Is Rayman (1) Pixel Art?
Printed From: Pixel Joint
Category: The Lounge
Forum Name: Diversions
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URL: https://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=20351
Printed Date: 09 June 2026 at 2:48am
Topic: Is Rayman (1) Pixel Art?
Posted By: Bcadren
Subject: Is Rayman (1) Pixel Art?
Date Posted: 15 December 2014 at 1:58am
My instinct was no, because at the resolution shown on a standard TV, it doesn't look like it, but when I zoomed in on a still of actual Resolution from the PC version. I'm honestly not sure. So I'm looking for other people's opinions. Quick stills for easy look:
It has WAY more colors than most sprites, but when zoomed in it still looks like the pixels were set manually. Feel free to call me an idiot for even asking. |
Replies:
Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 15 December 2014 at 5:35am
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These are hybrids. Some things are hand pixelled some things are not. Some things are pixelled then tweaked with tools/FX. Here the idiots are the ones that don't ask. ------------- |
Posted By: BathMaster_2000
Date Posted: 15 December 2014 at 6:09am
I've seen something similar to this in Earthworm Jim.
this IS more obviously pixel art, but some of the elements of the game, such as this refrigerator, 
can be seen as having been pixelated 3D objects. This is an interesting concept. |
Posted By: Bcadren
Date Posted: 15 December 2014 at 6:10am
| Could you tell me which parts aren't pixel art then? I mean when I zoom in, I can tell that the backgrounds look more...antialiased than the foregrounds and it uses a lot more colors than most pixel art, but that's about it. |
Posted By: BathMaster_2000
Date Posted: 15 December 2014 at 6:33am
|
This is REALLY hard to tell. If I were you, then I wouldn't bother myself with trying to distinguish which parts are handmade and which parts are generated. Honestly, in some situations, you can't even tell at all. I saw a thread on Pixelation that discussed if too much AA was even necessary, as it blurs the lines between pixel art and just being unnecessarily intricate. I can't find the thread, but if I do, I'll post the link.
EDIT: Ahh, http://wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=11219.msg117256#msg117256 - here it is. |
Posted By: eishiya
Date Posted: 15 December 2014 at 6:38am
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As you do more pixelling yourself and study more pixel art done by others, you'll develop a sense for what pixel art techniques used by a human tend to produce versus what colour reduction on a non-pixel art piece produces. It tends to manifest mostly as well-defined, controlled clusters (pixel art) versus noisy clusters of less-contrasting colours (auto colour reduction), especially noticeable on objects meant to look smooth. Even when drawing something meant to be irregular and organic-looking, a (competent) pixel artist will have more cohesive clusters than a machine, because it tends to look better and read more easily. I think most of the differences can be summarised thus: competent humans know when to eliminate unnecessary detail and colours, machines do not (yet). |
Posted By: Bcadren
Date Posted: 15 December 2014 at 7:24am
| In other works the more pillowshaded looking bits of terrain, probably have that many color bands because a machine did it? |
Posted By: eishiya
Date Posted: 15 December 2014 at 7:30am
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With machines, it's garbage in, garbage out. If you give it something pillow-shaded, you'll get something pillow-shaded out. If you give it something with nice shading, it'll give you something with that shading, the clusters will probably just be bad and the palette will likely be inefficient. What this means is if you see pillow-shading, a human was most likely involved, and that human made bad decisions before handing the rest of the work off to a machine. A program can reduce colours for you, but it's not going to make your initial art for you or place your lights/shadows (unless you're dealing with something like 3D rendering or using SpriteLamp, in which case, you still have to make the models/initial art and place the lights - it's on you, the human, if the lighting's bad). So for example, Rayman's pillow-shaded nose in the HUD, and the white blobby things in the first image, those are all a human's fault. |
Posted By: Volrak_Rutra
Date Posted: 15 December 2014 at 8:11pm
| back then everything was pixel art |
Posted By: Bcadren
Date Posted: 16 December 2014 at 10:08am
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Originally posted by Volrak_Rutra
back then everything was pixel art Came out a few months before Crash Bandicoot and Super Mario 64 (first 3D platformers); so...yea I'll go with that. It was right at the end of the era though (probably why the number of colors is so much higher than other pixel art. |
Posted By: RBL
Date Posted: 16 December 2014 at 6:28pm
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Originally posted by Bcadren My instinct was no, because at the resolution shown on a standard TV, it doesn't look like it, but when I zoomed in on a still of actual Resolution from the PC version. I'm honestly not sure. So I'm looking for other people's opinions. Quick stills for easy look:
It has WAY more colors than most sprites, but when zoomed in it still looks like the pixels were set manually. Feel free to call me an idiot for even asking. All assets in the screen looks to have a reduced palette, however the way they was produced difers. When smaller sprites have more chance to be hand made pixel by pixel. Bigger ones looks more digital painting and then adapted to a pixel-like format in size and palette. I have to warn you the last one is not an option here in PJ. |
Posted By: Æslet
Date Posted: 19 December 2014 at 11:48am
| I would say no. I have to Playstation and the game introduction is definably not pixel art. However then I plays it, I always more focused on the ridiculous high saturation. |
Posted By: yrizoud
Date Posted: 07 January 2015 at 9:56am
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Related : Pixelation thread about how the Earthworm Jim sprites where made (from paper to colored CG then to pixel). http://wayofthepixel.net/?topic=13712.0 - http://wayofthepixel.net/?topic=13712.0 "hybrid" is "more work", in this case, not a lazy way of cutting corners. |
Posted By: eishiya
Date Posted: 07 January 2015 at 10:15am
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Originally posted by yrizoud Related : Pixelation thread about how the Earthworm Jim sprites where made (from paper to colored CG then to pixel). http://wayofthepixel.net/?topic=13712.0 - http://wayofthepixel.net/?topic=13712.0 "hybrid" is "more work", in this case, not a lazy way of cutting corners. The benefit to working that way is it allows animators who are used to non-PA animation to create animations for the game. It's quite possible that the artists doing the drawings/base animation and those doing the PA clean-up are different people. Starting big and shrinking down makes it easier to implement certain details and things like stretch-and-squish without over-/under-doing it, especially for pixel artists that aren't very experienced. I think analyzing it in terms of lazy versus non-lazy is missing the point of it. This "hybrid" technique allows their artists to produce good-looking results without having to get better at PA animation, by being able to employ their animation skills independently of their PA skills. |