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Add Forum to Favorites | Send Topic To a Friend | View Forum FAQ | Track this topic Page: 1 2 »» |
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| Better Programmer Art |
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Gaiiden GDNet Content Lead Member since: 8/30/2000 From: Lincroft, NJ, United States |
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 Posted - 12/29/2008 1:18:33 PM |
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| Author Bio Joel Davis has worked as a tool and engine programmer for the last twelve years. He has a BS in Computer Science and a BA in English from the University of Central Florida. He got started at Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida on "Mulan", and has since worked at ILM and a few startups. He gave up sleeping for a few years to work at EA on projects like "Godfather: The Game" and "James Bond: From Russia With Love". He's currently in software R&D at Tippett Studio in Berkeley, CA. He's also an avid participant in 48-hour game programming contests, where much of the experience in this article comes from. |
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Oluseyi Staff Member since: 5/14/2001 From: New York, NY, United States |
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 Posted - 12/29/2008 1:27:43 PM |
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Pretty good. I even got a useful tip about hard edges in Photoshop.  |
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swiftcoder Member since: 7/3/2003 From: Boston, MA, United States |
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 Posted - 12/29/2008 1:59:15 PM |
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| Sweet, thanks for that! Tristam MacDonald - swiftcoding |
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cyansoft Member since: 6/29/2003 From: Cleveland, USA |
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Posted - 12/29/2008 2:19:56 PM |
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| The coolest thing mentioned was the Multicolr Search Lab link. You pick the color scheme and it finds pictures on Flickr that match it. That's awesome. |
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Ezbez Member since: 5/10/2005 |
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Posted - 12/29/2008 2:27:39 PM |
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| I like it. I'm no artist, but I found doing vector art worked well for me. I will most definately have to try using a color palette in my next project. |
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deadstar Member since: 12/5/2007 From: Manchester, United Kingdom |
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Posted - 12/29/2008 10:45:46 PM |
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| Fantastic article, I really struggle to make my personal games look decent, and they usually sit on the backburner until I can find a friend to knock up some graphics for it. I'll give this another read and get practicing. I had 20 minutes play with The Gimp and tried out a few of your techniques. I particularly like the tip about drawing in high resolution, scaling down and cleaning up, some of the worst characters I came up with looked kinda cool when thrown down to 64x64. Oh, and in my opinion 'colour' is the superior spelling, because it has more letters and therefore more girth :) "The right, man, in the wrong, place, can make all the dif-fer-rence in the world..." :: GMan, Half-Life 2 |
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noggin Member since: 7/8/2007 From: Nashville, TN, United States |
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Posted - 12/29/2008 11:04:31 PM |
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| great article, thanks. |
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joeld42 Member since: 9/28/2007 From: Berkeley, CA, United States |
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Posted - 12/30/2008 1:47:48 AM |
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Thanks everybody for the feedback. Quote: Yeah but then you have to port your code to work on US systems... hehe.. But seriously, I've worked in code-bases where this was a holy war. Either a random mix of classes like 'RGBColor' and 'RGBAColour' depending on who wrote that bit of code. Or worse, someone would go through and change all the 'color' to 'colour' to make it consistent, then someone else would change them all back. Then we'd have a meeting. Quote: That's a great idea. I didn't think of that, but that's a good suggestion. I'm just not very good at it. Also, using a vector program like Inkscape works great as a quick-and-dirty level editor for certain types of games, you can just export to SVG and that's pretty easy to parse if you're just looking for a specific shape tag and not trying to handle anything. joel |
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EvilNando Member since: 5/20/2002 From: Barcelona, Spain |
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Posted - 12/30/2008 8:04:21 AM |
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| This was inspirational thank you very much!! |
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Orbital Fan Member since: 5/13/2007 From: Warwick, United Kingdom |
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Posted - 12/30/2008 12:47:36 PM |
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| Very good article! I'm at the stage with my 3d game where I have to create some artwork to properly test out the rendering side of the engine. When creating textures, i find it easier to use vector art (Inkscape) and then export to bitmap. It's more geared towards how my brain work - and it's easy to change the resolution later on. The style is also easier to maintain (the vector-art look :) Creating 3d models as a programmer is pretty difficult. I've used 3ds max and blender quite a lot over the years. Natural stuff such as trees is easy to get looking good (via plugins which generate it for you). Man-made stuff is a lot harder (I'm currently tackling a simple futuristic level that is intended for a 1st person shooter). Choosing the right 3d package is very important - some are more geared towards low poly modeling of man-made artifacts. Google Sketchup and Wings3d are some examples. I was trying out Google Sketchup - it's so easy to knock something together. Has to be one of the most impressive 3d packages out there for polygon modeling. I really wish it had Linux support though... |
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MattHughes Member since: 10/19/2007 From: Toronto, Canada |
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Posted - 12/30/2008 1:42:13 PM |
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| Thanks for the great article. I've been applying most of the suggestions for some time now, and I think I'm nearing the point where I'm eager to get my hands on a tablet. However, working on an indie programmer's bugdet, I'm not eager to spend $200 to $400+ on a tool that I've never used before. I see some more affordable products such as the wacom mte450 ($70) but I don't know if it's any good since there are no reviews online. Do you have any suggestions for a <$100 or <$150 starter tablet? |
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cyansoft Member since: 6/29/2003 From: Cleveland, USA |
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Posted - 12/30/2008 1:49:52 PM |
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Quote: The article mentions Wacom's Bamboo table, which has a 4.5/5 star rating and 164 reviews on Amazon.com plus it's less than $70. |
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Rainweaver Member since: 5/1/2007 |
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Posted - 12/31/2008 5:38:40 AM |
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| Loved the article, some nice tricks there |
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Gallivan Member since: 3/3/2006 From: Edmonton, Canada |
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Posted - 12/31/2008 2:04:22 PM |
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| Well written and helpful article. |
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CarlJ Member since: 8/15/2007 |
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Posted - 12/31/2008 2:53:51 PM |
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| Yep I agree, Great article. |
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prh99 Member since: 11/22/2000 From: Illinois, USA |
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Posted - 12/31/2008 8:16:14 PM |
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| Very helpful. Thanks for the tips, it's much easier to draw high res and scale it down. |
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BenW Member since: 12/30/2007 From: Gainesville, FL, United States |
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Posted - 1/3/2009 12:44:50 AM |
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| Great article, it's also nice to see the ludumdare contests get more press. I've already used some of the techniques mentioned in the article but lately I've been trying out a few different things. First I've been using simple 2d models for my games, it's quick and easy and gives it a vector art look. The other thing I've been doing is scanning my drawings and using stroke paths in gimp to smooth out the lines. After this I fill in the colors and the end results tend to look pretty good for the amount of work involved. Once again, nice article, and good luck in the next competition. www.GarageCoder.com |
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wendigo23 Member since: 9/27/2002 |
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Posted - 1/6/2009 11:41:13 AM |
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| One more thumbs up for this article. I just made a couple test sprites for my current game using the high-res-scaled-down and palette-from-a-picture tips and the results are quite nice. |
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Demosthenes GDNet+ Member since: 4/2/2001 From: Porto, Portugal |
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 Posted - 1/7/2009 1:29:30 PM |
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| Great article. P.S.: The Ludumdare link is missing an "u". |
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Gaiiden GDNet Content Lead Member since: 8/30/2000 From: Lincroft, NJ, United States |
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Posted - 1/7/2009 2:16:45 PM |
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Quote: Oh the one way down at the end. Good catch thanks - fixed |
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EDI GDNet+ Member since: 1/5/2002 From: Northampton, MA, United States |
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Posted - 1/8/2009 10:53:14 AM |
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| Excellent Article, and I'm a guy who knows a thing or two about programmer art :) Raymond Jacobs, Owner - Ethereal Darkness Interactive www.EDIGames.com www.MorningsWrath.com www.Malathedra.com |
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wendigo23 Member since: 9/27/2002 |
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Posted - 1/10/2009 12:07:56 AM |
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| This article has inspired me to get a tablet. I'm looking at the Bamboo that has been mentioned, but I also see the Bamboo Fun. Is it worth the $30 extra for an eraser and bundled PS Elements & Painter Essentials? I'm pretty sure I don't care about the mouse. |
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reaper93 Member since: 10/14/2007 From: Preston, United Kingdom |
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Posted - 1/10/2009 6:15:00 AM |
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| wow great article, all seems great advice and the article itself is quite inspiring, will definitly give this ago when I get some time. Now to buy a tablet ^_^ |
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jakem3s90 Member since: 4/29/2004 From: Fargo, ND, United States |
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Posted - 1/10/2009 3:30:27 PM |
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| Excellent article. Thank you for it! Afterwinds My 4E5 entry |
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