Today's tutorial is a little different than the ones I usually make. Since I'm talking about a process, I decided to go with a more traditional sequential tutorial.
Reading text with a timer is a bit stressful, so I added still frames of this tutorial to this post.
As always thanks everyone for the support and until next...
2017-02-14 18:05:42 +0000 UTC View Post
This tutorial is both for programmers and artists. Changing the speed of moving things gives the animation a lot of personality, impact and makes it interesting.
For programming, when using tweens, don't forget to use easing functions, lots of them. And specially for you I made a simplified
Jeremy Mitchell, (@floatvoid on twitter) sent me a shader version of my previous tutorial about rendering tricks!
These are more advanced, but more versatile and have improved performance.
Thanks a lot, Jeremy <3
2017-02-01 20:39:52 +0000 UTC View Post
Here's another programming/art tutorial!
This one is heavier on the programming side, but should still be useful to artists that wanna know how to do some simple rendering tricks I use a lot.
I also hope that these will help you make your own render codes. You can do all sorts of stuff by messing with the render, like sp...
2017-01-31 18:50:35 +0000 UTC View Post
Parallax is one of my favorite techiniques in game art and programming. It's a very easy thing to add and it's a good way to convey depth in 2D games.
Don't forget I included a .love example file in this post, I also included a .lua file with the source, so you can study that too.
To run the .love file, just download Lö...
2017-01-24 16:51:17 +0000 UTC View Post
Sorry everyone! I was suposed to post the tutorial yesterday, but I had a really bad flu or something. I'm getting better already, though :)
Ok! About machines, I decided to make something like a "reference sheet" this time. Something you can look at to get ideas for elements to add to your own machines. Also, don't forget to ...
2017-01-17 18:26:51 +0000 UTC View Post
Explosions are one of my favorite things to animate! It has a lot of particles, so I always try to animate everything individually. For example, I will draw one piece of shrapnel from start to finish, then one puff of smoke, from start to finish, and so on.
Explosions have a lot of fire and smoke, and I also have some tutorial...
2017-01-09 21:39:44 +0000 UTC View Post
First tutorial of the year and I'm already late :3
But here it is! The theme is <1 pixel movement, or how some people call it subpixel animation. Well, since moving less than one pixel is impossible this is actually a tutorial on how to make animations as subtle and delicate as possible.
In my opinion this is...
2017-01-03 02:02:57 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey :D
This tutorial is about how I usually approach complicated animations that require planning. I'm really not sure if this is the "official" way of animating since I never had formal training, but this is how I usually work:
Still Frame > Rough Sketches > Keyframes > In-Betweens (and general fixes)
I t...
2016-12-26 16:59:53 +0000 UTC View Post
This week's voting thread I'm making public to everyone because, well, it's almost christmas :D I hope that's all right with everyone.
So, just comment with the topic you want me to work on for the next Monday! Here's some ideas:
This week's tutorial is about character silhouette!
For me the silhouette is probably the most important aspect of the character design, even more so in pixel art.
Working with pixel art most of the times means that we are working in low resolution and since we can't add too many details or even too many colors the silho...
2016-12-19 15:33:26 +0000 UTC View Post
Here's some thoughs about what I think when drawing skulls and bones.
Most of the time I feel like I'm struggling with the low resolution, so it feels more like solving a puzzle than drawing, but I really like that. Here's some other tips that wouldn't fit in the page:
Posting a little later than usual, but here it is!
This is not exactly a tutorial but more of a collection of tips and details to note when drawing vegetation. But my main advice is to avoid noise at all cost. Textures are good, but once the drawing gets too noisy everything looks weird. That's why I worry about the shape firs...
2016-12-05 19:38:13 +0000 UTC View Post
This one is very abstract, but I tried to explain my though process while making loops. I think practice is very important when learning how to make seamless loops, so, I recommend exercising this, a lot.
Thank you for the support, and until next Monday!
2016-11-28 11:59:00 +0000 UTC View Post
With the vast majority of votes, here's the fire tutorial!
For me it was very hard to explain how to draw fire, I think that's why this one has a lot of text. I draw a lot from observation and I often use other art as reference. This is always a good way to learn how to draw and animate most stuff.
About the stre...
2016-11-21 12:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post
This is probably the most complex tutorial I've made so far, but I hope it can be useful! Water is definitely not my specialty, so I had to do a lot of research for this one.
As always, a disclaimer, those are not stone written rules, they are just how I usually think when drawing water. And this is not how re...
2016-11-14 17:50:43 +0000 UTC View Post
Level design is not really my specialty, and it's a very personal subject, so these are just some thoughts I usually have when designing levels, not rules.
The core of fun for me is the Learning. This is why every time I add something to my level I ask myself "What am I teaching here?" and "What am I asking the player?".
I always try to get references from real glitches I see around. Like bad monitors at the shopping mall, weird glitches in those animated signs on shops or when my video card decides to get crazy.
I usually try to pay attention to what the glitches are actually doing, are they moving everything to the left? Is the green color o...
2016-10-31 18:40:04 +0000 UTC View Post
I'm happy to announce that I just reached another Patreon goal! I'll start streaming every week on a fixed day and time, which I'm still trying to decide.
What would be a good day for you? Weekdays? Weekends?
Thanks everyone for the support!
2016-10-25 13:45:23 +0000 UTC View Post
My main "rule" for animating electric stuff is to make everything flicker, like a lot. I also try to make it with 24 fps, so it's more fluid.
Electricity bolts are very fast, so in the first frame it should be at its maximum size and then it can dissipate slowly.
I usually make electricity starting with sharp angles and ...
2016-10-24 18:36:32 +0000 UTC View Post
This is the cover I made for Ben Prunty's latest album "ElectroCrypt", that you should check out now. It's amazing, perfect to listen to while working.
As always I made it using Aseprite, and its original files will be in the next Art ...
2016-10-18 17:16:09 +0000 UTC View Post
This is one of many ways of making a top down run cycle. I chose this specific way because it's usually how I work and because it's the simplest way I could think of.
I usually focus on the 3 jump frames and 2 recover frames thing and then I try to connect everything by making secondary animations, like hair movement, clothes,...
2016-10-17 17:42:14 +0000 UTC View Post
Noise reduction was the most voted topic! I expanded on the topic, and it ended up pretty complex and since I also explained other stuff I called this one pixel art Fundamentals 1.
Some other tips that wouldn't fit the image:
Hello again!
People seem to really want a walk/run tutorial, so here's one! Walk/run are very complicated animations so I did my best to come up with the simplest run I could. My plan is to make more tutorials on the same topic later, focusing on individual parts, like the arms, legs, head movement, inclination, etc.
My ...
2016-10-03 15:03:42 +0000 UTC View Post
Here's a quick tip on attack animations, answering a question made by Cam
"How would you approach the sword animation if the sword was held in front of the character? Any differently? The arc reads nicely from a resting behind p...
2016-09-29 04:34:03 +0000 UTC View Post
The $150 goal was just reached! Thank you so much!
The plan from now on is: every Monday I'll post a gif-tutorial about pixel art and other gamedev stuff. If I get some extra time I might post some text tutorial/article too.
I'll start working on the tutorial by Friday, so if you get the $5+ tier don't forget to c...
2016-09-28 22:33:11 +0000 UTC View Post
Every time I have to animate complex systems like smoke, splashing water, or fire, I try to break the system down to small parts and then I animate those parts individually.
Thinking of how a whole puff of smoke will move is just too complex for me, but thinking on how a small part of it will move is relatively simple.
I...
2016-09-26 13:42:18 +0000 UTC View Post
This one's a little more complicated, about how to make a minimal attack animation.
With an attack animation one of the most important things to do is to make sure that the player feels the input immediately. So, the hitbox area must be filled IMMEDIATELY in the first frame, no anticipation, nothing.
Since that...
2016-09-24 01:06:56 +0000 UTC View Post
This is a basic shine animation tutorial. As you can see the important thing is the timing, the frame 3 is used to skip most of the area you want to shine.
You can use a simple shine like that, or add a second shine (the extra shine) after a single empty frame, or even use just the extra shine, for some effects.
2016-09-24 00:55:27 +0000 UTC View Post
