Pixel art

[Glamador]

I don't know if I would call that pixel art though....it sort of blurs the line.  I can kinda see the pixels...but it's not of the definition that Derek/Alec have managed...I guess if I had to say I'd call it high-end pixel art.  In which case yes, I love it too.  Hopefully it has the gameplay to match.

[Alphasoldier]

Everything can be pixel art if you zoom in far enough. =p

[Toom]

Well, traditionalist pixel artists often hold that the means by which the image is created is what makes it pixel art (or not). Chrono Trigger's graphics are pixel art; each pixel has been individually placed. Aquaria's graphics are not; they have been digitally painted, using tools that affect surrounding pixels and alter their properties automatically. I'm not entirely sold on that definition, but on the other hand, it neatly removes the problem Glamador raises about aesthetic; essentially, by that tenant, it doesn't matter how it looks, just how it's made.

I don't think "high-end pixel art" is a particularly helpful term. Assigning a value to art like that has never sat well with me. While there's no denying that the screenshot shown is technically very adept and impressive for it, I personally don't think it's inherently better than, say, Flip Flop Flyin' (which is visually much, much simpler, but much more sophisticated in its use of pixel artifacts). It's just a different, more traditionally representational approach.

[Glamador]

Perhaps a better way to convey what I meant would be "a greater number than usual of pixels" art.

[Toom]

Again, not really as helpful or descriptive as, say, representational pixel art. If an analogy can be drawn between pixel art and painting, would calling a Rembrandt portrait "a greater number than usual of brushstrokes" art be particularly illuminating? I don't mean to bang on about it, but this stuff's kind of important to my artfag brain .

[Glamador]

Well the point is like you said, that it's made out of pixels NOT brushstrokes.  I amended my previous statement to try and recognize what you were saying, about the previous wording made it sound like I was putting his art above something as great as say, Mario, Zelda, or Cave Story.  By saying "higher than usual number of pixels" you can still call it pixel art, as a style, yet it accurately conveys that which distinguishes it.

[Alphasoldier]

Pixel art is something that was made pixel by pixel and usually has only a few colours, some around 4, 8-bit, 8, 16-bit (as far as I know anyway) coming up to about a 100 colours. That's what I define under pixel art anyway.

And this was a joke:

Everything can be pixel art if you zoom in far enough. =p

Y'know... see the tongue? People seem to be missing that. 

[Derek]

Okay, guys:



Pixel art?  Or prerendered 3d?

Or rather: is it the method, or the result that matters?

(BTW: I love Super Mario RPG!)

[Alphasoldier]

I think mixed actually, you can see alot of thing could be from 3d when it would be a bit higher detail and that other things are just really made 2d. With pixels and stuff, but further, I'd have no clue.
And yes, I also love Super Mario RPG, I even have the theme of it on my mp3-player, lol.

[Glamador]

I think SMRPG is clearly pre-rendered 3-D.  As far as I'm concerned it's the method that matters.

[Toom]

Personally, I like the aesthetic of pixel art a lot more than I care for the method; that's just the closest thing I've heard to a satisfying definition. There are purists who insist that a "true" pixel artist won't even use such as straight line tools, or frickin' flood fill, electing to one-pixel-at-a-time it, which is just madness. I'm happy to admit that I've cheated on pixel art stuff before; I've used layers to shift elements around, I've used Photoshop brush styles to find shader tones when I'm in a rush, all that bad stuff. I think the ends justify the means in art, and to purposely ignore a useful tool is unnecessarily limiting.

On the other hand, I love the discipline and precision of the traditional process, and I learned a lot of valuable lessons in the years I was spriting before I acquired a copy of Photoshop or (later) Pixen. The patience and skill you need to create high-quality pixel art without resorting to quick fixes or more powerful tools is an admirable trait. I still think creating good art is more important than how you create it, to a certain extent, and that of course applies equally to pixel art, but there is merit to labouring over it old-school. We didn't abandon martial arts just because some smartarse invented a handgun.

[silverflagon]

Does a title really matter? Art is art is art and only the real stick in the muds will be so pedantic about it that they have to give every medium a title. To me computer art is art, and if it's a creation and it's pleasing then it is art.

If you want to see a real fusion of computer art with solid media have a look at my friends work here , he takes maths and build images prints them out cuts them up into further configurations paints them then scans them back into his computer for further treatment, he can do this over and over again to get some really stunning work.
That is my opinion, what do you think of it?

[Glamador]

We give them names so we can refer to them without needing a paragraph to explain it.  It's the same reason we name anything.  If some guy says "I love pixel art" it conveys something easy to understand and for the most part doesn't require further inquiry (though we seem to have inquired quite a bit into the term here).

[silverflagon]

I supose it does Glamador but also some critics and so called art lover departmentalise because it gives them the feeling that they are in control, and on artist eve went as far as saying that only oil paintings were true paintings and art everything else was just pretence.

[Azuu]

I think SMRPG is clearly pre-rendered 3-D.  As far as I'm concerned it's the method that matters.

jumping back into my thread here, the snes could barely render a few polygons. The background is made of pixels and the charaters are sprites so they would be that too. this game would have been rendered like that by the n64 as apposed to the snes (and was in the form of paper Mario). before 3d graphics became the staple, artists were called in more often to create sprites and the like as apposed to a modeler and a texture designer, less efficient says I.