Making 2D Images

Alfons Pineda · 2014-09-02T04:42:55

I switched from 3D game development to 2D, and I want to make 2D images for my games. I'm aiming to be a "lone wolf" meaning I make my games by myself, and I have all the skills to do so. Even though I am not artistic by heart, I'd like to learn. That leads me to two questions: 1. What software should I use? 2. Where should I learn how to use that software effectively?

For Beginners

Started by cooljava50544 August 14, 2014 03:56 PM

15 comments, last by Ravyne 9 years, 8 months ago

Gian-Reto

7,096

August 18, 2014 09:55 AM

You must have intended to put [GIMP] at the end of that sentence, because the Color to Clear in GIMP is quick, easy, and reliable. At first, I believed that I would rarely use this function but I find many ways to Color to Clear in manipulating an image.

Yes, that is correct. I don't know where the rest of my sentence went. Digital nirvana it seems.

I use it very often. For example I like to bake my AO maps into the Texture as most shaders will not have an AO slot, and frankly, baking it into the diffuse Map looks just right most of the time.

Here you can use the function to transform the white part of the AO map to clear, and then place this as a layer over your Diffuse map. you can play around with the opacity and stuff like that to get the intensity of the AO right, and there you go: AO added to the diffuse map with few simple clicks.

Of course you still need to bake out the AO map in a 3D Tool first....

3Ddreamer

3,826

August 18, 2014 04:15 PM

Yeah, that is only touching on some of what is done with Color to Transparency. I turn other colors, even some custom ones, into clear as well. GIMP is so good that I used it almost exclusively for several years before adding other software.

Any newbie GIMP users: Learn how to use LAYERs very early. Creating or duplicating layers and manipulating them is very important in many projects. There are many YouTube videos and elsewhere about GIMP.

Personal life and your private thoughts always effect your career. Research is the intellectual backbone of game development and the first order. Version Control is crucial for full management of applications and software. The better the workflow pipeline, then the greater the potential output for a quality game. Completing projects is the last but finest order.

by Clinton, 3Ddreamer

Buckeye

10,754

August 18, 2014 08:18 PM

For some pix, I've even used a base 3D engine, orthographic projection, and a backbuffer capture routine.

Please don't PM me with questions. Post them in the forums for everyone's benefit, and I can embarrass myself publicly.

You don't forget how to play when you grow old; you grow old when you forget how to play.

davidwik

111

August 20, 2014 11:19 PM

If you are producing sketches and artwork you can use "Krita". It's a great and free art program. I plan to sketch most graphics for my game in Krita and transfer the into "aseprite" for animations and pixelization. Google and check them out :)

My code blog and games: http://blog.engineroom.dk

yinakoSGA

326

September 01, 2014 06:46 AM

Hi,

if you do not discover you have talented art skills or just in need of stock game assets you can check the list below. It is a skill to create products using third party assets and tools, which is really what game making involves. Theres no harm find out yourself how it is create (the long way), and then understand what to use (the short cut), just my 2 cent.

Game Asset Resource list Commercial Game Assets

2D Icons, Sprites and GUI

3D Model and Textures

Free/Community driven

Open Game Art

Free Game Arts

Lost Garden free game arts

Reiners Tile Sets

www.supergameasset.com

Madolite

393

September 02, 2014 03:34 AM

I'm currently making sprites for my own 2D game, and I'm literally just using Paint.NET combined with watching a bunch of pixel art tutorial videos on Youtube. I just code the animations I need, as well (via sprite sheeting). I personally find Paint.NET to be much better than GIMP myself, but to each their own. Both are pretty solid, as free software.

Ravyne

14,306

September 02, 2014 04:42 AM

Vector or raster?

Vector images are mathematically-encoded lines laid down as strokes and fills. They can be scaled up or down perfectly, and animations are typically accomplished through a skeletal-style animation system -- Many flash games are examples of this style. Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape, Flash, and AnimeStudio (I believe) are examples of vector art tools.

Raster images are 2D grids of pixels, typical of a bitmap or similar. Sometimes called pixel art or sprites. They can scale well taking into account the size of the source image and the range of sizes it will appear as on-screen, and can be combined with mip-maps for better scaling. Animations are typically accomplished on a frame-by-frame basis. Adobe Photoshop, GIMP, Paint.Net, GraphicsGale, and Cosmigo ProMotion are examples of raster art tools.

Some Raster tools are geared more towards high-resolution, high-color work (Photoshop, GIMP) such as photo editing -- but can also be used to create such images from whole cloth. Others are geared more towards low-resolution, low-color work (Cosmigo ProMotion, GraphicsGale) and often include built-in support for frame-based animations; these are great for the kinds of 2D sprite-based games typified by the SNES, GBA, or 2D arcade games.

I personally really like Cosmigo ProMotion for 2D pixel art in that retro style, which is what I like. I'm not a big fan of 2D vector art, so I've never looked at or considered those tools.

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Making 2D Images

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