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Comment by distances

17 hours ago

These look very nice, but are not pixel art in the sense I understand it. The pixel matrix is not consistent. They look pixelated, but if you zoom in, you'll notice that the block size varies quite a bit within one image and between images. There are also artifacts, pretty clear for example in the jumping deer's antlers.

I don't know what would be a practical way to do it, but I imagine some postprocessing step where a consistent matrix is enforced.

14 comments

distances

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npinsker  16 hours ago

Though you’re absolutely right, I feel like pixel art nowadays is more commonly thought of as just an aesthetic “feeling” — most indie games violate the rules of pixel art a bit by scaling and rotating sprites — and it doesn’t matter much to consumers as long as it looks good.

  • dwroberts  16 hours ago

    Scaling and rotating are normally runtime things the game does with the art though, and it’s a taste thing of ‘it looks bad’

    Not adhering to a pixel grid is just… not pixel art.

    • mrob  15 hours ago

      I can think of one example of true pixel art that intentionally deviates from a strict pixel grid:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_(1991_video...

      Look at the vegetation in the background. However, this is also a good example of the difference between real art and AI slop. There's human intention here, and I can guess a plausible scenario of how it happened.

      I suspect the checkerboard pattern in the foreground came first. It has the practical utility of showing off the game's primary selling point, which is Sonic's high speed. You need a high-contrast pattern that's not too distracting and doesn't use too much memory. A checkerboard is an obvious choice. And once you've made that decision, it influences the aesthetics of everything else.

      Checkerboards were a very popular texture in early 3D rendering. Any computer artist working in 1990 would be familiar with this, and would at least subconsciously think of 3D graphics. This is likely the reason for the stylized leaves on the trees, which look like low-polygon 3D models. In 1991 it felt futuristic. I believe the blocky look of the background vegetation is intended to convey this same "computer graphics" feeling. Drawing polygons is impossible, but drawing attention to the pixels gives the same impression of something futuristic.

      This is the kind of non-obvious artistic decision that I don't believe current AI is capable of. A human intentionally reduced the graphics quality, and that actually made it look more futuristic. It's the kind of thing you see all the time in good art. Close examination reveals detail that deepens your appreciation for it. AI slop only imitates the surface polish of good art without including this deeper meaning. The closer you examine it the worse it looks.

joegibbs  15 hours ago

What if it just gets scaled down with nearest neighbour? Then the pixels would be forced on to a grid of a particular size. Maybe some kind of algorithm that compares the % difference to the full scale image to see what scale makes the most sense for it?

kubb  16 hours ago

It's also not animated, and there's not enough assets to build environments.

Don't get me wrong, some of these images do look good, they're just not enough for a game.

  • gametorch  16 hours ago

    Creator here.

    You can create animated spritesheets with the click of a button. [1]

    You can create as many assets as you want to make your game. It's all prompt-driven.

    If you have ideas for things you want generated, let me know and I'll run your prompt for you!

    1. https://gametorch.app/public/show_him_winking.mp4

    • kubb  13 hours ago

      Can you think of a single reason wy a game studio wouldn’t use this animation?

      What are you doing to make sure your product meets the quality standards of the industry?

      2 replies →

Kiro  16 hours ago

It's enough to just nearest neighbor scale it to the pixel grid to remove both artifacts and inconsistent pixel sizes. They are so few so it doesn't affect the final result.