The Pixel Art rules you SHOULD break!

[@ryanlee5693]

Small detail - as a beekeeper, what you are calling a 'beehive' is actually a wasp/hornet nest. I assume they are supposed to be honeybee hives, but honeybees do not create homes like that. Honeybees mostly move into enclosed spaces such as premade hives, tree holes, home siding, etc. Sometimes they build comb from a treebranch, but never their own enclosed structures like that. It is a very common mistake! Not trying to be picky, and I get this is a fantasy world...but for such an amazing game and all the love put into it, I figured it may be a useful bit of information. Anyway, love your work, very inspiring. 😅

[@AdamCYounis]

I appreciate it! It's always a tough balance between playing into people's expectations vs rendering details in a way that's technically truer to nature. From as early as cartoons like Yogi Bear and Winnie the Pooh, I can remember bees nests being drawn this way, so it's hard to break from that when it's such a clear, recognisable design.

[@nowonmetube]

Don't worry, even a big franchise like Metal Gear Solid 3 mixes these up. The Pain used hornets but he also has "bullet bees". Also the hornets in the hornets nests produce honey! Now how does that make sense? Exactly because of what you both talked about! Metal Gear Solid doesn't hide it - they do it on purpose.

[@nowonmetube]

​@@AdamCYounisso it's not a Mandela Effect. No wonder why it's in our heads like that 😄 because we learned it that way. So instead of hiding it, I'd encourage educating about or do something for the fantasy world on purpose!

[@Bluhbear]

@@AdamCYounis We all know wasps are the real villains, anyway.

[@thommekm]

@@AdamCYounis It would be cute to incorporate that as an educational joke and somehow refer to that detail..

[@rpvarela]

4:28 - Wait a minute, are those the three girls Gaston carries over his head, bench and all during his song in The Beauty and the Beast? :p

[@RobinsonPixels]

I always think it's funny how hard we push ourselves to meet certain limitations on pixel art, when the actual devs at the time were pushing the boundaries as hard as they could to break those exact limitations. Great video.

[@ahmadrifai0379]

just wanted to say thank you very much, i learn a lot, like totally a lot from your vids, specially the old one. God Bless you sir

[@Chironyx]

With hardware limitations gone, pixel art has evolved and outgrown its past self, and knowing which rules to break has become an art of its own. I love adding bloom to my own pixel art and using rotating/scaling particle effects for example. As a non-purist, I completely agree with your points-excellent video!

[@andrewpullins8817]

7:54 the idle animation right here is so cool. I don't know why, but Armon (hope I spelled that correctly) dangling his legs over the edge of the platform like that is very unique, I don't think I have seen that before.

[@ilianrabhi6762]

Man this is crazy I haven't watched the twitch streams for so long to not spoil myself but the evolution is CRAZY. Keep going at it man love the stuff you make. Ill defo be the first customer when it fully releases

[@superradmaker]

I just want to say thank you bro! Ive recently gotten into game dev and am making a 2d pixel art platformer and you channel really helped me get going in the right direction right off the bat. I appreciate you man and cant wait for Insignia to come out as its looking incredible!

[@joshcaladia]

i tend to stick to a palette but continually add to it until it's rather unruly, but it keeps me from accidentally having 2 really similar colours

[@fitblood]

I used to work as a AAA artist and some of the dodgy art we got away with was filthy lol. It's the difference between production art and personal art. 99% of players wont notice these details or a bit of dodgyness.

[@3polygons]

I did not work on AAA titles (but small studios, tho made a ton of pixel art) and I fully confirm this :D. You don't do purists' art, you do whatever looks good and gets the approval (I had to...)

[@TheSensei88]

Both the images from your game and your advice seem absolutely on point. I hope to have the posibility to buy it as soon as it is available, I'm sure it will be an instant classic.

[@dailyshadow]

Love your art. I use your game as a huge inspiration for my own work. Keep making videos! Thank you for what you do.

[@TheBigYC]

Love you art style, keep doing what you are doing, you are on the right track

[@1BitStudio]

If it looks good - it is good. It's that simple :) (plus, every person has their preferences) There is a certain magic and admiration in the old pixel art, but those artists worked with technological restrictions that we don't have anymore. It always brings me great joy when I see pixel art mixed with other forms of art that result in something new. Some popular games even have mixels :)

[@snibo1024]

Pixel art/low ploy + realistic shading is the best combo ever

[@3polygons]

I have been requested to keep all the purist "rules" (mostly in indy games, and individual clients who appreciate the craft) but also in some gigs and actual jobs as an employee, to do "whatever" to reach the milestones. I had fun doing both, and finally I ended up not caring, just focusing on ending some day before 3 AM with so much unpaid extra time. But I always did my best for the graphics to "look great", at least, as that is what 99% of the players will perceive.

[@FeJamas]

Amazing video, Adam! When it comes to game development, I’ve always been a stickler for perfect pixel art, aiming for everything to follow the "pixel perfect" approach. But over time, I realized that it’s often too much to worry about. One of the games I recently revisited is Stardew Valley. I went back to it to gather references for art and animation, and when I went fishing, I noticed that there isn’t an actual animation of the character bending down and holding the fishing rod in pixels-it’s just the arms moving up and down. It might seem like a small detail, but it completely changed the way I see things. I felt the same way watching this video. I’m incredibly grateful for creators like you who share such informative and necessary content for many devs who sometimes worry too much about perfection. I wish you all the success with your projects! Thank you so much. By the way, I was wondering if you could stream on KZbin as well! I’m Brazilian and rely on KZbin subtitles to understand your videos since my English isn’t advanced enough to follow live streams. 😄

[@Lienk]

Regarding the ‘Pixel Perfect rule’, I see where you're coming from, but I don’t agree with the reasoning that ‘pixel perfect’ equals ‘janky visuals’. By carefully considering the movement and speed while coding the character, camera, background layers, objects, etc. you can achieve smooth results while keeping the pixels snap perfectly. Sonic Mania is a great example that maintains pixel perfect visuals while having a high-speed character, dynamic camera movement, and lots of independently moving layers and background objects. The gameplay remains smooth whether you play it fast or slow.

[@nowonmetube]

Yeah but that needs a lot of precision work. Not even Nintendo does that anymore, look at Mario Maker. Their pixel art also rotates.

[@AndreasRiborg]

You wrote the comment I was going to write. Scrolling looks jittery and janky in the video only because the parallax layers was programmed to respond to minute differences in player/camera position, along with the delayed slow moment of the camera. With as high resolution of the art as is used here the scrolling could be looking very smooth indeed while maintaining true pixel perfection. See for example Owlboy which I believe is truly pixel perfect at simmilar resolution of the pixelart.

[@Rockastorm]

The video was super insightful, I've been struggling with the same issue of wanting to stay true to my palate even when I don't think m art looks how I think it should.

[@elone3997]

Solid advice Adam ☺️ When I was starting out with pixel art, it was really easy to go down the rabbit hole of trying to achieve the perceived golden formula (eg no doubles, or whatever) but ultimately it can not only lead to insanity but can cripple your overall design for the sake of some law. Sure, the fundamental rules are true for good reason but understanding the rules and why they're there is the key part..then you have the foundation to break the rules in favour of what actually works better. It's the same with anything. A good example that springs to mind is with traditional 2d animation and when they actually 'break bones' of characters to achieve the pose even though it's physically impossible (AKA wrong!). I used to beat myself up and ultimately get nothing done, but like you say, you have to make a call and go with it. Half the time, the pixel/s you've been obsessing over don't even stand out when you've given yourself a mental break from the design anyways. Great video 👍

[@squirrelsyrup1921]

Oh this is a really major thing! So I had been working in 640*360 and thinking that upscaling would mean rotation isn't possible ingame without blurriness, and was resigning myself to drawing every carryable object dozens of time. Seeing that they can simply be rotated @ 1080p without loss of visual clarify is such a relief. I actually think the "tilted" look on the straight pixels is charming lol

[@retrocademedia-announcements]

A) I think the pixel perfect movement looked fine here, but there is something going wrong with the building as others have pointed out. B) Imo, if you're going to use the smooth camera method I would snap the player to an integer position so the player is always in line with the foreground pixel art, I don't like how entities look when they're barely off by a half pixel C) Great advice on breaking palette, it's something I've tried to practice more recently D) None of what I said is advice for Adam, it's just my thoughts and how I prefer my pixel art to look! I always make my stuff completely pixel perfect but that's just a preference, and I'll probably break that preference in the future

[@CotufaPixel]

Those seem like some really cool rules I should break

[@Saddam_Al_Faisal]

Perfect timing, to get back to pixeling

[@Suthriel]

What i learnt about palettes was, that several of my favourite games had to work with 256 colors, but almost each scene/level had its very own palette of 256 colors.

[@Sergeeeek]

Yup, I did a 1 bit game jam game where game would have to use 2 colors only. But no one said that it would have to be the same 2 colors :P So I ended up having 8 colors total, but only 2 would be visible at the same time. It was to simulate a light switching on and off essentially, swapping the palette to warmer/cooler colors.

[@Equisdeification]

For the pixel perfect, what I do is use a pixel art antialiasing shader so I can have the best of both worlds Because when allowing mixels, if you do a slow zoom in a character, the pixels in the scene are wiggling funny and I don't like that effect, this is very noticeable in Childrens of Morta game, a fantastic pixel art game but the zoom in and out are quite terrible looking T3ssel8r have a fantastic video about this topic (pixel art antialiasing shader)

[@capra3537]

This is a GOAT tier video

[@fatsumo]

Perfect timing. Pixel perfect is all fine and dandy until I started working on shaders and particles a few weeks back 😅 Good lord, that can be frustrating work lining up

[@colin_actually]

Your game looks so beautiful.

[@SeanJMay]

I'm a terrible 2D artist; digital or physical. The only thing I'm worse at is recreating organic 3D forms (again, physical or digital)... but I love this advice, as it applies to literally everything. From cinematography to stand-up comedy to music ... If the goal is pure, original expression, then learn the rules, and learn to break them effectively, to stand out. And the more you learn about different cultural movements in those artforms, the more you have to draw from, and the more rules you learn to break. If the goal is to crib a style or a movement as part of the expression, whether it's because it's something you love and want to emulate or pastiche, or it's something you revile and want to satirize, or you are sure you can fill gaps and push the format forward... understand the history of the format, the constraints that shaped that format, the cultural zeitgeist and the events that birthed that format... and then you know what to break and how to break it, based on what you are trying to say. If the goal is just to make something that you love, or make something that other people love, then it's the purity and quality of expression, and not the purity of form, that I think matters more, though craft and execution still matter. To wit, if purity of form was everything, then every pop album, to this day, would be a 180-minute Italian opera. Every more serious composition would be Baroque. Comics wouldn't exist. Cinema wouldn't exist. And there would be no Jonathan Swift, Poe, Kafka, nor Lovecraft; no Magritte, Picasso, Frida Kahlo, nor Dali; no Billie Holliday, Coltrane, Zappa, Mercury & May; no Chaplin, Groucho, Kubrick, Spielberg, Miyazaki, nor Lynch; no Lenny Bruce, Monty Python, Carlin, Minchin, Burnham, nor Randy Feltface. I don't want a world without Doom or Quake, Earthbound, or MiSide. There is a time and place for purity of form, and there's a time to throw everything out and reinvent everything that looks even just a little bit wheel-shaped. And most of the time, the jazz is in the middle, alluded to, but unspoken.

[@Dylen]

This game will be a freaking masterpiece

[@adammickiewicz7818]

Your game is beautiful

[@rohithreddy75]

Can you make a video on limitations of pixel art vs normal art wrt animations,colors etc. Is it a deal breaker? When should you not use pixel art for games?

[@easymation4998]

Those trees's animations waving like water :P

[@nowonmetube]

I think it depends on the resolution of the art. The higher it is, the easier you get away with this. But if you do low res pixel art, not so much.

[@nowonmetube]

You know, I thought about doing pixel art for the rotating animation because I prefer the way it looks. But in the other hand, not even Nintendo does this anymore, their pixel art in Mario Maker also rotates.

[@ukanunomoro4281]

Problem with pallettes is that you need to have some knowledge in color to break or alter the pallette, i don't know it too so i avoid breaking the pallettes and create more color in those pallettes instead

[@rhos-gfx]

Huh, I'm surprised to hear you say that about pixel perfection. Definitely a matter of preference, but for me the point of pixel art is to embrace the limitations of old hardware. For things like parallax and rotation, if they didn't look good, I would just take them out.

[@HD-t3i]

Can you explain the difference between your manually scaling from 640x360 to 1080p and selecting 1080p in the menu? I thought on a final build it scales the native resolution to the whole screen. I have a project 640x360 with pixel perfect camera and smooth subpixel movement. Independent what resolution. Is the difference that you not use the pixel perfect camera? Don´t know. please explain.

[@AdamCYounis]

The pixel perfect camera component in unity does a few things, but the only thing relevant here is the "Pixel Snapping" feature. If you have that turned on, you'll get something like what I've shown in the video, where a 640x360 texture is being stretched over the 1080p canvas. This is what they call "pixel perfect", and not great for smooth motion. If you turn it off, it wont snap sub-pixel positions, meaning it's just making sure your 1080p camera texture is nearest-neighbour filtered. This is a better result, but assuming your art is already being properly scaled you can also achieve this without the PP camera by filtering the output texture yourself.

[@HD-t3i]

@@AdamCYounis Thanks for that info. I was confused. And yes i think pixel art games today should look just like pixel art but always subpixelmovements. Imagine walking a slope. ;) Its a slope? No its a ladder. But btw... awesome pixelart... I hope your next project...anytime...is pixel art too. Don´t waste your talent

[@Sakura-c5r]

​@AdamCYounis I am sorry, I know you are so busy. But I really likes your KZbin videos. Can you please make, and upload a Godot KZbin video, on how to make Megaman maverick hunter x, Megaman battle network, or Megaman like game, 2D Pokémom or digimon games with evolution or transformation on them. And a Dragon ball Z 2D game with a great ape transformation on it. And a supermario world like game. With all the features of the original supermario world, and a martial art or a combat 2d multilayer game, and maybe a yu gi oh duel moster game. If you can please make video tutorials on how to make these games using Godot and, GDscript, I will deeply appreciate it from the bottom of my heart.

[@kryob1]

I do usually 16x16 pixel graphics but sometimes i need some subpixels in between. How can i manage that?

[@fy8798]

pixel perfect is so challenging. Then do things in 3D (like isometric games or other games using sprites in 3D) and it feels so janky if trying to be pixel perfect.

[@zabustifu]

I've been doing pixel art for something like 30 years, and I never knew some people were obsessed with sticking to the same palette. That makes no sense to me. Some places are darker, brighter, have weird lighting... It'd be pretty weird if the differences in lighting did *not* affect your character's colors, because they certainly do in real life. Games in the '80s and '90s already took advantage of altering palettes depending on the place you're in. Who decided this was not a good practice?

[@Selrisitai]

Lol, this game looks so good it's somehow laughable. My dream game would be this, but the movement animations, particularly for climbing and grabbing ledges, if it were more detailed, slower and weightier. This makes it very arcadey: You grab the ledge and there's two frames of animation, and then another two or three frames from the moment he starts pulling himself to the surface to the point that he's controllable again and running. This is a game that, in my opinion, _demands_ a slow, methodical play style. I want to approach each scene immersing myself. I want the character to have a 20-frame walk cycle and a ten-frame "come to a stop" cycle even from a walk. I want the character to gather himself and hop down to a ledge, catch the edge, see rocks tumble down from the crags as his feet scramble for purchase. The graphics, the art, the drawings, phenomenal. A lot of the animation is fantastic as well, make no mistake, but again, I think this game needs to push the animations to encourage immersion and to encourage the player to engage at every moment with the beautiful scenery and the world and with the characters. That's just me, though.

[@AdamCYounis]

In a lot of cases additional animation frames are there, but cancellable, to respect the player's inputs. It's a tough balance when I've got so many hours in the game, myself. I do want there to be flow to the movement, and I hope to strike a good balance between weighty and responsive in platforming and combat, too. Thanks for your thoughts!

[@Akrob55555]

When I think "I want this to be red" I just move the color picker around and choose something that feels right. So, every red object ends up being a different shade. Never used a palette and people compliment me on the art all the time.

[@Sergeeeek]

I'm not an artist myself, but it sounds like a bad idea for a long time production like a video game where you have to produce a ton of art which has to look coherent together.

[@jerrygreenest]

It doesn't look janky because it's inherently janky, it looks janky because your buildings and else - THEY TELEPORT a little, depending on camera position. Like when you move horizontally but the building teleports pixel by pixel back and fourth VERTICALLY. This should not happen. NEVER. Buildings shouldn't teleport at all, but thanks to Unity they do. Your solution is good compromise when working in Unity. That's not a universal problem of scaling sprites. In many non-unity games, it doesn't happen. Seems like a Unity problem. Not that I mean EXCLUSIVELY to Unity, might be as well the problem with all these 3D engines, but that's not the point. They emulate 2D with 3D scenes and it comes at a price, apparently. Either case, buildings should not teleport like this. That's not resolution problem, nor quantitative space problem. I love the sprites tho, watching you several years, you're a good artist

[@ZyperPL]

You're right. Non-moving/static sprites should never change their position in relation to each other when the camera moves. What's happening now is that some sprites snap to the next integer position and some don't.

[@cube2fox]

@ZyperPL If you have a parallax effect, static sprites on different layers will move at different speeds when the camera moves. That's simply what parallax is.

[@ZyperPL]

@@cube2fox Yes, but I'm talking about elements on the same layer.

[@serork]

algorithm comment

[@lordcrispen]

boop

[@onogrirwin]

Damn he's getting jaded. Good advice I think, but people are in different situations. For some, rigorously sticking with the palette is the right call. There's a lot of people who deadass prefer Hagrid's face to be that way.

[@falseknight4371]

bro hes allowed to have a opinion, don't be the twitter police.

[@onogrirwin]

I agreed with what Adam said in the video, and then pointed out that while his advice is good for people in his position, there are people in other positions that can afford to and should prioritize things differently. A balanced, non-inflammatory take. Then, you sweep in and tell me to stop policing. One of us is "Policing" and it's not me.

[@falseknight4371]

"Damn he's getting jaded". Need I correct you more?