I don't know, maybe it's just a lack of good video game graphics but I just fail to see any photoshopped raster art as good. I can't see any video game art that is not sprite art as being anything acceptable. Anyone else feel the same way? I have no problem with vector or 3D art but this blurred muddy smudged art is just uguly. You loose all sence of surface texture when everything has 300 shades of two blended colors. Also, I'm REALLY tired of seeing WHITE lightsources in shmups. Nothing says uguly like a smudged small sprite enlarged 3 times on a huge resolution smudged up background....perhaps I just need to vent.  I'm not yelling at anyone just saying how frusterated I am with the current PC videogame art industry. I'm not sure how I feel about rotated sprites that maintan the original color palette with no blurring.

Edited by Pixel_Outlaw - 24 September 2006 at 6:04pm

I find pixel art to be the beautiful pinnacle of video game art, but all other is okay. Just not as amazing.

Ooh. That would just be mean. They'd die of seious migranes.

Pixel art in videogames is probably the most artsy type of graphics. But it can have it's awful moments, as you mentioned. Not all art is lost in 3D games, though, like SotC (but I just might be biased because I love that game,) Okami and Katamari Damacy. I think pixel art "culture" is really in it's infancy still, and we're just now seeing really nice and artistic spriting and whatnot because of the online unions that have been forming. Who knows, someday "pixel art" could be a household name, such as CGI and stoof. o:

Yes, people try to make "retro" games and compleatly ignore the pixel art aspect. A game cannot be retro with hundreds of colors and dynamically rotate3d/scaled images. One could argue that the term "retro" could mean any past time or date. I believe the term retro, in gaming refers to the late 70's to the early 90's.(The golden era of gaming in my book, also SHMUPS defining era). People just make games that they assume to be retro with no regard to the limitations of the art that made the games retro.

ya, i agree with b_p and p_o for sure.  especially that new metal slug screen shot.  nothing disgusts me more than high quality pixel art, with npa elements added.  imo, it ruins it.  pixel art in its true form is beautiful, even some of the lower quality images...  someone still took the time to drop each pixel with care (sometimes with a lack of knowledge, but thats a different topic), it show commintment. 

i dont mind quality 3d games, or even the occasional vector based game, but seeing textures that have been blurred to all hell, like po said, just makes me sick.  my little brother can open photoshop, apply noise, change the levels, then apply blur 3 or 4 times, and that is how most artists out there are doing textures for games.

but when i see a tile, with each individual pixel placed, and the detail can be seen, it is enough to bring a tear to your eye.  however, the biggest problem out there is that only WE care for the most part...  i bet i could open a game with the worst graphics we can find, ask my wife, and she would say they look good.  the word needs to get out there that players at ANY LEVEL, not just the hardcore gamers out there, need to stop buying this sh*tty clones and games with sh*tty graphics.  in fact, after i get back from my test, i am going to post something similar to this on my site...  around 50 unique hits will read it, and maybe it will sink in...  maybe.

sorry, i didnt sleep last night...  thats what happens when you buy the lost seasons on dvd when you have never seen them before...  anyways, because of that i may have rambled, gone several directions at once, and misspelled a bunch of words, but i think i got my general point in there somewhere

AGH JEEZUS! That Metal Slug 6 screen nearly killed me. I've never played them, but I sure have seen their pixel art greatness.
edit: And that sh*t is a f**king MESS, P_O

I think things that are related to animation have just gotten lazy in general, you know? Video games are definitely included in this, but with the introduction of digital media to traditional animation, even anime has been just... lacking, lately. It wasn't like that a few years ago, when there were a number of anime that I actually felt like watching, but now... the only anime that I'm somewhat appreciating is the Hellsing Ultimate OVA, and even that has random, stupid CG stuff thrown into it. I doubt hardly anyone here can relate to that, though.

It just seems like everything is kinda... half-assed nowadays. CG animation and the additional "help" that computer graphics have added to hand drawn animation really aren't cutting it now. Everything just seems... too conforming, you know? "CG is good, if you have that, no matter what you do, the end result will get the audience!" Yeah, well, I'm not even gonna go into Disney and it's stupid CG movies that have been coming out lately (wtf, Pixar?) Though, I'm glad that the hand-drawn studio has returned, but that doesn't really guarantee anything. And don't get me wrong, I love computer art, I just hate the half-assed stuff, which is what Pixel_Outlaw is getting at.


Edited by Stitchy - 25 September 2006 at 9:46am

i was once told when i began animating at an old forum (which is no longer around, thank god) that the only way to animate something is to just use photoshops rotate tool...  now, with a proper vector, that works great. however with pixel art and photo based images, it looks like sh*t. 

speaking of which, i am gonna try making some vector sprites cause i feel like it, so bugger off :D

and po, that screen shot makes me want to gouge out my eyes to prevent myself from ever seeing such blasphemy ever again.

"Motherf**king metal slug bastards. Those pixel art backgrounds were f**king blindingly beautiful in comparison to that filth, just look (lots of images). "

Good point.

Well yes, just try to ignore the ripper's stuff. I was just trying to show a comparison between the pixelled backgrounds and the new CG'd ones.