Sega Genesis-style game dev question
Author
I'm just curious what programs they might have used to do the character animation and background art for the Sega Genesis games. Does anyone know? Also, does anyone know of any links that pertain to Sega Genesis-style game dev? Thanks.
RapidArp
I'm not sure what exactly specifies "genesis style" but if you just mean low color count 2D work, there's plenty of resources around. This is a good pixel art tutorial, if it's the art that interests you. If you think it's similar enough, you might do well to look around sites geared toward the Gameboy Advance as well. GBA Dev is a good place to start for that, but sites like this are usually more geared toward programming. It still might be worth checking links there though.
The main things to note about the Megadrive (yes, I'm european) is that while the graphics were in "only" 16 colors the palette wasn't fixed for the entire screen. Instead you could choose from one of four (don't quote me on this, it's been a long time since I last tried to write code for this particular console) separate palettes on a per-tile basis. And these palettes' colors were 9-bits each so only you got 8 intensity levels per RGB channel.
Not only did you have to squeeze the game into as few of these 8x8 tiles as possible but only a (relatively) fixed subset was available at a time, so each level type generally had it's own unique tileset.
Other things that helps to create the fairly unique "style" was the use of tile and palette animations, where a changing a single tile or palette affects large parts of the screen and could be used for many environmental effects.
Because of these limitations and some additional ones coming from the game itself I suspect that most every game had it's own custom set of utilities. So while many modern editors still handle 16-color images fine, very few of them can optimize tilesets, handle palettes on an 8x8 basis or let you test your work in a map editor easily.
If you really want to use a popular graphics editing package of the time I can personally warmly recommend Deluxe Paint (eighter version 2e for the PC or, preferably, version 4 for the Amiga).
Pixelation is a decent forum for 2d game art.
Not only did you have to squeeze the game into as few of these 8x8 tiles as possible but only a (relatively) fixed subset was available at a time, so each level type generally had it's own unique tileset.
Other things that helps to create the fairly unique "style" was the use of tile and palette animations, where a changing a single tile or palette affects large parts of the screen and could be used for many environmental effects.
Because of these limitations and some additional ones coming from the game itself I suspect that most every game had it's own custom set of utilities. So while many modern editors still handle 16-color images fine, very few of them can optimize tilesets, handle palettes on an 8x8 basis or let you test your work in a map editor easily.
If you really want to use a popular graphics editing package of the time I can personally warmly recommend Deluxe Paint (eighter version 2e for the PC or, preferably, version 4 for the Amiga).
Pixelation is a decent forum for 2d game art.
I agree with doynax; the vast majority of Genesis/MD tools most likely had custom utilities to manage palettes and such when doing art, and definitely for map layout and such.
As for Genesis-style gamedev, I'm assuming you mean it on the PC. This is what most homebrew games around here target; it's pretty easy to get into 2D game development once you know enough about programming. I've seen some games here that I would have loved to have on my Genesis at its peak.
As for Genesis-style gamedev, I'm assuming you mean it on the PC. This is what most homebrew games around here target; it's pretty easy to get into 2D game development once you know enough about programming. I've seen some games here that I would have loved to have on my Genesis at its peak.
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