Like back in the genesis, nes, snes days. What did Devolepers use to create sprites? I heard that you got to program it and stuff. Do you really have to create it like that without seeing it? Also what is a good simple program to use related to what game developers used to create 2d sprites that looks like it's from a 8 bit game, 4 bit game or 16 bit game?

Sorry If I sounded real dumb. I'm a kid with a big future dream and doing the best I can to learn all I need to know.

Thank you

Pixel Art

Program it? The only computer art I've heard of being programmed directly was back in the really primitive days of things like Pong. Well, and I think they assign C++ homework of drawing some simple shapes on the screen with programming. But from Atari, Apple II, Commodore 64, NES, original Gameboy, and forward it's all been pixel sprites. The oldest pixel sprites had a limited color palette (in some cases monochrome because the screen they were being displayed on was monochrome) and each pixel had to be a solid color, but that limitation was quickly overcome as improving technology allowed screens to be higher resolution and greater color depth, and more sophisticated graphics file formats were invented. Currently unless you are making a game to be played on a handheld device of some kind there are basically no technological limitations on 2D art - you can even make your art in 3D and take screenshots for frames, or you can make your sprites with vector art then choose whether to use vectors natively or export them as bitmaps of any desired size.

So, is your dream to create modern games that look retro? Or are you wanting to create games that actually run on old hardware? Or what? You can use Gimp or Photoshop just as well for retro sprites as modern ones. You could also use something like MSpaint, or I imagine there are several programs available which make sprites in one specific color palette and format. There are many collections of sprites people have ripped out of actual games available around the internet; while you can't legally use them in a game, they are very helpful to look at as an example. You can get a sprite or animated gif of exactly the style you want to copy and see how many pixel wide and tall it is, and what color palette it's using.

I remember pixel-arting in my math exercise book 24 years ago. You know, the one with the tiny squares (5mm grid paper). Later switching to 1mm grid because it resembled the screen beter. Colors? Way too advanced back then.

My big future dream is actually a very bigger thing but creating a system is a part of it.

I wanted to develop a system that is as powerful as ps3 or xbox 360 or more powerful actually I wanted to it to have many many games that range from the most weakest graphics to the pressence.

Creating Sprites

I've no idea how those old games did their pixel art. Crude software, no doubt - doing pixel art (and all sorts of art) nowadays, I use Photoshop for everything.

Here's a decent pixel art tutorial: http://www.petesqbsite.com/sections/tutorials/tuts/tsugumo/

But I advise learning all art as a comprehensive skill rather than just pixel art.

Quote: Original post by bigbadbear9885
My big future dream is actually a very bigger thing but creating a system is a part of it.

I wanted to develop a system that is as powerful as ps3 or xbox 360 or more powerful actually I wanted to it to have many many games that range from the most weakest graphics to the pressence.

With the state of emulation you can achieve this today with a moderate pc setup. Just build it in a shuttle or htpc case to get that console form factor and load it up with emulators. Write a little app to let you browse your games with a joystick, plug it into your tv and play!

Back in the day a lot of people used DPaint and similar software. Nowadays there are more sophisticated programs that make it a bit easier than artists had back in those days. One application that is used today for sprite work, such as for DS games, is Pro Motion.

Wow I wasn't aware of Pro Motion, it looks pretty good! Shame there's no free version. :(

I use GraphicsGale, which is free. It can be somewhat buggy, but the lastest version seems fine so far.