Hi, I'm trying to find some kind of resource (book, online tutorial, etc.) that can help me out with what I'm trying to do. I want to create some simple tiles and spritesheets with an 8- or 16-bit feel to them. Of course while searching for this, almost everything I encounter is geared toward learning 3D or high-res art, so I was hoping someone could point something out to me that might have been more relevant around 1990. Any tips? -paste

Tsugumo's "So You Want To Be a Pixel Artist"

While he was never a profesional as far as I know, Tsugumo is a bit of a legend in the QuickBASIC/FreeBASIC indie game scene.

The easiest thing to do is get some example sprite sheets ripped from games and animated gifs so you can look directly at how they did it. Saving a sprite as an animated gif is also a good way to test it to make sure the animation looks good.

For more general theory you want 2D animation books, maybe the Muybridge photobooks of people and animals in motion. Sprite sheets have a much more abstract/blocky style than 2D anime or western comic style animation, but the basic principles of squash and stretch, tweening, and cycles are the same.

Thanks for the info.

sunandshadow: are there any 2d animation books that you could recommend?

Hmm. Well, first thing I would do is see if your local library has anything on the subject. It's the kind of subject area where you're better off skimming through a lot of books looking at the pictures than putting a lot of time into studying one particular book. If you think about it, you already know how objects move, you know how flip books work, you know an animation is made out of frames which are drawings of a person or animal at different stages in some kind of (usually cyclical) movement, right? The books just give you some rules of thumb and some examples of animation frames and cycles.

For specific books, I haven't looked at anything that's come out in the past 5 years or so. But The Animator's Survival Kit is a popular choice. The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation has some nice pictures although I don't recall it actually being an instructional book. The only ones I have on my own shelf are the Muybridge books People in Motion and Animals in Motion.

Actually, I think in many cases a movie could teach animation better than a book - I wonder if there are some good animation instructional videos...?

Shameless plug...

But seriously, there are articles on pixel art in there that would be helpful (in addition to articles on everything else).

I believe there's a sticky on this forum that has links to Pixel art tutorials as well.

There's also the various Pixel Art forum's down in my signature (such as Pixeljoint/Pixelation/Pixeldam) which have a lot of resources/tutorials/people on the subject.

@Ravyne - That sprite site looked pretty good and the information was quite useful - thanks for sharing!

Have a look at the Battle for Wesnoth site. They have a few good tutorials plus 100's of available sprites to learn from.

@Ravyne: Thanks a lot, that link was really helpful.

@sunandshadow: Thanks. Also, apparently there are videos that accompany the Animator's Survival Kit on its website.

@Gyrthok: Thanks, looks promising

@tonyg: I couldn't find the tutorials on that site...