The Problem With Pixel Art

[@Nonsensical2D]

I'm not sure you should necessarily take anything in this video as Art advice. View it more as an argumentative essay :) A lot of you will disagree with what I say, and that is fine, I just felt like talking about it. Feel free to discuss it with me in the comments :) I'd be curious to know if you think this video is bad in other regards, I think it's the fastest I've made a video and I am kind of wondering if it shows. As I said, this video isn't really art advice, and I had to repeat a few things form my previous video just to make this one make sense. Any input or discussion is appreciated, thanks for watching.

[@somerandom2858]

This and the "don't show the sky" takes have been both pretty bad, and both amount to "I can't do it, so it's bad". You say your game looking like hollow knight is a coincidence, while mimicking a lot of the things that gave the game it's look, 1 or 2 might be a coincidence, but you have thick lineart, same scene layout, same environment setup, same corridor level design style, that's too much to be a mere coincidence, and the "standing out" thing might not be for long since there's like a dozen Hollow Knight copycats in the oven out there. Just like trying to ape Cuphead success by using a ruber hose art style, it will end up bitting people in the ass because they will be compared to the more technically proficient thing they are copying, just look at all the hate Enchanted Portals got. You showing your traditional art as a cop out while it looks very little like what your game art looks like made me chuckle at least. And for the sky one, there were a ton of good examples of having outdoor scenes done well, like Rayman, Monster Boy, Shantae, or some 2D mmos like Mapplestory or LaTale, even going back to the snes days like Goemon, but the ground of your entire argument was that you couldn't pull it off with a drab desert scene. Usually I agree with your takes, but these last ones feel like you are pulling strings to keep the video mill going.

[@Nonsensical2D]

Hmm, I think this might be a problem more so with my title than the actual stance in these videos. For the sky video I mostly wanted to point out the problem you will encounter with vertical scrolling. I agree that rayman handles it fairly well (even though I do think rayman often avoids it by using mostly horizontal scrolling). But I honestly think Ori is the gold standard of handling the sky, it looks awesome and plays incredibly well. But both these games are made by incredibly skilled artists and there are a lot of them. I probably could have solved the scene i showcased if I gave it enough time, i just dont think you always have that time as a solo developer. That is why I say its problematic doing it, and why I showcase indie games that try to bypass or avoid this exact problem, because a lot of devs realise that it is a problem. So i think it can be handled, just with difficulty or compromise. As for this video, I think the criticism of my art looking similar to hollow knight is fair, i said as much. I think you can levy this argument against my art, because it has a lot of similar constraints, it does look a bit similar. Same goes for pixel art. The reason i showcased my art was to point out how i draw bushes mushrooms and trees fairly similarly to how i do it in game art, i know this because a few of my assets are directly lifted from my traditional art. I also add a lot of similar constraints. My argument isnt that you shouldnt make pixel art because it is all the same, my argument is that pixel art is slightly more saturated compared to hand drawn and that if you are a bad artist and want to stand out hand drawn might actually be easier because there are more options and ways you can stand out. I still like pixel art, my library has quite a few pixel art games, I still think you CAN stand out with pixel art, i also think you can make generic hand drawn. I just think that by and large if you actually want your game to stand out (which might be smart), youll have an easier time standing out with hand drawn.

[@somerandom2858]

@@Nonsensical2DYeah it's easier to stand out with hand drawn, but your videos are coming off as putting down pixel art. Also, in regards to you saying 2D animation is harder, you should look up into skeletal animation, either using unity's own internal system or spine. Unity's is rather limited and you need to be actually very good at animation to get something good out of it. Cult of the Lamb is made with spine (along hundreds of other things) and I think that style of animation could fit your project and lower the workload of animation exponentially.

[@Nonsensical2D]

@@somerandom2858 I have played around with skeletal animation some stuff, but I generally dislike it to be honest, I'd rather just live with the fact that it takes time. I actually enjoy hand animating as well, but I don't think I enjoy the process of skeletal animation that much. I am probably going to make a video on skeletal animations eventually, it's an interesting topic. Also, thanks for the input I agree in hindsight, many people feel like I am just bashing pixel art. I'll make sure to improve for next time :)

[@nowonmetube]

@@Nonsensical2D after the rise and fall of flash games and then Smart Phone games, I saw the art with skeletal animation and it looked so cheap and amateur-like. I felt that you could see it's from single persons or smaller studios, even in comparison with old and retro games with their fluent animations.

[@zhulikkulik]

What puzzles me is how narrow the term seems to be compared to what it really is. You look for pixel art - you always get these chibi FF-esque big head tiny body characters. But Monkey Island or Full Throttle are also pixel art. And characters there are very emotional I would say.

[@vulkanosaure]

Monkey island is using a very big grid though, he's talking about smaller grid pixel art (which represents a majority )

[@flibflob2785]

I absolutely love the monkey island style but I think it's just hard to make, just as they guy in the video mentions. Like if you are that good at making this stuff, you probably could just as well go for a straight up hand drawn style. Like imho the best visual style for point and click adventures is just when they look like straight up hand drawn cartoons like the third monkey island or deponia.

[@GameArchivesOfficial]

I always had a very similar view on pixel art (and still do in a lot of aspects), until I watched some @adamcyounis videos recently and realized that the talent required to make good pixel art lies in its constraints, minimalism and simplicity. In some cases, you’re so limited that you have to be extremely selective with how you choose to use each individual pixel to convey the message you’re looking to convey. One misplaced pixel or colour can throw off the whole image and even an entire scene. There’s one video where he compares it to Impressionism, which I thought was a massive stretch at first, but after going through the histories and comparing how the main method is just using as few details as possible to make the most impactful overall artistic effect on the viewer, it shifted my perspective a lot. I think most of us folk who prefer hand drawn art tend to like it better because the constraints and frustrations that come with pixel art are jarring after being able to do just about anything we want and can imagine with other art styles. I think it takes a huge amount of talent for both styles and they are so vastly different that it can be hard to compare them, but you’ve done an excellent job in this video and made some great arguments for both sides. Thanks for the awesome content!

[@Zedrinbot]

I feel like a lot of the problems you mention aren't really problems with "pixel art" specifically, just they're slightly more common to pixel art. But there's still a lot of pixelart games that have more standout styles (to varying degrees of detail), and there's still a lot of hand drawn games that are a bit weaker when it comes to visual identity; there's been a number of games that kinda feel like Braid for instance, visually, or how a lot of mobile games often have a very similar style (whether they're 2D or 3D). Though also in support of your point, I also remember a few years back when a lot of pixel art games came out in a short time period that featured those skinny pixel characters, like CRAWL. Also, while they couldn't show facial expressions well, they sometimes would convey emotion very well through posture and body language. Nowadays, it feels more like there's more pixel games that are trying to emulate specific eras and styles, and there's enough source material that they still stand out from one another. Gravity Circuit, Pizza Tower, etc. like Shovel Knight are some good examples that are visually distinct, while still containing throwbacks to their inspiration sources. Even if they instead decided to copy them more closely it would've still stood out since, as you put it, while they're following similar constraints, said constraints are a bit more selective and not as common as a more 'generic' set that other games follow. I think it just comes down to how distinct the constraints and limits you set for yourself are, which applies to all art. It's a bit easier to accidentally set 'generic' limits and use similar approaches with pixel art by accident, but hand drawn definitely isn't immune to this either. (Heck, it's a criticism levied at 3D games often as well.)

[@somerandom2858]

With pixel art, a lot of people learn from the same tutorials and a lot of people end up producing samey looking stuff.

[@jefreestyles]

Good points. What I think he's trying to convey overall though is valid. When he mentioned that he likes watching the cover art compared to the game itself is the crux. Rarely are pixel art used on the box or marketing materials. There are many reasons for this but mainly because business people (AND maybe many "traditional / hand drawn" artists) don't see pixel art as capable of drawing in customers. Pixel art is also in its infancy. There's no Mona Lisa or Michaelanglo of pixel art. The best case of what hand drawn art can do for a platformer game (gameplay itself) is Cuphead. And since it's release, I haven't seen anything that tops it.

[@Zedrinbot]

@@jefreestylesYeah, the box art thing definitely stands out. Grav Circuit's high res art definitely at least FEELS like it's right out of the game (when trying to recall I legit thought it used its pixelart for its banner, when it doesn't, but its style is still distinct enough). Pizza Tower meanwhile still does use game art / custom pixelart for its banner and box art. But at the same time, I don't think like, Celeste could get away with that necessarily. Its banner / box art does feel wholesale different from its game art. Tho, the divergence between game vs box art also isn't a new phenomenon. Even as far back as the original Mario bros trilogy, only the first one featured actual game pixelart, while they switched to full renders for 2 and 3. Even a lot of modern, non-pixel games will still have custom splash art for their boxart and banners that doesn't match the in-game artstyle. I think it's less a matter of whether or not a game actually uses its in-game style for its box art, and more about whether or not it theoretically could (even if they elect not to), at least as one measure of how much of an identity their artstyle might have. And still, it's just one facet, and isn't enough to make judgements about a game's art as a whole.

[@job1481]

Very well put.

[@AlyphRat]

The main issue I have with hand drawn art over spritework is consistency. Like, let's just say that the game window is 1280x720. I want to draw a character in the middle of the screen. With spritework, it's pretty obvious that the lineart should of 1px. But since I'm working with more pixels now, I have no idea how big or small the lineart should be. Also, with spritework, I'm aware that a character should be at least 64px tall, but with hand drawn art? 300px? 600px? 1200px? What if the character loses detail after I scale it down? What if I made mistakes and I want to redraw the character? With sprites, it's pretty easy to correct, but since we're working with more pixels now, it's hard to make everything consistent. It's like I'm overwhelmed by the fact that I have no limitations and have no idea where to even start.

[@Roxor128]

You need to pick a few criteria to work to. Minimum screen resolution would be the big one. If you're not going to support anything lower than 1280*720, then that will dictate how much detail you can have. If you're going to support higher, then you could draw at a few times that (3x of what you'd use at 1280*720 would work for going up to 3840*2160) and check how it looks when zoomed out as a proxy for how it'll look at lower resolutions without having to load it into the game. 64 pixels sounds pretty big for a pixel-art character to me. Might be fine if your resolution is 640*480, though. DOS games usually ran at 320*200 and had characters that were 16 or 32 pixels tall, which is most of my experience with such styles born from technical limits. Think about what percentage of the screen the character will take up to decide on how big to work. For scale, a 16*32 character at 320*200 will take up a space of about 5% horizontally and 16% vertically of the screen's total size. 16% of 720 is about 115, so maybe make your character 60*120 pixels for a fixed 1280*720 and 180*360 for something that's expected to run at up to 3840*2160.

[@Kephazard]

As someone who's only recently started playing around with game dev, I really like your videos. Not because I hate pixel art, but because you don't often hear that hand-drawn is just as easy/difficult. I fell into playing with pixel art immediately. It's fun and I like it, but your videos helped me see that I don't HAVE to use it. I don't see your videos as slamming pixel art, but instead just giving a less heard opinion focused on the pros of hand drawn and pointing out the cons of pixel. I'll probably keep making things in a variety of styles, but every time you make something like this it reassures me that my clunky artwork is totally useable.

[@Nonsensical2D]

Thanks for the input and ye, i generally don’t dislike pixel art, my previous video was meant to be a one-off. But i got so many comments saying that its obvious that pixel art is easier, and i just kind of wanted to clarify what i think some of the challenges are xD

[@Timpers]

I just think there's A LOT of pixel art games follow a certain style because many beginners use it to make their games, so many of them look the same. However it doesn't mean games can't stand out if they're pixel art. Look at Eastward... when someone highly experienced in pixel art works on a game, this is what you get. Absolute creativity and pushing the boundaries of the art form. And we're seeing this more and more nowadays. The game industry is competitive so whatever art form you're using, you need to be different, not just pixel art.

[@Nonsensical2D]

Ye, I agree. I kind of wish I hadn't cut a short sentence where I mentioned that the three games (celeste, broforce and gunbrella) don't look super similar, compared to many other games. but that that aspect in part comes from the artists being really good. And then I Kind of mention how we can see how different the underlying vision for the game is if you look at the capsule art. Basically I think this problem exists regardless, but I think it is slightly trickier dealing with when it comes to pixel art. As I mentioned, if you make game art that looks like hollow knight, you are competing with 20 other games, but with low bit pixel art you are competing with thousands, standing out can get tricky if you aren't really good.

[@BananaMan6763]

I may have felt a bit offended from this as someone who loves pixel art, but I feel like I can still really understand your points. If you make simple pixel art it will be very hard to stand out. If you make really cool looking pixel instead it can stand out, but will take much longer to finish up. And it’s easier to stand out with hand drawn art. Some videos like these make me wanna try to be unique with the art for my games. I’d also plan to make some games with a raster art style. I may also make some games with a pixel art style, most likely just because I like it. And this video to me is very informative.

[@misho_dev]

Great points! And something that made me do the hard decision of starting my next game with 3D art instead of pixel art, even though it's what I'm used to.

[@beraate7097]

love your videos. I really enjoy listening to them when drawing. Very relaxing and no music which makes it less distracting, really nice. Just wanted to tell you that:D

[@JoshuaLutes]

I think your point about constraints makes a lot of sense. While there should be enough other ways to vary pixel art that a game can look unique I agree that that (at least for me) takes a lot longer in pixel art instead of hand drawn art. When learning 2d game dev there are a lot more resources focused on pixel art so that was what I initially went with and I think a lot of people do the same. You also need fewer resources to get the art into your game. I like doodling though and my wife got an iPad and Apple pencil last year and trying to figure out how to use those to make game art is how I found your channel. Being able to differentiate my game art seems a lot easier when I don't constrain myself to pixel art.

[@zulqernein]

There are definitely problems with pixel art, but almost everything you mentioned in the video aren't really good examples. 00:57 I won't comment on whether or not pixel art is easy or hard. I think it's entirely subjective and people should try it AND hand-drawn and see what works well for them. But I do think for a complete rookie, pixel art is generally a good entry point for most people. And specifically for the reasons you mention at 01:09 as "fake art direction". All of these things are fundamental to art, and pixel art is a decent way to train them. Not only that, with pixel art, you don't have to worry about line control or edge control. Which are much more mechanical skills that require more practice. Plus, you don't need a graphic tablet for pixel art. So those are some nice bonuses for those who want to start with it. 01:54 While it does TECHNICALLY limit your options, it doesn't do so in any impactful way. In reality, you're only limited by your creativity and how well navigate through your restrictions (or even which restrictions you choose to impart on yourself). There are pixel art games with vastly different styles and unique art directions. So if the 3 games you mentioned have "same-y" looking art despite having distinct box art, that has more to do with the respective artists' choices in art direction than the limitations of the medium. For example, games like Terraria, Noita, Celeste, Nuclear throne, Isaac, Hyperlight drifter, Lisa, Undertale, Zeroranger, 20 mins until dawn etc are all visually unique and beautiful pixel art games that didn't need to have Blasphemous levels of detail or pixel art finesse to show their competence in art direction. 02:10 While I do generally agree with this, it also largely depends on your art direction skills more than the medium. 02:47 Just use higher resolution pixel art? A hand-drawn artist can easily make the same mistake, this isn't exclusive to pixel art. 03:22 I don't know why you're even addressing that comment in this video, this doesn't seem particularly relevant. This has more to do with using reference as a skill, and that's independent of whether it's pixel art or hand drawn. 03:39 It's not necessarily easier or harder to make "natural shapes" look decent with pixel art. It's entirely dependent on your personal preference and which medium you're comfortable with. In this case it's a matter of line control required in hand-drawn vs polish (and therefore time) required in pixel. 4:28 Now imagine a 3d artist saying this about 2d art. I'm glad you added that little "in that regard" in post, cause all hand-drawn games also look similar "in that regard". "if you don't have time or the skill to stand out in all other regards..." Then I don't think switching mediums is gonna help as much as you think. 05:11 I don't think you realize how hard you lost the plot here. I hope you realize that the excuse of "...because there's not many games that look like hollow knight out there" doesn't have anything to do with it being hand-drawn. You're not making a point here. 5:49 why? This section particularly bothers me, cause if you have shit pixel art, people won't care as much cause it's "woah, so retro!". But with shit hand-drawn art there's nothing to hide your shortcomings with. I feel like that's actually a big reason why people use pixel art. 6:59 Again, this is personal preference, but personally I think if you're goal is "good enough" then pixel art might be preferable. You might not understand this since your hand-drawn art is quite nice and it leads me to believe you've had quite a bit of experience before doing game dev- which naturally make you much more inclined for hand-drawn art in game dev, rather than pixel art. But you have to understand that It's likely much harder to train the muscle memory required to make even "good enough" hand drawn art. All of that said, however, and as ill-informed as this video was, I do like your closing words and I think I generally agree! As for my opinions on the limitations of pixel art, It's quite simple actually: - Pixel art is generally more difficult to polish. And especially in high res. The higher the res, the more time it takes, and this can get excruciating at times. Whereas the tedium doesn't scale as hard with hand drawn art. - The medium, by nature, is very resistant to gradients and soft shading. Which is part of what makes using it in higher resolutions so tedious. Since you have to carefully curate every band of color by your own hand. You really don't need to make it any more complicated than that. Anyways, that's all I had to say. Cheers to whoever's reading this!

[@Strange_Heroes]

I think you point out the flaw in your own argument… art that looks like other art doesn’t stand out. It doesn’t matter if it’s pixel art, vector art, hand painted art, 3d art… creating original art is hard, and most likely nobody that is watching these videos is going to hit that lottery. Good luck! 🤠

[@Nonsensical2D]

Nah, that is kind of the point I am making, but with the added layer that I think the stronger limitations you put on your art, the more similar it will become. And for quite a lot of pixel art, like 320x180, you are dealing with quite heavy limitations, so you'll be fighting an uphill battle to stand out in a way that HD doesn't have to deal with. Especially since there probably are more pixel art games out there, the market is fairly saturated. I think this issue applies more for platformers as well, if you are doing a management sim, you probably have less competition, so your art doesn't necessarily need to stand out as much..

[@Strange_Heroes]

@@Nonsensical2D Standing out isn't as easy as you are making it out to be in my opinion, even if you aren't making pixel art games. Our game Fish Heads (kzbin.info/www/bejne/oXzciYWgf5WAqbssi=rNb1VMMGPlkFD843) had a distinctive art style but it was by no means easy. And while I do acknowledge that more work could have gone into it, 8 months and 1400+ character animation frames later, it wasn't able to attract more attention then a "bad" pixel art game that went viral a couple of years later. 🤷‍♀

[@Strange_Heroes]

And I just thought about this... the Juice is probably more important than what art style you go for... kzbin.info/www/bejne/fKqTknZ6osyhrsk

[@edge3220]

I find pixel art insanely difficult. Unless "bad" pixel art fits the game, style, mood and atmosphere, it seems like 99% of pixel art games that become actually popular are made by crazy talented artists with years of experience with it. And it's not like there's many tutorials on how to draw pixel art let alone on how to make expert level stuff.

[@HansFriedrich532]

A single pixel has so much impact on a sprite, it's really hard to make pixel art look good

[@JuhoSprite]

Form follows function, the same way I believe it works with artstyle. That is my take, good video man🥰

[@unrighteous8745]

Excellent points! I'm often very tempted to go the pixel art route, especially with environments, but I have to remember that pixel art alone wouldn't help make my art compelling.

[@Nonsensical2D]

To be honest I’m not sure it’s an easy choice or that there is an easy answer. Pixel art could work better for you. But I do think its something that could be worth exploring (assuming that you have the time and interest to do so)

[@vcdgamer]

This is entirely subjective to me, but one of the biggest mysteries of the universe is how people actually find pixel art a lot easier to make compared to hand-drawn art.😅 As someone who's making use of both styles for my game, I ended up leaning into the hand-drawn part a lot more because that's my main strength from the get go. And I'm never too good with constraints.

[@nowonmetube]

I love Pixel Art, but I get what you're saying. And in that sense, it helps me with my decision WHY I chose pixel art and being confident about it (with the benefits it provides) 👍

[@hugoacevedo4812]

That rabbit piece is amazing!

[@suicune2001]

I got my screenless tablet and tried it out. The first thing I tried was a picture of mountains and trees using watercolor. It was not good. lol. But I started to get a feel for it. Then I grabbed a picture of Bulbasaur in that classic watercolor style and that one came out a lot better. I obviously traced it but I'm still really happy with how it turned out. :) It doesn't bother me at all to not look at the table while drawing. Maybe that's because I've never really drawn before so I don't have any habits to break. I just have a habit of pushing buttons when I don't mean to on the pen. lol

[@galamotshaku]

For sure there's so many cheap looking games out there from people that where mislead to beliebe pixel art was easy. I've been a pixel artist for years and I'm also an indie game dev, and there's a reason I've never made a pixel art game, which is exactly what you said, beginner level pixel art is easier to look good, but as you approach a higher level it gets exponentially more difficult and with less room for errors while with hand drawn styles you can be more flexible with your mistakes or creative choices . Making a pixel art game at the level I would want it to have would be a colosal task that I'm simply not willing to put up with. At the end of the day pixel art is just a technique and just as with hand drawn art the variety and complexity you can achieve is limited by your creativity and skills.

[@tottijoao]

What you're saying about pixelart is like if I said that Cuphead and Hollow Knight look the same and don't stand out because both are hand-drawn, which of course would be wrong. Pixelart is just a style, it can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be. You can take the same "normal guy" and give them a face and expressions, there are several examples of this. You're doing yourself a diservice by putting less value on pixelart just because you think hand drawn is better.

[@ultimaxkom8728]

Based on your examples, I have a feeling that you haven't finished the video or doesn't really listen to what he said.

[@zhulikkulik]

It's not really a style. It's more like oil painting or 3d modeling. Also, pixel art has some unique feature you simply can't implement in any other kind of 2d. If you use 8bit pixels you can paint your sprites such that manipulating palette can change light direction and even conditions (day, night, hard or soft light etc) Good luck color shifting 24bit pixels or manipulating palette on a 512x512 image of a character.

[@vulkanosaure]

No, pixel art can't be as complex as you want it to be (unless you're talking about a grid which is so big that it becomes close to hand drawn). You have much smaller grid and a more reduce color palette, your possibilities are objectively reduced and there's a bigger likelihood to look similar to other pixel art stuff. He still admitted that you can stand out using pixel art, but you have to put in more effort (more effort than for standing out with hand drawn art) Edit : I'm also a fan of pixel art 😅

[@tottijoao]

@@zhulikkulik it's not that hard to implement. Pixel art, just as HD art, is made with a brush, you can set a brush size bigger than 1 pixel. There's also the alternative of making a normal map and getting the sprite react to lights and shadows with the click of a button

[@tottijoao]

@@vulkanosaure yes it can. There are a bunch of amazing artists that work on bigger canvases. I do also agree that maybe it blurs the line between hand drawn and pixel, but if they call themselves pixel artists, who am I to doubt it. And yeah, you have to put more effort, but that's not a disadvantage haha if you're lazy and want it the easy way then maybe, but still that won't get you too far. Life in general takes effort, you have to work hard to stand out

[@kirdaybov]

You briefly showed your non game art rabbit which was pretty cool! Where can we see more of it?

[@Nonsensical2D]

At the moment nowhere really :) I have been thinking about maybe posting it somewhere but I haven't really had the time for it.

[@guitarbuddha74]

Do you think vector art would fall in the pixel art category of sameness since so many mobile games use it ? I do like doing hand drawn more but I felt like for 2d I had to use pixel art. This did help me think about it more.

[@Nonsensical2D]

Yes I do think that there are some vector approaches that feel a bit samey. In general its something that can always be overcome. There are unique vector art games and unique pixel art games. And sometimes you dont even have to be unique, assuming you have nice polish and a good game. But I do think you want to stack the cards in your favor as much as possible (depending on your own set of skills and your own circumstance that might mean that you should be unique, or not) I personally believe in playing to your strengths, and that tends to be different for different people. There was a part in the video that cut where I said that ”for some people hand drawn might be easier just because they like it more, and because they like it more, they’ll like their game more and be more likely to work on it.” All of this to say good luck, hope it works out!

[@vcdgamer]

In a way I think it falls into 2 categories as well. There's the type that's way too common especially in mobile games, and then there's the kind used in games like Rayman Legends. It's vector art, but it maintained its own unique visual style.

[@maxelized]

This especially works when you are doing hand drawn animations, because anything that looks even slightly vector based, especially with skeleton animations, feel very generic to me.

[@Nonsensical2D]

Ye, I kind of dislike more skeletal animation personally. The excepions for skeletal animations that i kind of like are tails of iron and ghost song (which i think is skeletal) but in general i think it it tends to look a bit generic

[@maxelized]

@@Nonsensical2D Tails looks great! It is indeed often done well. It is a resource saving tool and can be pushed with mesh deformation, interchangeable sprites, and it works exceptionally well for giant creatures for instance.

[@jonathanlochridge9462]

I do agree that being coherent is valuable. Pixel art has a lot of sub-styles. But the most important thing is to have a set of consistent standards. For a beginner it also comes down to faster iteration in a similar way to working in a more impressionistic style or using a smaller canvas allows people to work faster in physical media. (Or alternatively larger brushes.) That means you can make more seperate assets in less time, so more quick iterative practice and faster improvement. But since it is viewed as less unique, Honestly going for a coherent "doodle style" Or a really simple, low detail, impressionistic painting style is probably even easier to pick up. If you do want to have something pretty detailed but still fast to reduce, then working with 8x8 or 16x16 grids or perhaps 8x24, 16x32 or maybe 16x48 for characters as a rough guide allows you to make assets and characters pretty quick. Because then your larger landscape elements fit in like 48x48 or maybe 100x100 pixel or less. Which means less room for detail. So you have to make more intentional choices about what detail to have. But I do agree with you when it comes to platformers in particular, unless you are already good at pixel art, It's sort of a bad fit. Since it's oversaturated, and 2d platformers are a hard genre. But 3d with pixelized textures, Or like a "super paper mario" like look but pixelated. Where you take 2d assets in a 3d world, can look really amazing and not too many people do it. I love pixel art and also love impressionism. I find pixel art easier to get started with for animating than a lot of other forms, But for assets and landscapes. Starting with landscape paintings then moving to making environment assets, then maybe characters is probably a better progression for learning. Portraits are really hard. Landscapes have a lot of depth you can learn, But most random people can make decent landscapes pretty quickly even with no prior art training. Classic example is Bob Ross. But more generally you can just get a photo reference, or go outside and do watercolor paintings from life and very quickly make art that looks pretty good. And for a new game artist, trying to get "pretty good" + cohesive. Or even just cohesive in a unique way. Is the goal. When it comes to animation, Honestly 3d animation is easier than 2d. Unless your characters are basically stickmen or similar. My brother has actually been learning 2d animation with stickmen. works pretty well. Literal stickmen ontop of impressionist paintings honeslty would probably make a pretty good game artstyle.

[@captainawesome2226]

Nah sorry, have to disagree. Pixel art is like any other genre of art - there is almost limitless application. You are comparing same-y games (platformers) and concluding that it's the pixel art that make them same-y. It's the platformer part that makes them all the same, not the pixel art. Check out Replaced, Octopath Traveler, The Last Night or any other HD non-platformer pixel art game and you can see that we have barely scratched the surface of what can be done with pixel art. One thing I do agree with is that good pixel art is incredibly difficult to make, even more so than higher resolution art. And believe me, you can convey plenty of emotion with 32x32 pixels. That's really the job of the animator and game designer. You shouldn't rely solely on art to convey your story/emotion/point. Books have no art at all and you can explore entire worlds in those I've heard. So basically I think you are wrong from start to finish. Still interesting though.

[@Nonsensical2D]

Interesting that you think I am wrong from start to finish, because I think I largely agree with everything you said. I basically mostly think this applies to platformers, I actually cut a section where I talked about that you wouldn't be as affected by the issue I am talking about if you made a pixel art game like factorio (now I kind of wished I didn't). I think platformers are a saturated market, and pixel platformers tend to look similar, but even then there are exceptions. I do agree there is almost limitless application, I just think it's tricky applying it if you aren't really good. If you are a really good artist, you probably shouldn't be listening to me, you already know what you are doing. This is largely a continuation of my previous video where I stated that pixel art is just really difficult. I just think one of the difficulties are standing out and making something unique. But you can stand out without really being creative in HD, there is still a lot of "low-hanging fruit", that is, artistic choices that can make you stand out without being exceptional.

[@Brodyn.digital]

@@Nonsensical2D You're video literally calls pixel art "uninspired"

[@MichaelGame_Dev]

I'm curious if you have any tips. I'm working on a brick breaker game, currently working on art style. I'm debating 2d, pixel and potentially 2.5d art. I'm trying to think of some ways to make the art more interesting overall. I'm definitely going to look back at your videos about art style. But was curious if you had any other tips or videos that may help me figure out things I can do. Ultimately, a ball, some different style bricks, and maybe a background. I've been looking at games like geometry survivor, shutter, breakout recharged to see if I can get any inspiration. I'm also going to look a bit further at color palettes, right now I have two main colors (complementary) so I need to figure out some colors to add to the palette for those.

[@Nonsensical2D]

Hmm, do you specifically want it to be just shapes? You could potentially look into thinking adding personality or humour to the ball. It's a tricky question but I'm thinking even something like "will you snail" (so still kind of similar to the stuff you mentioned, but something that can make it a bit more personable) or like the stuff that blackthornprod does with goofy faces is something you could look into. But it's tricky giving a suggestion because I'm generally not the correct audience for those types of games, so I don't frankly know what the audience there wants. It's very much possible that the audience you are appealing to wants a style that you are quite familiar with (so juicy gameplay with a nice beat and lighting that matches the music perhaps), and if that is the case then I would try and understand that audience more. As for color palettes, I think it can be tricky just adding a third colour to a complementary set. If you want to go for three colours you would probably generally pick a triadic colour scheme instead (it tends to be simpler to make it look nice). Hope it works out, good luck!

[@MichaelGame_Dev]

@@Nonsensical2DThanks for the tips. I had been letting the player select a primary and secondary color. Was going to change to just a primary and figure out the triadic colors but mathematically, it seems like the only way to do that is with 120 degree points on a color wheel. So may have to lock the colors down. "Will You Snail" has a cool art style! And yeah, thinking on it overall to make that decision before I go do more juice, etc. It's a first full game project, main goal is to learn and get some feedback. So really thinking on a few big decisions like the art style and fleshing out the design doc.

[@Relivino]

TL;DR: There are so many games these days (especially 2D platformers and pixel art games specifically) that you have to put in effort to stand out.

[@gridvid]

I really like your content. I am currently working on a game where I choose not to use pixel art because I like the freedom to draw as many details as I like using procreate 😊

[@tealknight6281]

I second some of the other opinions here, in the sense that there is less an inherent problem with pixel art and more a trend that has latched onto pixel art more easily than hand drawn, while hand drawn can still have its own problems. I likewise think that this is a result of collective nostalgia, a consequence of the current level of understanding for a given graphics style, taking short cuts, or just a result of what people want to use in order to get their first games out into the world. I agree with the video to an extent. When it comes to low resolution pixel art with lower colour depth or using lower bit colours, it's much more likely for depictions of the same object to look the same across multiple games. It's also easier to stumble into the strengths of hand drawn graphics, even with zero understanding of what those strengths actually are, and it'll stand out more because the current environment surrounding the two art style categories. But I think that pixel art has untapped potential, not just in higher resolution, but also how much manual control you can have over the graphic's shading, outline thickness and outline colour. These concepts and many more is what would allow pixel art to diversify to a point that pixel art games will stop looking similar.

[@Nonsensical2D]

Good comment, I by and large agree with what you've said and I think I could have added some more nuance (it's tricky to know how much nuance and context to add)

[@tealknight6281]

@@Nonsensical2D Brevity is key as always, as is catching anything that could be misinterpreted to run against what you actually believe. But the video topic could also help you establish what you believe in without having to insert a large tangent. For example, if your video was about the comparison between the strengths and weaknesses of both, you would be able to outline that fundamentally, they're equal. But your conclusion could also outline that because there is more pixel art, the bar for distinct pixel art is higher than it is for distinct hand drawn art. Your first game should ideally use the art style you want to practice regardless of which style is more abundant, even if it doesn't end up being a great success. But when someone does want to make a large and successful game, then nailing the identity becomes a much bigger factor for either style, and both styles present different challenges both internal and external.

[@mickeybowles9743]

How about a video on menu and title backgrounds?

[@histhoryk2648]

Yes, I'm sick with Pixel Art, it feels the same. My the biggest problem is that most games are either low-poly/pixel-art or hyper realistic ones and literally nothing in-between in case of visuals

[@vuurmos6257]

Pixel art might not appeal to everyone and that's okay but I don't agree with your critiques. There are plenty of mid looking Hollow Knight clones with hand drawn art that don't stand out either. Sure there is a longer history of pixel art which people can make comparisons to but if you aren't doing anything inspired with hand drawn art then the same thing applies. You also mention the level of detail with pixel art but even if you're making hand drawn art, you still have to keep it simple for animation purposes and so that you aren't spending forever on each individual asset. You can apply this same criticism to hand drawn art and ask why not aim for realistic 3D styles. Personally I love stylisation and find it more interesting than additional detail (this applies to pixel art, hand drawn and low poly). At the end of the day, art direction and visual design choices will be far more impactful towards the appeal of a games visuals than choosing a specific visual style. That being said, everyone has preferences and some people will see a pixel art game (or hand drawn one) and skip past it immediately in favor of what appeals to them. TLDR: Good art is good art.

[@mdehayat7336]

As I understand it, the point is that pixel art inherently has a lot of similar restrictions, which usually results in very similar styles. So, I agree with the idea that Hollow Knight clones don't stand out, but that's basically making the same point, because that would imply similar constraints. To me it's a reasonable and sound argument.

[@ultimaxkom8728]

@@mdehayat7336 You're correct. The same constraint makes them all feel similar, and that can apply to hand drawn as well.

[@MountainLabsYT]

I take some pleasure about the fact the some of the "Hand drawn art" shown is actually vector graphics. which is not hand drawn, But what I don't like is that you tell me that hand drawn is better but show more pixel art than hand drawn, If you want to convince me to use hand drawn your going to have to show me more examples than that. otherwise, its an interesting opinion I'll keep in mind :)

[@ultimaxkom8728]

The point here is not hand drawn > pixel art. This is why it's better for one to learn from what being said, instead of dismiss it just because you don't like hearing it.

[@Nonsensical2D]

Ye, I probably should have made sure to only show hand drawn, large portion of the script deals with pixel resolution and its downsides, so I largely wanted to showcase the other end of it and just picked whatever footage I had on hand to showcase the point, but you're right. It's not ideal. Hmm, I don't think I really do want to convince everyone on this point. I think there is a huge portion of what I said that is just subjective opinion. So if you love pixel art you should definitely go for it! But I do want to put forth difficulties with pixel art that aren't often acknowledged. Because I do think there are people out there that actually kind of prefer hand drawn or vector graphics, but go for pixel art just because everyone tells them to, and I kind of don't want that (partially because I want more 2D HD graphics, but also because I don't necessarily think pixel art is the obvious correct choice).

[@MountainLabsYT]

@@Nonsensical2D I would agree with the main point that it is overused but I think the reason for this is simple, people (or at lease I) feel like its a game if the art is "gamey" personally when I played hollow knight for the first time I didn't even realize I was really playing a game I didn't really know what the game was about. after I got used to the style it was amazing but often times hand drawn art tells a story really well but doesn't really give off a strong game feel until later on in it. but maybe other people feel completely differently about this. If I could make art as good as hollow knight then I certainly would. You have a point in one of your videos that says that even if you can't make high quality art, it can still look good if you make it consistent, and I would agree, the problem is that silly looking art, looks silly no matter how consistent it is, and if silly is the only thing you can hand draw (like me) (at least without hours and hours of practice) but your game is not a silly one then pixel art might make you feel more comfortable because pixel art is (as you said) more professional feeling without as much effort. its hard to make tiny little imperfection in pixel art the same way you can with hand drawn. personally I like pixel because its easy for prototyping but after watching this video I might just switch to hand drawn. But overall I think its a matter of opinion. I thought the video was well done. thanks for making it.

[@SteinGauslaaStrindhaug]

My main issue with pixel art is that it doesn't really look very good when upscaled a lot on modern crisp monitors. They looked great on old CRT television screens because they were inherently fuzzy and the slightly oversized pixels with hard contrast of old games that were "pixel art" by necessity; it created an illusion of more detail in the fuzzy image. But with modern hardware pixel art (and then I mean pixel art that emulates the constraints of early 90s console hardware) mostly look good at native resolution or at 2x scale max but that tends to be way too small to play a game so when you upscale it to full screen you'd end up with "pixels" that are so large that you cannot avoid seeing it as a bunch of squares turning on and off, it in fact distracts from the illusion and unless you take off your glasses and put the monitor too far away all those constant flickering squares is unpleasant to look at for too long and the very visible definite square pixels it makes it hard to even imagine the illusion of detail effect. That is less of a problem if you use very large sprites and relatively little upscaling; but then it's basically hand drawn art at low resolution and you'd might as well just hand draw it at full resolution instead. Or you could possibly upscale and blur the assets to emulate the CRT screen; but that's also fairly annoying to look at because it just feels like you're wearing the wrong glasses and the screen is out of focus.

[@SteinGauslaaStrindhaug]

If you're going to draw things in a pixel art style, at least give me antialiased upscaling and rounded pixels. My eyes feel weird looking at a grid of boxes for hours.

[@IraKane]

I like pixel art as art and I like it in games, probably for more nostalgic reasons than I think. That said, I totally agree with you. Hand drawn art, even if it is simple offers much more variety on which way you decide to aproach it. And the hand of the artist is much more present on a hand drawn piece than in pixel art for obvious reasons. In terms of difficulty in the execution of one or the other I also agree, depends on the particular style, the knowledge and the experience of the artist. And yes I also totally agree that it is easier to stand out from the crowd with hand drawn art. Thanks for sharing.

[@unspi554]

Yeah diversity is key ! A little critic of the art style of your game: i find the line weight inconsistent.

[@Nonsensical2D]

yes it is, I make these scenes quickly specifically for this channel, so some assets come from different scenes and if I realise when making the scene that an asset is too big or too small I sometimes scale it, this would be bad if it was for your actual game, but since it is only done for the scene I don't really care about it :)

[@PaoloSpagnolo]

What is the game are you developing?

[@Nonsensical2D]

Its a shorter precision platformer (somewhat unrelated to the game art on this channel though, which I mostly use for demonstration purposes).

[@greguar86]

yup, we dont need more pixel art games. i will only take 2-3 games mixing pixel art with 3d like "the last night" and i think we have to move on :D

[@job1481]

Old games were pixel art because of technical limitations. Yes. This is what made it it's own artform. Otherwise it probably wouldn't exist, at least in games. That the covers were mostly smooth hand drawn was a marketing decision at the time. It wasn't a discredit to the pixel art. Saying the limitation makes it just another pixel art game and that this is a 'problem' is like saying ever bass player should use a fretless bass because frets are limiting and you would just be another fret bass player. This is clearly not the case. Apparently most bass players chose to use frets and still sound very different and individual.

[@razorshark2146]

Its very simple, you have artists out there who know how to make something look properly unique, and then you have artists who don't, they just keep following earlier proved methods how things should be done and look and stick to what they know, either unable or to afraid to experiment. Up until this day new pixel art games have have been coming out with a very unique and pleasing aesthetic so it kind of autodebunks this "problem" mentioned in the video. You also convieniently left out all these examples in your video What about "Hyperlight Drifter" , Sword and Sworcery and OwlBoy, and there is the amazing looking and "The Last Night", lots still unexplored : )... Not everyone is great at what they do or will achieve big things with their art, its always a struggle to come up with something unique and not every artist will even be able to achieve that, but the road towards it should be enjoyed nonetheless, and since pixelart is very approachable, most devs or even programmers will use it to make their art. Many pixelgames also dont necessarily focus on the art/look, but more on the gamefeel specifically. If you make a beautiful looking vector game, and then dont have animations with squash-stretch-followthrough-overlap etc.etc., then i personally would find that boring and a very shitty game to play. I can see where you're coming from with your points, but i will disagree with the main point as introduced in this video. : )

[@Nonsensical2D]

I realise a portion of my point didn't necessarily come through in this video. Fundamentally I agree with you. The problem I see with pixel art is not that you cannot make unique art, nor do you necessarily need to. But if you aren't a great artist, and you do want to make unique art, pixel art is a medium which makes it slightly harder to achieve it. You can achieve it nonetheless (I think 'Cat & Onion' is a better example than 'Hyperlight Drifter' since it looks unique but not impossible to do). But with hand drawn art, you can usually get a slightly more unique look without having to relearn how to draw, just slap on a different texture or line size and it will look different enough for most people to think you have made something unique. I kind of did a follow up video to this point called "Should your Game Art be Unique?". Overall I don't think this point necessarily makes pixel art a bad choice for artists, but I do think that when it comes to making a platformer in pixel art, these are issues that you will have to potentially account for in some way or another.

[@blarvinius]

Some talented devs and artists seem to conflate the art style with a game mechanic. Pixel art has just about run it's course. Some of it is very impressive and beautiful, but maybe these talented artists should move pixel art into new media. Games are like music: there must be something NEW.

[@LegoFarieval]

5:54 Do you call Camera Obsura... a shitty looking game?

[@Nonsensical2D]

I think the game is cool, but It's not a game that I find that appealing art wise. I think it makes a few artistic choices that I find questionable (or hard to justify). With that said, you can still find it appealing and some probably do (portion of my critique is undoubtably subjective). With that said I don't even think it's bad bad, but I don't think the art is what makes the game sell (unlike games like Hoa or Gris).

[@LegoFarieval]

@@Nonsensical2D I get it now. I actually do like the visuals of this game, they remind me of flash games I played as a kid.

[@cupofdirtfordinner]

I dont like how you make the point that you couls get across the idea of axiom verge better with HD graphics, and cite a running animation as an example, as if it isnt perfectly possible to make a goofy run cycle in pixel art.

[@Nonsensical2D]

Nah, that's totally fair, you can make a goofy running animation in Pixel art. I don't think this point is necessarily universal to all pixel art, Axiom verge has a tile size of 16x16, with the character 32x32 (I think). I think Axiom verge is on the border where it can still be tricky to make a story and mood with the character, hopefully you agree with the point that he doesn't feel as ordinary as soon as he gets the big weapons he's wielding. For 16x16 characters I think it is extremely difficult to make goofy running animations or show emotions (there are cases of it happening, but I just think it's tricky). Whereas for 64x64 I think you can probably do it almost just as well as with HD. I think Axiom verge has a nice aesthetic and clear art direction. I also think it handles the issue fairly well, but I think that there is a challenge there that they are struggling to overcome and that any developer trying to do something similar will find difficult to deal with in a way that an HD artist won't

[@omarfarooq7211]

Really appreciate your channel, not many people that discuss specifically game art. But I feel the opposite of you here I find most HD art very generic unless its as good as hollow knight, gris or cult of the lamb maybe. Most HD art graphics just remind me of flash games, it sort of lowers the expectation of the quality of the game for me. Whereas for pixel art, I think whats so great about it is that its an art form that was born out of video games so it just fits games, of course all of this is just my subjective feeling. But I would say you don't need to have incredible, highly detailed pixel art like blasphemous to stand out. Hyper light drifter, fez, sword & sworcery in my opinion have incredible art/art-direction while not being as detailed as blasphemous. Also Eastward is probably one of the most beautiful looking games I've played although the artist there has a lot of talent. HD art seems a lot more difficult to draw as well considering there is an aspect of good hand coordination needed, whereas with a pixel art canvas its just a grid of pixels in which I place colors.

[@Nonsensical2D]

You are right that you don’t need highly detailed art to stand out, the examples you mentioned are great but pizza tower like i mentioned is also a great example. I even think gunbrella has a style that while not necessarily unique, has such well executed art direction that it does stand out. I think there will always be examples of great games in both hd and pixel art, it gets tricky because I dont really want to make this video seem as if I’m bashing on pixel art or pixel artists, even though most people want to take it that way. What I want to come across is that i generally think that HD graphics is a slightly more untapped market, a market where you can probably stand out without being good. A lot of games will still be derivative in HD, but I think if you are a beginner there are other advantages to HD that I feel aren’t mentioned enough

[@omarfarooq7211]

​@@Nonsensical2D Okay I think the point that you are making in this video is that an indie game is most likely going to utilize pixel graphics instead of HD and that means there is more space to experiment and stand out with HD graphics as long as they are not similar to hollow knight. I think your main idea does not come across super clearly in the video, I think the reason might be that you don't structure it that way. Like maybe declare your intention from the outset, expand on it and then use supporting examples. You do all these things but with some rushed pacing and not a lot of structure. This was just some unsolicited feedback on the video but I thought it might be helpful to understand why some people might be opposed to your viewpoint.

[@Nonsensical2D]

@@omarfarooq7211 Thanks for the input! I am realising this as well xD I definitely cut some important parts out and rushed some sections (I had to reshoot a part to try and paste together a structure as well). I also don't know how many people watching this video are game devs vs people that play games. I don't really have any interest in bashing what people enjoy. But I do want to counter the prevailing narrative that pixel art is obviously easier. If you like pixel art then none of it matters, but if you are debating the question, it might be important to understand the issues. I frankly like pixel art (I like hand drawn more though), but I really dislike the mainstream narrative that pixel art is easy, it just doesn't make sense to me, pixel art is hard in more ways than one. But I'll try and work on adding more context if I ever make another video that I know will be controversial xD

[@cringeworthybears5500]

Nonsensical, an important thing to note is that if someone is spending the boatloads of time it takes to be an indie game developer, they are basically going to have to become very good at art no matter what to make a good game, with some exceptions. Due to this, an indie game dev with good art skills can work with pixel art or hand-drawn art to make their game stand out. Just look at all of the pixel art titles in this video and how they stand out in the modern day with unique styles and how you know about them and can recognize those differences. I also think that making a completely unique art style is not necessary to make a unique game that has great art and feels great. If the art looks good and it isn't plagiarism, and the game has excellent mechanics and content, nobody is going to feel like it's missing something because it doesn't have a completely unique art style. No gamers enjoying Stardew Valley are hung up on how it shares a few art mechanics with some of the Pokemon games. Your vids are very good and I subscribed, but I disagree with this vid. I believe watching AdamCYounis vids may change your stance as well.

[@teo2805]

I disagree so hard. Celeste doesnt look like many pixel art games at all. And you keep mentioning all pixel art games are very samey and you're just... Wrong, sorry. Look at the Gameboy library for example. Its all pixel art. Do the games look the same? You can have a Metroidvania game and a Pokemon game, and they have different levels of detail, camera angle... Youre boiling everything down to how much detail you can convey etc, and yet you respect say Blasphemous but not Celeste, just because Celeste has smaller chatacters and tiles and shows detail with other things (movement fluidity, special effects, physics like in the character's hair...). I really dont think you are explaining your points clearly in this video. Also your game looks like a Hollow Knight clone but you seem to know this. How is that more original than a pixel art game? I dont think you explain your reasoning

[@Nonsensical2D]

Ohh, I totally respect Celeste, I think it's awesome, I really generally like the style as well. In fact I pretty much like all the pixel art games I showed. I think it's done by artists significantly better than me and it has great art direction. But this is Great pixel art by great artists with very different styles, but it still looks slightly more similar than it does if you compare to the "cover", they all have quite different vibes in their capsule art. But I think these look different because the artists are amazing, as soon as you see 'second rate' games, made by artists like me, it starts becoming more and more similar and less and less diverse. Also I don't think my game art is more original than pixel art. For some situations it might be a tradeoff that is worth it. When I make stuff for the channel I default to what I can make the fastest, and that ends up looking similar to hollow knight. In my situation that feels fine. As I said, you need some way to attract an audience, for some that might be visual execution, for some it might be art direction, for some it might be humour or story. For this channel, there are almost no KZbin channels that do HD Graphics (Trent Kainuga, Thomas brush and Pinnical perhaps), I don't need to stand out, there isn't any competition, that is kind of my point. Do I want to make my art more original, ye, frankly I do. But I don't think I technically have to. I wish there were more people doing HD Game art, I think it's fairly unsaturated.

[@nerdtime7657]

Good vid

[@marverickbin]

Im doing poxel art because aseprite is cheaper than photoshop.

[@Nonsensical2D]

ye aseprite is great! But you also have affinity/krita/gimp that range from free to cheap :) I haven't personally used photoshop in years, it's way too expensive.

[@blarvinius]

The Hollownight-like genre is also getting a bit old...

[@orangelimesky]

Animal well disagrees with you.

[@hollowknightenjoyer]

i dont agree

[@thegameissimple]

So it narrows down to "I don't like pixel-art". Really similar to "I don't like Salt & Sanctuary artstyle". It is unreadable on purpose. It is bleak and gray on purpose. You just don't like it.

[@progoldfish7441]

TLDR: I think im better than everyone else and dont like pixel art. typical "artist"

[@Nonsensical2D]

To clarify, I dont actually dislike pixel art. Half my catalogue of games are pixel art, and i like the art for quite a lot of them, i just think there are challenges with it, challenges that definitely can be overcome, but might be tricky to deal with. It is true that i prefer hand drawn, and want more HD games, but im assuming both you and I have our biases

[@mdehayat7336]

If that's what you understood, maybe you should watch the video again.

[@ultimaxkom8728]

Translation: I read the title, solidify my stance based on my feeling about it, and judge it without listening to it.

[@progoldfish7441]

I watched the entire video clown. I have no preconceived opinion about this topic as its one ive never seen argued. the tone of this video is disingenuous at best. try not taking everything at face value. @@ultimaxkom8728

[@nangld]

Pixelart is used by hobbyists lacking skills. It is a set of standards, including palettes. If you follow the guides your game will look decent, because lowres pixelart forgives messing anatomy or lacking general vision. In pixelart you work with shapes, not lineart sketches. And pixelart doesn't require you to use a software more advanced than aseprite. Hopefully the advances AI will help with producing professional looking 3d models for low budget games, eliminating the need to pay artists. Or maybe you will hire just a concept artist to make a few mockups guiding the AI generation.

[@fantomas1770]

good pixel art > good hand-drawn art simple as that, imho of course

[@HavelockVetinarii]

Are you Scandinavianm accent sounds Swedish or Norwegian

[@Nonsensical2D]

Swedish :)