How to make detailed Assets without creating an ugly mess!

0.00 - Intro
0:30 - Why Composition matters for details
4:47 - What Matters when making your Asset
6:43 - How to maintain Separation
10:23 - There isn't only one way to handle details
/ nonsensical2d

[@Nonsensical2D]

I kind of got goaded into making this video :) It's sort of a followup to a recent video called "Why you draw bad assets", I partly feel that this topic is complicated and I still don't recommend that you try to make detailed assets (unless you're already a better artist than me). But I'd thought I'd cover it nonetheless, hopefully the pacing isn't too slow, and I hope my explanations make sense. Ohh and as mentioned, I did start a Patreon, It's a slightly different type of content, I feel that I need to practice making videos quicker (1-2 days instead of 21 days), and Patreon feels like the best way to do that (since its risky changing my content style on this channel). But the information itself won't be anything special from what I usually talk about :) The first video should release 2 hours after this video.

[@lionritchie8201]

Thank you for taking the time to help newcomers. These last three videos in particular have been immensly helpful. You've taken a lot of the frustration out of creating art.

[@ThisIsFez]

Your videos cover questions some people like me don’t even know to ask yet very valuable ❤️🤲🏿

[@choppingslime]

Babe wake up nonsensical2D dropped another masterpiece Jokes aside thanks for these videos, been following for months and man if you helped me grow my drawing skills. Thank you!!

[@HopperGameDevelopment-x4r]

For me, I'm currently drawing a lot of vegetation as fg and bg objects. I tend to draw the lines in dark green to soften the image and decrease saturation. Bg objects are lighter, fg objects are darker. I often blur them if the objects are far away or very close to the camera. Characters and functional objects are drawn with black lines, more saturated and are generally brighter. Keeping functional objects more simple is a good tip, I'll keep that in mind. Great video.

[@WeebiDash]

Really fantastic videos! Very concise and helpful

[@Ralke1]

awesome tips for solo developers!

[@seigeengine]

The underlying gist is readability. Do you understand what you're looking at at a glance. If not, you've messed up. How you messed up is something you need to learn to figure out for yourself, because it won't always fit into neat boxes. This doesn't just apply to games, or even aesthetics. Consider signage and safety clothing, and how we visually make it readable in order to aid safety.

[@CoruscationsOfIneptitude]

thanks for the videos.

[@Dastan_Asimov]

Awesome vid, man. As per usual Wish I could start making games

[@suicune2001]

Thanks!

[@Captain_Euphoria]

Hi,I love your content. Is it possible for you to make a discord for more in-depth questions ?

[@mattshu]

uploaded 0 seconds ago and 0 likes ? Lemme fix that

[@JuhoSprite]

Nice filler comment

[@OxAA00]

His composition already looks like it could be a finished game LOL

[@d00mnoodle24]

Could you make a video about integrating platforms into the background? As in how you make your platforms believable. I recently played rin the last child, which was fun and a very pretty game to look at. But some rooms had floating platforms that just didn't make sense. Ori on the other hand does this so well. I don't think there's a single platform that's just floating in Ori. On the same topic how do you make assets that are partially with collision. Like a tree branch that comes from the background into the middle ground where it is a platform. How do you make this readable? Idk if my comment makes sense. I hope it does as i find this is an area that often sets great games apart from the just good or meh ones.

[@softcakelol]

please next make a video about scaling i never knew how big or small i should draw😅

[@Nonsensical2D]

I have a video kind of covering this called "what size should your assets be"

[@thequipseeker]

Would you be making a video on "values"?

[@Nonsensical2D]

Ye, I've actually been thinking about talking about it!

[@thequipseeker]

@@Nonsensical2D Nice~ Looking forward to it!

[@Novastar.SaberCombat]

Any dedicated, professional (or at least semi-pro) programmers out there? I've been preparing a project--paid work of course--for years. Many assets are already in place--things like sound effects, music, pseudocode & structure, and some aspects of certain graphics. There's no way I could do it alone, though, and I am aware of the production process (I'm assuming it'll be a 1-2 year thing, part-time, spare hours for all). I don't know where else to look. If you're serious and interested, you'll easily discover how to email me. If you're not, that's totally OK as well. :) I just don't know where else to turn anymore. As a final note, I hail from the days of folks like Warren Spector, Richard Garriott, JVC & NWC, Carmack & Romero, etc.

[@lucascollao9349]

Hey man, Are you in any project beyond this one? I understand that the game you show here is exclusive for the tutorials you make, I wonder if you are in something with more people 😲

[@Nonsensical2D]

No, I did try and work with a couple of people a while back, but it fizzled out. I am currently working solo on a significantly smaller scale project (but I haven't gotten to the point where I want to showcase it yet).

[@lucascollao9349]

@@Nonsensical2D I understand, it's hard to find the right team... but working alone is exhausting and, in my experience, demotivating. Were you the artist on that project or the programmer? Or maybe a bit of both? In any case, I hope your project works out! I'll be around here checking out your content.

[@ijustwanttomakegames]

Are you using a tilemap for your level? Or are you ”free drawing” your levels ?

[@Nonsensical2D]

I'm always using an underlying tile map, but I tend to just keep the colliders for it and hide the visuals of the tile map. I do this in large part because it is easier to handle parallax and placement of assets that way. It's slightly worse in terms of performance, but I think it gives you more creative freedom.

[@ijustwanttomakegames]

@@Nonsensical2D okay so you just create a tilemap. “Paint” your level. Hide the sprites. And then take a printscreen of your level. Create assets to put above the tilemap? Regarding the performance, it can’t be that big of a difference om a 2D game? Do you think cuphead is made the same way? A rough cutout of the level, make assets to put above? I want to make a game that is “handdrawn” or cartoonish if you will. No pixels. And to use that style, I can’t wrap my head around using tilemap for that?

[@Nonsensical2D]

Ye, from looking at it, cup head doesn't seem to be using a tile map for the visuals. And yes, I agree, using a tile map for a more "loose style" is problematic in many ways. you generally want to avoid those hard square edges and the artificial-looking grid, and if you are going for a cartoonish hand drawn game you constantly have to fight to avoid the look of the grid. And it isn't unlikely that you want to avoid too much asset repetition anyway (which is one of the big selling points of a tile map). The reason I use a tile map for the underlying game is just that I tend to prefer horizontal/vertical colliders and it is really easy to level design with a tile map, but technically you don't even need to do this, if you look at the method Rayman uses you can see a completely different approach (there are videos on the topic).

[@ijustwanttomakegames]

@@Nonsensical2D thanks for taking your time! Do you have a more in depth video about this? Sorry for sounding stupid but what’s the topic? ”Replace tiles with handdrawn assets” topic ? 😂

[@Nonsensical2D]

No, I actually haven't covered the topic before, I've mentioned it on occasion, but only in passing. I try to avoid covering "implementations" of things, since the method will largely depend on your engine.

[@choppingslime]

Mhh it's not that I don't like this, and I'm noone to say this, but isn't this scene very different from most areas in your game? (I'm talking about art style) At least that's what I feel by watching your videos

[@Nonsensical2D]

Most of what I create in these videos are only intended for examples and is not going to be used in an actual game, so I tend to switch things up. This means that comparing one "area" to another, you'll sometimes get a slightly different art style. I am working on an actual game, but not really showcasing anything for it at the moment.

[@choppingslime]

@@Nonsensical2D oh I see, thanks for the clarification! Gl with your project