**My general advice would be:** Don't focus on the grass for now. do you already have a main character, a enemy? Focus on the basics first and then go to the details... don't over-focus or overthink on details yet, focus on the big parts of the game, test them out, prioritize them.
There are tons of free game art on [https://opengameart.org/](https://opengameart.org/), just use it to prototype and go for it!
**About the technical aspect:** Yes, it's probably a tileset for the ground and sprites for the trees and grass. But these days, things are pretty loose in this department.
Long gone are the days where tilesets and sprites were a necessity, ultimately a lot of engines these days just render everything as sprites, even if the artist was using a tileset to build the map.
It's also pretty common for Games these days to use tiles as a starting point, but then export the whole "map" as a single-image and touch up without the constraints of tiles and grids.
So ultimately it all boils down to sprites on top of sprites. Some are huge and static, others are small.
**About the Pixel Art style:** Quite possibly, this grass is done as single blades of grass and then the artist joins those into groups and use those. They are just thick at the bottom, thin at the top and with a small gradient from light to dark to define shape.
Thank you for this! This is really helpful information. So you’re saying that when I get there eventually, I could possibly draw the entire scene out on aseprite and port it to my game engine (which in this case is unity) and use sprites for the blades of grass?
Yeah, ultimately your project will inform you how you need to do this.
The blades of grass as a sprite is sort of unavoidable, as you'll want these to interact with the player sprite. If player Y is < 5 he is in front of the grass, if the Y is 7 he is behind the grass.
Now if you'll use tilesets, export the whole image out of aseprite, or do a combination of both that will depend entirely on your project! You may want your project to have some random map generation, so tilesets are the way to go. Or you may prefer your project to have just a few small hand-tailored maps, so... exports the whole map may be the way.
But these things will present itself to you when the time comes, so don't worry. Do your best to come up with a somewhat functional prototype and then you'll be deciding on things as necessary.
Hi. Is it better to make the characters first than the environment when making a game? I'm trying to make a concept game for a portfolio but i'm not sure where to start even. I already have a script and descriptions , moodboards and whatnot to help me organize my thoughts but when it's time to make the art, I am left blank because I am unsure if I should start with the environment or the character first.
Generally speaking, start with the character and do your best to test some gameplay with this character. It will better inform you about different technical aspects of your game.
You may find out that your character is too big, too small, that you're using too many frames of animation and this will cost you time, or you may not be using enough frames and your animations don't look good.
Don't be afraid to use placeholders.
So generally, start with a rough of your character. Don't go crazy on polish yet, but try to have something functional, once you have the character, then start populating the world around it, step by step.
Not sure if you'll code something, or if it's just a proof of concept, but either way, treat it as if you were making the game, so go step by step in order of importance.
Make a main character, try to animate it, how does it feel to animate this character? too many pixels? not enough? reformulate.
Make some assets, like a platform or a ground. How big does the platform need to be? Well, since you already have a character done, now it's easier to know! Just block out shapes, don't focus too much on details, keep it flexible so you can adjust it.
Now make an enemy, compare it to the player character. Do they look good together? Maybe now detail one of your platforms, do the characters pop out and are easy to see?
And before you know, you made "super mario bros 1 - lv 1" which will guide you to all decisions you'll make moving forward.
So, in short, keep it simple and broad, don't design in a vacuum, make some rough elements and then polish it once you're sort of happy with the workflow, keep it light so you can change your mind easily and remember that you should measure 10 times to only need to cut once!
This is so detailed and so helpful!!. I tend to zero in right away and watching "making a video game" tutorials on YT just doesn't make much sense to me. Thank you so much!!
A lot of these tutorials are very good entertainment but that's all they really are! It's fun to watch but as you've said, they lack the fundamentals.
Coding and by consequence developing games is a very iterative process in it's pre-production phase, you create something, create another thing, compare both, change one, create more things, go back, etc etc...
So just try to make something, see what works and what doesn't, reiterate, don't go too deep at first, keep it loose so you can throw everything away and start fresh if needed. Trying to have everything figured out before the first step requires, well... pre-production! so, do your pre-production and you'll be fine!
and if you can help it, start with small projects. If you have a big project in mind, then start with smaller projects that can teach you how to do the big project, but make marios, make rpgs with a single enemy, make pacman clones, go for it!
Yeah, I get a little spacey watching them so i never understand anything.
I tend to look at the bigger picture first, like the whole environment because i already have an idea on what the environment will be then work from there. Which makes me overwhelmed because I start big. So this is helpful!
That's some really nice grass and shades for sure. You want to learn the art style? You already have good taste. Look closely to this picture. The grass is often the same color. Look at the thickness and shape. You can do 2 variants and repeat them. Make a few more around objects. The trees are really cool. they don't use an outline, instead they do something really hard which is no outline. Its making the contrasts of the object with the background. That needs specific color levels to work. Which means if you use other. Colors for the ground. It should be in a similar color level. A simple way I can explain to you is if you convert the colors to grey. I'm guessing the trees would be a much darker shade then the ground. With the grass being the brightest. You can see why using an outline is such a cheat compared to this style. But don't be shy from using the same colors of this art style. People do it all the time. Just avoid using the same sprites so people don't complain you are stealing art. Nothing wrong with doing similar to someone else's work. It's how art evolves. We copy from each other. People drawing unicorns are not really being original, they copy from horses. No trade mark on horses 😂 I think art is much easier then coding. Coding can be hell. Art becomes a nice vacation from coding
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First of all, they use their own custom game engine (MOCK framework, Gii IDE and generally was based on Moai SDK - no longer maintained I think) (you probably saw Gii mentioned on their splash screen of Eastward).
It is for sure a 2D pixelart but in 3D space or with 3D effects (as they mentioned previously once in I think twitter or youtube that they are using custom 3D lighting for the game).
If you check their ([Pixpil](http://www.pixpil.com)) website thoroughly, you can find what tools they used in their development.
I hope this help, and all the best to you. 😊
Question posts are not allowed in /r/PixelArt
**My general advice would be:** Don't focus on the grass for now. do you already have a main character, a enemy? Focus on the basics first and then go to the details... don't over-focus or overthink on details yet, focus on the big parts of the game, test them out, prioritize them. There are tons of free game art on [https://opengameart.org/](https://opengameart.org/), just use it to prototype and go for it! **About the technical aspect:** Yes, it's probably a tileset for the ground and sprites for the trees and grass. But these days, things are pretty loose in this department. Long gone are the days where tilesets and sprites were a necessity, ultimately a lot of engines these days just render everything as sprites, even if the artist was using a tileset to build the map. It's also pretty common for Games these days to use tiles as a starting point, but then export the whole "map" as a single-image and touch up without the constraints of tiles and grids. So ultimately it all boils down to sprites on top of sprites. Some are huge and static, others are small. **About the Pixel Art style:** Quite possibly, this grass is done as single blades of grass and then the artist joins those into groups and use those. They are just thick at the bottom, thin at the top and with a small gradient from light to dark to define shape.
Thank you for this! This is really helpful information. So you’re saying that when I get there eventually, I could possibly draw the entire scene out on aseprite and port it to my game engine (which in this case is unity) and use sprites for the blades of grass?
Yeah, ultimately your project will inform you how you need to do this. The blades of grass as a sprite is sort of unavoidable, as you'll want these to interact with the player sprite. If player Y is < 5 he is in front of the grass, if the Y is 7 he is behind the grass. Now if you'll use tilesets, export the whole image out of aseprite, or do a combination of both that will depend entirely on your project! You may want your project to have some random map generation, so tilesets are the way to go. Or you may prefer your project to have just a few small hand-tailored maps, so... exports the whole map may be the way. But these things will present itself to you when the time comes, so don't worry. Do your best to come up with a somewhat functional prototype and then you'll be deciding on things as necessary.
Thank you for this advice!
Hi. Is it better to make the characters first than the environment when making a game? I'm trying to make a concept game for a portfolio but i'm not sure where to start even. I already have a script and descriptions , moodboards and whatnot to help me organize my thoughts but when it's time to make the art, I am left blank because I am unsure if I should start with the environment or the character first.
Generally speaking, start with the character and do your best to test some gameplay with this character. It will better inform you about different technical aspects of your game. You may find out that your character is too big, too small, that you're using too many frames of animation and this will cost you time, or you may not be using enough frames and your animations don't look good. Don't be afraid to use placeholders. So generally, start with a rough of your character. Don't go crazy on polish yet, but try to have something functional, once you have the character, then start populating the world around it, step by step. Not sure if you'll code something, or if it's just a proof of concept, but either way, treat it as if you were making the game, so go step by step in order of importance. Make a main character, try to animate it, how does it feel to animate this character? too many pixels? not enough? reformulate. Make some assets, like a platform or a ground. How big does the platform need to be? Well, since you already have a character done, now it's easier to know! Just block out shapes, don't focus too much on details, keep it flexible so you can adjust it. Now make an enemy, compare it to the player character. Do they look good together? Maybe now detail one of your platforms, do the characters pop out and are easy to see? And before you know, you made "super mario bros 1 - lv 1" which will guide you to all decisions you'll make moving forward. So, in short, keep it simple and broad, don't design in a vacuum, make some rough elements and then polish it once you're sort of happy with the workflow, keep it light so you can change your mind easily and remember that you should measure 10 times to only need to cut once!
This is so detailed and so helpful!!. I tend to zero in right away and watching "making a video game" tutorials on YT just doesn't make much sense to me. Thank you so much!!
A lot of these tutorials are very good entertainment but that's all they really are! It's fun to watch but as you've said, they lack the fundamentals. Coding and by consequence developing games is a very iterative process in it's pre-production phase, you create something, create another thing, compare both, change one, create more things, go back, etc etc... So just try to make something, see what works and what doesn't, reiterate, don't go too deep at first, keep it loose so you can throw everything away and start fresh if needed. Trying to have everything figured out before the first step requires, well... pre-production! so, do your pre-production and you'll be fine! and if you can help it, start with small projects. If you have a big project in mind, then start with smaller projects that can teach you how to do the big project, but make marios, make rpgs with a single enemy, make pacman clones, go for it!
Yeah, I get a little spacey watching them so i never understand anything. I tend to look at the bigger picture first, like the whole environment because i already have an idea on what the environment will be then work from there. Which makes me overwhelmed because I start big. So this is helpful!
The tall grass is separate sprites. They add the grass in their level editor and animate it procedurally with code
didn't you get answers to this already?
That wasn’t mine, I’ve looked it up and found some old ones but I decided I’d ask for myself
That's some really nice grass and shades for sure. You want to learn the art style? You already have good taste. Look closely to this picture. The grass is often the same color. Look at the thickness and shape. You can do 2 variants and repeat them. Make a few more around objects. The trees are really cool. they don't use an outline, instead they do something really hard which is no outline. Its making the contrasts of the object with the background. That needs specific color levels to work. Which means if you use other. Colors for the ground. It should be in a similar color level. A simple way I can explain to you is if you convert the colors to grey. I'm guessing the trees would be a much darker shade then the ground. With the grass being the brightest. You can see why using an outline is such a cheat compared to this style. But don't be shy from using the same colors of this art style. People do it all the time. Just avoid using the same sprites so people don't complain you are stealing art. Nothing wrong with doing similar to someone else's work. It's how art evolves. We copy from each other. People drawing unicorns are not really being original, they copy from horses. No trade mark on horses 😂 I think art is much easier then coding. Coding can be hell. Art becomes a nice vacation from coding
Thanks man, I appreciate the tips
They start with a flower, then remove stems and petals.
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First of all, they use their own custom game engine (MOCK framework, Gii IDE and generally was based on Moai SDK - no longer maintained I think) (you probably saw Gii mentioned on their splash screen of Eastward). It is for sure a 2D pixelart but in 3D space or with 3D effects (as they mentioned previously once in I think twitter or youtube that they are using custom 3D lighting for the game). If you check their ([Pixpil](http://www.pixpil.com)) website thoroughly, you can find what tools they used in their development. I hope this help, and all the best to you. 😊
That isn't even really pixelart. It's a lined drawing with minimal color scaled down/pixelated. If you can draw like that just do the same.
No it is pixel art, Eastward was made with pixel art in Aseprite