Hey all!
this is for 2d platformer textures, not 3d texturing, those are well covered already, this is not!
EDIT: ok seems to be some interest in making handpainted textures for 2d platfomers and not use tilesets, so here’s a list of what i’ll be going through:
Silhouettes: this is pretty much what u first do before u render anything. a black shadowy figure of a tree can get u along way before any values is applied to it. The main reason why games like Limbo works.
Basic Valuebuilding: On his matter i will be explaining the importance of using the right colors for things like shadows and light, and how not so shoot urself in the foot spending hours using the wrong colors for somthing simple as a log.
Details: Once the basic shape and values are applied, its time to apply details. this means cracks and fissures for rocks to make them look old and belivable, and the imperfections in logs and trees, aswell as the randomness grass will give u.
Color adjustment: Once everything is done using ur palette, adjustments will probably need to be made. this is basicly to make things fit togheter and look like they are in the same enviroment.
Adding atmosphere: this is the trickiest aspect of making these,atleast for me. Making things look as if they are far away. camera can do this sure, but in many cases it isnt enough. this is where the factors of atmosphere comes in. What is it? well, in a handpainted game, its fog. subtle fog. U will not belive how natural alittle fog texture OR Unity’s ingame fog works for these things. also lightrays, these will bring ur scene to life, and i will show u how.
when i first started wanting to make games, my immediate focus was learning how to make artwork for games. I went to youtube and ehm…well wtf me, theres nothing there. I cannot find anything thats tailored specifically towards painting ingame assets that works with other ingame assets. I was looking up how to paint rocks, trees, flowers, the typical stuff u would see in Rayman Origins, Aquaria, Spelunky, Capsized, Fly’N and so on. all beautiful games, but how is it done?
I had to learn this the hard way then. I found the guy who made the graphics for Braid, he has a nice blog about how textures ingame can blend with other textures and not be tilesets wich i absolutely hate working with. Games like rayman origins are assembled simply by using textures on diffrent layers to create depths, but they also blend togheter using blurred edges and other techniques.
Ive been painting ingame textures now for a while, and ive seena few games around that could use a little push in the right direction.
So! I was wondering how big the interest is? I would certainly follow someone who was teaching me to create ingame 2d platfomer graphics, but i havent found any, so i had to learn it.
there are several factos that has to match. Lighting, bounced light, scaled, color palettes, u name it. U cant just paint a tree, save it, then paint a rock, save it and find later the two lookos like they are not in the same area at all since they have diffrent lights and diffrent palettes and values in general.
I would be commenting the videos myself, explaining why i do what i do. Im not a pro by any means, but some of u might have seen my threads and the artwork i have made in the past for Little Titan and now currently Flourish.
The videos i’d probably make anyway, but im asking if i should keep em “unity based” since unity has such a nice community and alot of assets in the store that allows these games to be made. We dont have Ubisofts framework to create Rayman Origins, but we have 2Dtoolkit, Uni2D and so on, and they work.
POLL AT TOP!
Thank for ur time!
Yeah im currently “preparing” how im gonna go through everything to make it easy to follow. Hopefully even programmers with less to no artskills can create something for their prototypes quickly, would be cool to see.