How Big Should a Pixel in Pixel Art Be

enthrallstudios	Hey guys, So I take been wrestling with a decision on what size my platformer sprite should be. I know that in the old days sprites were like 16x16, merely with resolutions today, won't that be way too pocket-size? Would 32x32 or 64x64 make more sense? The game is quite dark, and the gameplay will crave a lot of wall jumping and megaman-style shooting. Thanks!
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ink.inc Guest	any of those sizes will work
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moi	16x16 is definitely likewise small-scale, after it depends on your game because it volition have an effect on the gameplay. Only make a prototype
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enthrallstudios	I guess I was just wondering what size nigh of you guys use. I haven't worked with sprites in years so I'k not sure what is the "norm" these days.
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Azure Lazuline	Brand a game with colored squares for all the sprites and try out different screen resolutions and sprite sizes until information technology feels right. THEN worry about making the actual sprite. If you arbitrarily decide on a size beforehand, then make the sprite before yous make the game, then information technology'due south much harder to alter.
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enthrallstudios

Speaking of screen resolutions, how practise you handle multiple resolutions with such easily distorted characters? Do you just throw up some black bars to deal with the older four:iii aspect ratios? How near scaling your guys? (this might be improve suited for the development forums.) I have looked at as many games equally I could and it seems like nigh of them allow minor stretching and force widescreen with the black bars. I don't know how they calibration them without them beingness very pixelated though.

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sublinimal	Since technical limitations don't dictate sprite dimensions anymore, you're gratuitous from worrying about emulating one-time styles. It doesn't take to exist a square, it doesn't have to be a power of ii. Spend your energy on making the character look like information technology does in your head.
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Azure Lazuline	If yous're using pixel art, generally you apply a depression resolution like 640x480 or 800x600, and scale up with nearest neighbor if the user wants a larger size. If you want it to not exist pixelized at higher resolutions, and so y'all have to make the art at the higher resolution.
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Retro-Rob	I've been working on a megaman inspired platfommer on and off.  The main character is a 16x16.  He's in the mock ups below a couple places. [img]http://robertmaherdesign.com/space200Large.png[img] The game is intended to be viewed at 400% zoom but sometimes it'll zoom to 300 - 200% zoom level during some boss encounters.
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Lee Level 1

Since technical limitations don't dictate sprite dimensions anymore That isn't necessarily technically true when working in low level APIs like openGL* (well for the whole image/spritesheet, not individual sprites). Notwithstanding with loftier level APIs like SDL, Allegro and the like (basically whatever library which y'all can just phone call a draw image function) yous don't even have to worry nigh it at all. *While individual sprite size is irrelevant the size of the full prototype loaded to texture retentiveness might non exist. It is graphics carte & driver dependant, some Simply support power of 2 textures (1,2,iv,8,sixteen,32,64,128,256,512,1024...) which volition mean the graphics will non fifty-fifty show upwards, more than modernistic graphics cards should exist fine although I think it may cause a very pocket-size, almost insignificant, slowdown. Bumping upward the images to the side by side PO2 dimensions in the app immediately after the epitome has loaded is an piece of cake ane-off job which is pretty much negligible in terms of performance, this should hateful the textures should work on all graphics cards. I'd guess the higher level API's practise this automagically for you. So yeah technically the prototype size (i.e full spritesheet or groundwork image -non individual sprites-) may matter if you lot are using really low level stuff or using huge non power of two images may be padded up to the adjacent PO2 dimensions (or I could be wrong), which will just waste a scrap of memory... For an example a 1025x1025 background image would be retentiveness padded to 2048x2048, whilst just shrinking it past ane pixel in both dimensions would lose pretty much zilch at all and would require no padding- as for that difference in memory requirements:(1025x1025x3 col channels = 3MB in texture memory, 2048x2048x3 colour channels = 12MB in texture retention) but images beneath 512x512 aren't worth worrying nearly because the difference in texture memory past today's standards are not fifty-fifty worth thinking most; although as I've kept mentioning this is texture memory (i.e. your graphics cards in-built retentivity) not the figurer'southward retention and is generally betwixt 128MB and 1024MB (but even 128MB can hold 170 512x512 bitmaps so perhaps worrying about size at all is just being pedantic). tl;dr: sprite size doesn't matter but for large sprite sheets/bg images (i.e. the full image on your difficult drive non the individual elements/sprites on the paradigm) y'all may desire to brand sure they are not going to be so wastefully padded similar in my example. Also I believe virtually cards just accept texture sizes up to 2048 or 4096. Regarding actual useful information: I would propose you open up a canvas at the size of your games window and but draw a rectangle at almost the size that you think would be all-time for what you want. Or just draw a mock-up on a scrap of newspaper and try to copy the sizing from that. You'll want to be thinking about how much background you are showing and how many characters can fit on screen at one time and draw the box accordingly. Using this you can then measure the size of the box you lot drew and base your sprites on that size. This is much better than choosing an arbitrary size. Fifty-fifty though you can make pretty much any game with 16x16 graphics, having proportional sizing is a lot better and engaging. (for a game virtually exploration or relaxation you can make the character on screen small-scale and so you can display a lot of the background and surrounding expanse, for a 1 on ane fighting game you lot tin can have intense close up focussing on the characters themselves, for a platformer yous will always want to make sure enough of the level is visible so that the player can quickly see the path they want to have instead of having jump-of-faith type moments or potentially missing the right route, etc.)

« Terminal Edit: September 05, 2012, 02:08:26 PM by robolee » Logged

VoxelHead Level 0	merely with resolutions today, won't that be manner as well small? Nope, but scale your resolution.
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enthrallstudios	Hey guys, Thanks for all of the advice. I think I am going with a more digitally painted manner, so I'll probably stick with the actual resolution on the screen and make the character about 64 px alpine. Thanks again for all of the advice. I'll have a devlog upwardly when I become to that point. So hopefully I can show off my progress presently.
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Eendhoorn Level 6 Quak	Only curious, why are we still using power of 2 sizes for tiles? I can imagine there used to be constraints by the hardware, but it shouldn't be a problem anymore present.
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DavidCaruso

(snip) Your art in these shots is pretty crawly, just that amount of zoom is kind of unbearable to my eyes. Just curious, why are we withal using ability of 2 sizes for tiles? I can imagine there used to be constraints past the hardware, but it shouldn't be a problem anymore nowadays. Cleanly divisible into many mutual resolutions e.g. 320x240, 640x480, etc. and one-half-divisible (i.e. divisible past 8) into many others. And also you can do fleck shifting for some operations I guess?

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enthrallstudios	I only stated 16x16 or 32x32 to go a general size. I can do 33 10 67 if I desire.
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st33d Guest

But curious, why are we even so using power of ii sizes for tiles? I can imagine in that location used to be constraints past the hardware, but it shouldn't be a trouble anymore nowadays. Information technology'south still a trouble on many platforms. Textures for a lot of things accept to be in multiples of two before they're fed for rendering. That's how the graphics libraries are wired upward. Y'all don't accept to worry virtually this sort of matter in Flash, but it's an issue you have to piece of work effectually elsewhere. Also - making the artwork before you have a working gameplay prototype is retarded. No ane cares how pretty your game is going to exist (except people who comment on Greenlight), make information technology playable first.

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ink.inc Guest	Besides - making the artwork before you lot have a working gameplay image is retarded. No 1 cares how pretty your game is going to be (except people who comment on Greenlight), brand information technology playable offset. trufax
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Fallsburg Level 10 Fright the CircleCat	Also - making the artwork before you lot take a working gameplay prototype is retarded. No ane cares how pretty your game is going to be (except people who comment on Greenlight), make it playable start. Be honest, at that place are quite a few DevLogs like that too.
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Source: https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=28209.0

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