Once upon a time I posted something here about animation using Photoshop’s timeline right here. It’s done, finally we’re going to make some animations! In this case the layer support of Photoshop allows having each step in one layer, making each edition and correction much easier. Once the basic shape is created, I’m only adding some base colors and some lights and shadows to create some volume. As shown in the first part, a sketch drawn using Photoshop can be used to achieve the pixel over technique and fit a good shape to work with. One of the easiest way to go is to create a basic shape to fix proportions and size of the character. If anyone of you try to follow these steps, you’ll have to increase the zoom to 800% or more to work with the 64 pixels canvas. Notice that every example I’m showing here has been scaled using the first article process, increasing the image size with the nearest neighbor method. For this example I’m using a 64 pixels squared canvas, but the canvas size depends on the pixel size needed and the size of the design.
#HEXELS MOVING LAYERS HOW TO#
Let’s start! For the first steps, anyone can go back to the first part of the pixel art tutorial and find out how to create a basic model without any animations. It’s time for drawing and moving pixels arround The result won’t be even near their quality, I’m not that good, but be sure I’ll try my best. It’s an open secret that I love so much how this game looks and how hard they’ve worked to create a unique atmosphere using tons of little pixels. There are other options like Pickle or Graphics Gale, which are good options as long as you feel ok with them, for example:Ībout the model, I’ll use as reference the incredible work the guys at Deconstructeam are doing for their “Gods will be watching”.
#HEXELS MOVING LAYERS SOFTWARE#
I’m using it because I feel so comfortable with it, and it offers so many tools to make the process and post-production easier even if is not a software designed especially for pixel art. I’m using Photoshop, and this post will focus on how to use it. Before the pixels, there are tools and modelsīefore painting some pixels, we need some software to work with, and most of the times, a model is needed too. That day has come! Today we are going to make the pixels move and show how to do it using Photoshop. Some weeks ago we released the first part of the pixel art tutorial, leaving animated pixel art to be released someday as a second part. Hey! you have 8 minutes? That’s what you need to read the whole thing! For example, the Mario model changed a lot in a few years without growing a single pixel: More colors means more freedom and more ways to detail your models without adding more pixels.
At this point, using the 8-bit palette is a common practice, but if you need a classic design for your project, you can use only NES colors or even shades or green like the good old Game Boy times. Raw pictures taken with reflex cameras can reach 12-13bits, and some software like Photoshop can work with up to 16-bit. Now almost everything works at least with 8-bits colors, and that means 256 colors. Well, once upon a time, any NES videogame had around 13 colors available at a time and 50 in total, and Game Boy has only some shades of green to work with. Giving color to squared shapesĮach pixel has a color, but what color? There are any limits? Normally, the bigger amount of pixels, the better the approximation will be. Every non-vector image is an approximation to a model using colored pixels and some techniques. As shown in previous articles, we can create pixel art by painting each pixel one by one, but in theory, we can create any image using the same technique (and some of our sanity).