks nice, it makes it feel cramped on both exploration games.

[@crazyallstars]

Stardew Valley - Concerned Ape. What.

[@Voidsworn]

@@crazyallstars ??

[@abhijeets]

Was waiting for this kind of video

[@brendanhannum5904]

Been watching your videos for years. Excellent content!!

[@DcTurner]

Really nice + thorough. 👏 It's such an important lesson to learn that a more naive silhouette is better. It's always tempting to show off your illustration chops instead of fulfilling the design brief.

[@BangingThings]

Every video you release is just such high quality content, especially for a click-bait filled platform like youtube. Can't thank you enough for the hours of enjoyment and interesting ideas and lessons.

[@stevehowson599]

Thanks man, this is one of the most useful videos I've seen on sizing for games!

[@jademonass2954]

that point you made about sonics size, YES!! it makes so much sense why i always thought sonic was a bit too fast at times it should have been more zoomed out, honestly

[@Yipper64]

33:28 she had a strong barbarian warrior feel before, but to emphasize the way that she's light and can fly you made her have more of an elven foresty look.

[@ZebulonsPi]

Doh! I was hoping for a top-down ratio as well! :D Great work, love your stuff!

[@bilalinci4981]

I missed your videos so much. POG

[@lionart5230]

Hey Adam, always glad to see more of your videos to increase my knowledge about gamedev/design. Thank you for your contribution, I am happy that you got over 100k subscribers, you definitely deserve it. I appreciate every single video you published as this is really great, high quality, well put and thought learning material. Great job and once again, thank you :)

[@torrated]

you are the Bob Ross of Pixel Art. It is mesmerizing seeing you work.

[@jamescomer8701]

This is really really good info that I havent seen anywhere else. Thanks!

[@matthiasklostermeier6799]

Nice to see you again! Always love the parts when you analyse things and talk more about concepts, ideas, decisions...

[@goldenpotato392]

Dude I love your content! It's so helpful! By far the best tutorials I've seen for this stuff, thanks!

[@ogarga666]

your content is gold. Thanks Adam!

[@forestsavior]

I really liked that you talked about fighting games (my favorite genre). Whether we're talking Smash-style fighters or "traditional" fighters, they definitely seem like some of the hardest games to ANIMATE for, especially in 2D. For big-sprite fighters (SF3:3S, Darkstalkers), that means a LOT of relatively high-res character sprites -- lots of iteration, lots of visible detail, construction is absolutely critical cause flaws will show very quickly over longer animations. (I learned that lesson face-first when I drew my own MUGEN character years ago. I copied Iori's dropkick from KOF and my character had almost doubled in size by the recovery frames. This took me weeks to draw...and redraw.) The prevalence of 16:9 in modern displays is also very awkward for "traditional" fighters because if you use the whole width of the display as play area, characters can get MUCH farther apart and appear much smaller than in the 4:3 days. For Smash-style games with smaller characters fighting farther apart (Rivals of Aether), they're slightly easier to draw simply because of the smaller pixel space, but you still have the challenge of reconciling their size with the vast horizontal space of 16:9 res. The 3D Smash games solve this problem simply by zooming in when the characters are close together, but obviously in pure 2D that could get extremely ugly unless you design your assets to be zoom-friendly -- which means drawing them in a higher native resolution, which obviously means more work. In Rivals' case, I think the lack of zoom is the big thing that makes it a bit less visually impactful than Smash -- the fight always seems kinda "abstracted away" even when a character lands a very big hit or is up close doing a cool combo.

[@jamesdaus]

Thanks for another great video! Helped me in choosing my character size for a game I'm starting work on

[@dr.pepito1183]

Love your work fr fr

[@jonteguy]

As usual you provide the most insanely helpful stuff I can find regarding this stuff, thank you again!

[@dustybloo3019]

This is exactly what I was looking for. I think something worth mentioning would be the aspect ratio of the project when you begin. I found the most challenging learning curve for me is when drawing tiles/backgrounds you need to determine what can be a tile, and what's a painted background due to the restraints of pixel art.

[@actuallyAdonis]

perfect timing with this video adam i was just struggling on how large to make my player and tiles, thanks a lot

[@RealRelaxHappyMind]

i will draw pixel any pixel art do you want my service

[@actuallyAdonis]

@@RealRelaxHappyMind you saying you wanna help me with my game??

[@RealRelaxHappyMind]

@@actuallyAdonis i can help you give me a any social media link

[@RealRelaxHappyMind]

@@actuallyAdonis give me your email

[@marianocaudevila]

just the video i needed! thank you very much bro

[@alejmc]

This video is a game design, art design, art executing and a bunch of other useful things all in one. The outcome feels nothing short of magic to me man, especially when the older design makes a comeback to compare sizes, character and efficient space usage.

[@spindash64]

To be fair to Sonic's "zoomed in" style, the game is designed to be FAR more forgiving regarding oncoming enemies and hazards than in other core platformers: -his Jump attack is omnidirectional, so it will still hit enemies whether he's below or above or to the side -his roll and spindash allow both very high speed and to be in a damage dealing state. These are ALSO the states with the highest speed caps -the Ring based life system mean that sonic can theoretically survive an _infinite_ number of attacks with a finite amount of resources, making enemy attacks more of an embarrassment than a run ender. Contrast this with Mario, where Mushrooms are hidden in certain blocks rather than there being at least one onscreen at all times Long Story Short, "Blinding Speed" is less of a problem when your character is able to bump into things without quickly dying

[@AdamCYounis]

I still think sonic games suffer immensely whenever the player's velocity goes from 100 to 0 in an instant due to a wall or spikes, which is super frequently in the original 2d games during a first playthrough. You either have to practice levels or go slowly, which is the opposite of what sonic is about.

[@spindash64]

@@AdamCYounis Practicing levels is actually pretty on par with what people were expected to do for games prior to save files being a default for every genre You're not wrong that it's a weakness Sonic Games have to deal with, and in the FIRST game specifically, I agree with your assessment. I just argue that with Sonic 2 onwards, there's enough forgiveness for being caught off guard to _mostly_ offset this. They also make very good use of that canvas space for animation, so it's not all for nothing

[@drewg3765]

Love the videos man wish you uploaded more often thanks for the content!

[@HolyKaeros]

That's not Momodora 3 at 5:50 btw, it's Momodora: Reverie under the moonlight, amazing game.

[@clayton_games]

I was just watching and had to look to see if someone had made this comment yet.

[@AmarisSkye]

I know this is a year old & while I have no intention of doing game design (at this time) this was invaluable as far as understanding creating readable characters in pixel art & characters that fit the scale. Thanks!

[@rotraven]

thank you for breaking down scaling, I took gesture drawing classes but I had trouble drawing pixel characters , legs are very tricky

[@whatwhat2573]

Adam you the best. Your videos are always so intriguing to watch!

[@dirkpuhlmann7321]

Its like magic! So cool, thanks for those insights.

[@DaShikuXI]

I think it would be interesting to see how you would reshade/recolor the taller lanky knight. Getting rid of the bandings and outlines, and trying to create a much more readable look with that same model.

[@RealRelaxHappyMind]

i will draw pixel any pixel art do you want my service

[@swar666]

Awesome as always!

[@MarkKaterberg]

This was amazing. Wanted to let you know someone found it helpful a year later :)

[@someonegames6311]

Thank you Adam! You videos are always helpful. Really nice content =)

[@ThreeSixNine_exe]

Excellent video, thank you for sharing your knowledge!

[@gidrar5372]

I waited so long and finally waited.

[@chekote]

More amazing content. You’re killing it 👏🏻

[@CanalDojogames]

One of my most challenges was, draw same pixel art model sheet character from 16x16 to 8x8 and 48x64 of same 6 characters with same amount of 4 cloths, that was very very hard because the tiny it is the little you can detail so you need to be very precise to build character rich and beautiful to watch. To be honest i did it because i was unsure of what i wanted to build so i choose about 3 sizes. i share this beause it can be an great exercise to those who want to build characters in pixel art but it also means you can build tiny 8x8 or 16x16 to focus more on design,the richer the desing the more aceitable it can be and later scale up

[@toowiggly]

I wish this video discussed top down games more. I feel like it's a common perspective that was largely glossed over. Some more isometric examples would have also been nice.

[@AdamCYounis]

I think overall I was able to express the point with the examples used, which will apply to any perspective. That said, I agree that it would have been useful to discuss top-down, for any unique characteristics relating to the subject. My bias toward side-scrolling and isometric perspectives is showing a little bit here.

[@pixeldesireblnr]

can anyone tell me what are the scale for character and map for Blasphemous II? i want to create the detailed character look that fit perfectly in canvas. is the character 128x128 and the map is more than 154px ?@@AdamCYounis

[@DaElfer]

kinda feel dumb when i asked what whiteboard software you use when in all of your videos its clearly written on the screen hehehe. Love this video. I always preach to my students about character size on the screen

[@Gleamiarts]

Two games that i can think of where the characters are quite big are sims urbz (handheld) and sims busting out (handheld) and i'd say that they are roughly about 70-80

[@astridpinel2789]

fantastic tutorial this was so insightful!!!

[@lordfondragon]

Ahah, I'm working on a small vania game, and I just realized, that my screen and character height is exactly like in your art class!!!

[@jonotico]

Hey, great channel! Thanks for sharing so much knowledge. I have a quick question, what software you use to capture the screen recordings and display yourself in the corner? Thanks for the help

[@AdamCYounis]

OBS is free, open source, and very powerful for streaming and recording. I've been using it for my channel since the beginning.

[@jonotico]

@@AdamCYounis Awesome, thanks!

[@madmaster3d]

i rememeber ur video or anotherone told us ur canavas size is important cuz when u set higher resolution . screen dont gget strech so 270 or 180 &... is ok cuz 270 x 4 = 1080 ( 1920x1080) but 240 for sonic mania? 1080 / 240 = 4.5 guess screen will be have problem now?

[@michaelsimon9550]

Again, a very cool video! Thank you so much! I would have loved if you'd reviewed something more in regards of perspective. Something like Children of Morta or Hyperlight Drifter

[@Mangeurdemouton]

At 22:15 you could scale down your character instead of scrapping it?

[@BrainSlugs83]

Regarding going fast and the screen size / scale -- I really liked what they did in GTA 1 and 2 -- where they had the overhead camera view -- it was usually pretty zoomed in -- but then as your velocity increases, the camera slowly zooms out -- most players probably didn't even notice because it was so subtle -- but it gave you so much more "look ahead", and it's what made "going fast" doable in those games. -- I think this model works well in a 2D genre, and your test for if you're doing it right or not should be: Do players notice it? -- I think that if the causal player notices the camera movement/zoom effect, then you're doing it wrong. -- If you're doing it right, it will enable the gameplay, but be so subtle that it's not distracting or noticable. -- And I think GTA 1/2 nailed it in this regard.

[@ScilexGuitar]

seeing your first character looking like that inspires us all

[@5minutemovies977]

What ? This video was literally put online today ?! Funny thing that I was looking for that kind of stuff then :D My 32x32 characters always seem to not have enough details, or not in the right place.

[@sgtrice1]

Question, probably answered and missed or discussed in another video. Are the screen size references based on just mobile games? If so, I guess still just try to keep the 12 ish % character height with a 1920x1080 screen?

[@AdamCYounis]

It's actually considered appropriate in UI design for mobile and TV platforms to share similar scales. It's PC where you usually have the space to design elements to be much smaller. A nice mental shortcut you can take would be to think about what input device your game is designed for. Mouse is much more precise than controller, so things can be designed smaller without being uncomfortable. The same can be said for characters, and the other factors I mentioned around gameplay implications like number of enemies on screen and the kind of interactions that take place etc.

[@sgtrice1]

@@AdamCYounis awesome, thank you for replying.

[@gidrar5372]

I really like your videos, keep up the good work.

[@RealRelaxHappyMind]

i will draw pixel any pixel art do you want my service

[@lbp_chessguy5640]

The thumbnail made me think it was Jak and Daxter for some reason 😂 great video

[@YamotoGaming9]

Dude, you're a god.

[@EnchoMoskov]

Fantastic! Man, thank you!

[@Shadowthevampire]

I want a guide for sprite scales just like this one but about RPG/topdown/farming sims instead. You should make one. I have such a trouble deciding what angle to use and how many pixel my player should be I'm new to this.

[@Nonexistility]

Wait, is my man color blind? 💀 Not to ridicule or to be rude, but that is very clearly separated brown and green at 31:43 Or am I missing something 🤔

[@fartmerchant]

the value difference is very low. imagine the character way smaller and a lot going on in the game. seeing the arm will be hard. plus, a color blind person will not see the arm at all

[@rafaelalmeidasantos3419]

You make pixel art look so easy

[@Marcos-cp4ry]

Hey I loved your two characters, the one with red hair and the one with green hair. Both sizes are great as well, I would say they are partners. Grafically, both have the same head size, so my impression is that of the first being older than the later. You should not bother with the proportion to the screen size here. As you have show, the bigger the character is, more inclined the game is toward fights, and more dramatic are these fights, right? For the number of adversaries in screen, not every one need to be very clear in their posicioning, I refer to some Megaman games where enemies, like flying ones, as you have show, their are either smaller and predictable, thus worthing more the experience of defeating them in time. I liked very much your sense design !!

[@Kyle-qn9ci]

I really love your videos -- could you consider showing on screen the keystrokes you make so it's easier to follow along? I get lost pretty easily when you do something I don't know how to do

[@AdamCYounis]

I can look into it, for sure. Especially when I'm working in Aseprite, I can see that being really handy.

[@chikupachi]

Thank you. I learned a lot

[@bjmgraphics617]

I am amazed that today's game designers are still using low resolution screens to make their 2D platform games. I thought 1080P would be used. I guess the reason comes in real estate is the same as in back then even though the resolutions are hundreds of times greater. So, where or when in the game does high res graphics comes into the scene? I think background and graphic elements can be gorgeous and the character, npc, and villains can be just big enough to convey their purpose and the rest of the details are infers into the player's mind. The gist of it so to speak for the characters and China Town and crazy cursed dungeons can be super gorgeous. I like Solid Snake in NES Metal Gear that you can tell he's special ops and the enemy's base is highly detailed. I also like Mr Smith of Code Name Viper where the character is tall and shoots and jumps realistically but the screen elements are all narrowly centered like the TMNT game. thanks. Your video makes sense and it helps me to refocus design and not afraid to go small. Less is more.

[@Gandoan]

I think this character needs to make a cameo in Insignia. Build that lore bro!

[@synchaoz]

Love your videos and your chill style. I'm tempted to show you some footage from my 2D pixel art combat platformer... with high framerate character sizes up to 128x96 pixels in a 32x32 pixel tileset. Errr, yeah, I might have rethought that had I seen your video sooner. Every frame takes days to animate, fml.

[@armyofchickens6062]

If you're working with a 1366x768 view point, what would the pixel ratio for the character of a top down? haven't really been able to find anything on it

[@victormendes956]

Hello! Thank you for your video. Which tool are you using for the sprites? It looks cool. Is there an android version?

[@Yazelyy]

Really intersting, thanks.

[@saqvobase4301]

How would you scale and silhouette for top-down games?

[@pixeldesireblnr]

@AdamCYounis can you tell me what are the scale for character and map for Blasphemous II? i want to create the detailed character look that fit perfectly in canvas. is the character 128x128 and the map is more than 154px ? i really want to know this please

[@phorchybug3286]

I try to scale my art by a certain thing of tiles or sprites kinda like NES limitations.

[@trevonnemcdonnough3151]

how exactly do you go about finding the scale an existing game? for example Souldiers .

[@Lampesaus1]

I was just wondering about a small thing - Is there any reason tiles and characters have to be 8, 16, 32 etc pixels? Couldnt I have a character or tile be example 20 pixels, or even 33?

[@alpaca6462]

The reason is computers used to not handle data very well and you used to have to optimize your game down to the last byte Nowadays it doesn't matter because the amount of resources you are saving is negligible. So you can do whatever you want for aesthetics

[@roggu]

Do you know what the size of the characters in the mobile game 'King God Castle' is? I would like to design a character where I can add that level of detail like different armors and weapons, as so far, with what I have tried, I don't have much space to draw so many details

[@Oshroth]

You should be able to work that out by taking a screenshot and counting pixels (That's how Adam worked out the other game scales)

[@RainMakeR_Workshop]

What is it called when a side scrolling/platformer character sprite is consistent with its asymmetry? Like, if they're facing right and have a sword in their right hand and armour on their left shoulder, when they face left, the sword is _still_ in their right hand with a left shoulder armour. Rather than then just mirroring the sprite and making them suddenly left handed.

[@RainMakeR_Workshop]

@12 Feet Up For what I had in mind, that wouldn't matter.

[@JARPON]

Do you get this often? How do you make your Leonardo background so pretty?

[@spacepunchgaming6732]

Have you updated your Apollo palette at all? I an not choose my own colors to save my life they just dont mesh well with your color picks! lol

[@dadoncomputer4230]

Awesome videos just got into making characters but still having hard time using frames and layering. Any tips? Been only working with aseprite

[@ilianrabhi6762]

awesome stardew backround!!

[@leonardo_pandaboff]

Do you think that the classical sonic the hedgehig games should have a larger screen compared to the player character sprite?

[@altonito777]

Great video ! I'm a total noob when it comes to game dev, so I was wondering: how do you adjust the screen size in a game ? Is it just a camera adjustment ? Like if your first character was too big can't you just adjust the size of the screen to make it fit better ,?

[@lexyeevee]

generally for a pixel art game, you really want to scale the view up by a whole number factor, or the pixel art gets kinda blurry (unless it was really small to start with). that's why all the example screen heights were numbers like 180 or 360 - they divide evenly into 1080, the most common screen height. (as well as 1440, which is also somewhat popular.) so if your character is too big, you can't just make the screen 20% bigger without blurring all your sprites at fullscreen. you can probably double it, but that's a huge change

[@arlome]

How do you calculate the character size compared to the screen size? Is there a mathematical equation?