Hey guys,

I was curious as to why I see so many indie games being made using old-school graphics (like SNES graphics). Especially in 2d games..

My game programming is limited to lightly goofing around with XNA - but it seems to me that if you are capable of create good 2d graphics, it's super easy to import beautiful images that retain their level of detail even when rendered in the game.

So this leave me to believe one of these:
- game developers are purposely using SNES-like images to give their game a "nostalgic" feel.
- game developers are pushing really hard to make their game as little kbytes as possible by using low resolution images
- something else?

Can someone shine some light on this for me? It's just kept me very curious...

Sometimes a bit for the nostalgic feel, sometimes because artists like to draw those images. The real important reason is that it's a lot harder to draw nice high-resolution graphics. There are challenges to both aspects of course, but when drawing a 128x128 smooth 32-bit color sprite, in order for the player to identify with it, you need to make it much more realistic than a 16x16 or 32x32 sprite. At those sizes you see the eyes, the facial expression, etc. It requires a lot more time and skill to draw such images and make them believable. Low-res graphics are a lot more forgiving.

For the player to properly identify with your sprite, you need to make it appealing. At 16x16 most things are up to the imagination, and giving a few pixels of hair and 2 red pixels for the mouth makes people see it as a pretty girl. If you want to do that at 128x128 you must be extremely good at drawing, and apart from that, you need to make the face you draw actually pretty. This is far from easy even for experienced artists.

thanks for the info, i now understand why graphics designers choose to create pixel-like graphics because it's easier to give "life" to it.

however, i'm still a little confused on the technical part of it...

lets say i was one of these game developers and creating a game in XNA (with SNES-like graphics) .
Do you just create a low resolution image in a photoshop program, and then save it as a .tga (for example), and then just import it? It seems weird to me that we would have these low resolution sprites which are built up of pixels, but then we import them into a game window where it really has nothing to do with pixels at all. In the end, it's just a "blocky" sprite where one pixel on the sprite has nothing to do with one pixel in the game window.

i thought there was something more "technical" about chosing to make these kinds of graphics... any more input on this thought? thanks!

thanks for the info, i now understand why graphics designers choose to create pixel-like graphics because it's easier to give "life" to it.

however, i'm still a little confused on the technical part of it...

lets say i was one of these game developers and creating a game in XNA (with SNES-like graphics) .
Do you just create a low resolution image in a photoshop program, and then save it as a .tga (for example), and then just import it? It seems weird to me that we would have these low resolution sprites which are built up of pixels, but then we import them into a game window where it really has nothing to do with pixels at all. In the end, it's just a "blocky" sprite where one pixel on the sprite has nothing to do with one pixel in the game window.

i thought there was something more "technical" about chosing to make these kinds of graphics... any more input on this thought? thanks!

Well, drawing sprites is, although working with graphics and artwork also technical.
But even prerendered 3D models in low resolutions have the forgiving feature of low detail. The 3D modeler can omit many details.
Sure, using photoshop makes it much easier to acheive the nostalgic feel.
Stating that "a game window which has nothing to do with pixels" is untrue. Of course it has something to do with pixels! Everything in fact; it's nothing but pixels.
Yep, that's how i'd do it. Or cell-shading some low-polycount 3d models, rendering them in low res and applying a border. Will make excellent SNES-looking meshes, that are much easier to animate...

Most personal computers are *perfectly* capable of displaying 3D models which have already been created. This is because, one a model has been created and released, it has also been finalized. Finalizing a 3D model is a form of compression that causes it to need vastly reduced amounts of memory to display.

Unfortunately creating 3D models is a very different story. There are, at present, very few, if any, home computers that are capable of handling this very system intensive process. If creating a 3D model by yourself were a feasible process, I think most indie game devs would go that way, but it's not. It's just not possible.

Unfortunately creating 3D models is a very different story. There are, at present, very few, if any, home computers that are capable of handling this very system intensive process. If creating a 3D model by yourself were a feasible process, I think most indie game devs would go that way, but it's not. It's just not possible.

.......... is that a joke?

Unfortunately creating 3D models is a very different story. There are, at present, very few, if any, home computers that are capable of handling this very system intensive process. If creating a 3D model by yourself were a feasible process, I think most indie game devs would go that way, but it's not. It's just not possible.

My computer (4 years old) is perfectly capable of creating 3D models... My previous computer (which would at this time be 14 years old) was also capable of making 3D models. The reason why I don't make 3D models, is because I haven't yet learned how, not because personal computers can't create them.

Sometimes a bit for the nostalgic feel, sometimes because artists like to draw those images. The real important reason is that it's a lot harder to draw nice high-resolution graphics. There are challenges to both aspects of course, but when drawing a 128x128 smooth 32-bit color sprite, in order for the player to identify with it, you need to make it much more realistic than a 16x16 or 32x32 sprite. At those sizes you see the eyes, the facial expression, etc. It requires a lot more time and skill to draw such images and make them believable. Low-res graphics are a lot more forgiving.

For the player to properly identify with your sprite, you need to make it appealing. At 16x16 most things are up to the imagination, and giving a few pixels of hair and 2 red pixels for the mouth makes people see it as a pretty girl. If you want to do that at 128x128 you must be extremely good at drawing, and apart from that, you need to make the face you draw actually pretty. This is far from easy even for experienced artists.

Well it's not that straightforward IMHO. Sometimes it's harder to make a good 16x16 pixels large 16-colored character than to make him hi-res. There's incredibly little space in those 16x16 pixels and as you say 2 red pixels for mouth etc - just try it, try to draw a character on a very low resolution so that it will look like a girl or Indiana Jones or whatever. It's sometimes hard to describe something properly with such huge limitations. And it's even worse - your character must have walking, jumping and shooting animations and maybe must even have different representations for different views (depends on the game of course) and during all this, he still must look like a girl or Indiana Jones. In 16x16 pixels

You cannot generalise it and say that it's easier and more forgiving to make low-res graphics. I take the artists from the old days as geniuses Nowadays they make a 3D model and (provided we're talking about a 2D sprite-based game) render it as many times as they want, in different poses etc. It's also hard, no doubt, but in a quite different meaning...

Unfortunately creating 3D models is a very different story. There are, at present, very few, if any, home computers that are capable of handling this very system intensive process. If creating a 3D model by yourself were a feasible process, I think most indie game devs would go that way, but it's not. It's just not possible.

That's crazy. 3d studio started in DOS times and was capable of making 3D models. Do you remember the computers back then?
I don't see what's so system intensive on making 3D models. On the contrary - it requires almost nothing from the computer. The 3D modelling SWs use DirectX or OpenGL to display the model, exactly as a game would. And even if the model is made with a large polygon count (to create normal maps etc.), you are usually working just with that one model at a time so it's still probably MUCH less polygons than modern games display all the time.
Maybe you're confusing it with photorealistic rendering - that can be very CPU intensive, but still is absolutely doable on any current PC machine, you'll just wait longer for the result. But that's not related to making 3D models for games.
And also - there are tons of indie games with 3D models.