I thought this could be a cool thread to share Color Palettes that inspire you, or anything related to that topic, because images are purdy & I like the rainbow of colors.
http://garsgames.com/blog/game-development/2d-graphics/
I always find it interesting to look at color palettes, and what artists choose for their artwork. I thought the results of this were a pretty awesome retro style. I especially thought it was interesting HOW he picked the colors.
I am glad you liked it. I am no artist though. I just wanted to make a good palette that would cover a variety of games. Graphics stuff is only something I do just for fun and when need a break from development.
If you like low color palettes check out Dawnbringer’s 16-color palette. He made a 32-color and other palettes as well.
Color theory is a common area of study for artists. And it has immense use for game developers, no matter what style you are hoping to go for.
The idea of pre-selected palettes of color was born from the hardware limitations of early video game systems. Back then, it was common for only a few colors to be available at a time to the artist. As such, the selection of what colors to use at what time became significantly more important. Choosing to use one color took up a slot in a very limited set. So you were committing when you picked a color.
Today’s hardware is so far beyond that. These days sticking to a palette is always a stylistic choice. The important thing isn’t adhering to a palette, but to take the lessons learned from the palette-days to heart, and handle your use of color carefully. Be deliberate in how you use color. If you feel like breaking things down into a palette to make it easier for you to keep track of it, go ahead. Sometimes working within self-imposed limits can help to focus your efforts.
@RichardKain that is exactly why I am interested in such things. I noticed in the older games a big part of why the games looked good was due to the limited palette itself. It helped to create a more cohesive look to everything. Whereas many non-artists like myself would tend to just use thousands of different colors or shades at least and make stuff kind of “out of whack” that doesn’t fit together well. With a limited palette and adhering to some of the other limitations of the time such as using mini palettes or a shared color or two across sprites helps everything to “fit in” better.
I think it was @Master-Frog who pointed out that even going to the extreme of a monochrome Gameboy type of palette can be an “easy” way to get a nice “look” to things.
It’s not a guarantee of success. There were some older games that failed horribly when it came to graphics, limited color palette or no. The simplicity of the system just makes the failings a bit more obvious.
Complementary colors look good together, and can be used to make a visual element more appealing. Non-complementary colors don’t look good together, but the contrast that this creates can be used to set certain elements apart. Hard contrast between lighter and darker elements can be used in the same fashion.
The basics of color theory speak to the psychology of how the human mind interprets color. It is always a good idea to learn these basics before working on game graphics. Using these fundamentals with careful thought gives you a shortcut to communicating effectively with the player.
@Howard-Day : You’ve done some impressive 3D pixelation shader work here:
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/wip-small-works-art-thread.145172/page-104#post-2304764
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/wip-small-works-art-thread.145172/page-104#post-2314226
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/wip-small-works-art-thread.145172/page-105#post-2330367
Did you ever do anything else with that?
Nope, never had the time. I desperately want to get back to it and make a shooter or something - but I just haven’t been able to. I know @kode80 released an awesome package to the asset store. That’s likely your best bet if you want to go the route of 3D->pixel art.
Sad to hear that. I hope you’ll find time to work on it soon! Thanks for the suggestion, but at the moment I’m not looking for an asset. I had written a shader myself but found too many problems in the usecase I had in mind. Things were too small and detailed to look good with the automatic pixelation, that kind of scale of things would have needed manual pixelart. But your’s seemed to work and look really well, would love to see a game made in that style.
I think you had extracted color palettes from some iconic games, do you happen to have them lying around in a format that could be posted here and would you be willing to share them? Or did you get them from a website you could point us to?
Oh, sure - I made them myself. Here’s the pack of LUTs and photoshop .act palette files. Some are named…creatively. Good luck!
2623124–184238–Indexed.7z (136 KB)
Awesome, thanks a lot for sharing!