It's just game makers being lazy...

I'm just kidding, but yeah, I don't see how 3D games are easier to make... is it because more people have skill in making them? I know all about the hardships of 2D art and junk, but I still love making it, able it I personally think all my art sucks, a lot of people like it.

Also nothing is done pixel by pixel anymore nearly... I'd like to see new 2D games.

Shaoko

@Barts_706: To hell with you people, I insist that its name is still HERO'S QUEST!

Oh, and what happens to be the difference between a cheetah and a comma?

tcolberg

cast flame dart
search corpse
sleep

"You've been eaten by a grue"

quit

Pezdispenser

The problems finding good 2d artists is actually a 3 fold problem.

1)Technical Knowledge - Though the knowledge needed for artists working on a 2d/3d game is substantially less, on a TRUE 2d game (indexed palletized graphics) there are very rigorous limitations to work under. There is a very steep learning curve for the tricks and techniques that are useful in creating beautiful 2d games that most artists simply do not possess any more as they don't NEED to.

2)Asthetic Knowledge - Aside from just the tech knowledge, good 2d artists have to possess a wide range of skills including 2d animation skill, which, simply looking at the TV and film markets, is all but dead in the US (yeah yeah, I don't like it either, but it is the truth). Finding artists who both understand 2d animation and can bring that down to a sprite that is say, 32x64 (which is pretty large by the way) and understand the impact of a single pixel and the timing of the animation is EXTREMELY difficult.

Why do you think the team working on the HD version of Street Fighter 2 is copying the animations frame per frame? The original team understood that player were going to use key frames to time their attacks and designed their animations to facilitate that.

3)Cost - Most publishers these days simply aren't willing to pay very much for a 2d game, and think of them mainly as an easy way to get a liscence onto a handheld. From a fiscal standpoint they want to keep the developement costs low, so it is hard to find talent that is willing to work for the wages they want to pay.

This is NOT to say that 2d games are completely dead. The Contra 4 team did a fantastic job and there are some very active 2d game and artist communities around on the web.

Dorktagnan

This is something that kept me in Ragnarok Online as long as I was. Not just the players, but mostly the monsters are animated smoothly, with detailed, good looking, creative, amusing, uh... character-filled sprites. Sometimes I'd go and grind on a certain type of monster just because they were cool and fun to watch. (Goblins, Lava Golem, Zipper Bear, Living Tree, Shinobi... ok, most of them really.)

I hope 2D sprites don't become a lost art because there is definitely no NEED to make every game 3D, and there is a lot of artistry to be had in 2D as well. In fact, I'm hoping that once systems commonly get photorealistic, the novelty will wear off and they'll start experimenting with more varied styles again.

fuchikoma

@rainofwalrus:

lol, those were the days of shareware awesomeness. I really miss stuff like that. I remember when EB and Babbages had stacks of shareware and demo discs, all for your taking. Not anymore :(

Moonchilde

Find the Duke Nukem 3D artist! They, IMO, drew the best 2D sprites EVAR!

mmmm, Duke Nukem 3D.

rainofwalrus

I'm not so sure about that, but yeah, its definitely not the same effect when you use full 3D, non-flat models from the side or whatever. I certainly do prefer the beauty of hand drawn stuff.

Moonchilde

@Moonchilde:

Yeah, a hand-drawn texture rendered on a flat surface is a sprite, and you could do "Guernica" that way no problem. I was arguing, however, that starting with a 3D model (and by that I mean a non-flat one =)) and attempting to render that on to a 2D surface would be very difficult to reproduce "Guernica".

BigWeather

Harder to make?, well I m not sure about that but hell they sure are harder to beat!. >:(

Kirth_Gersen

Now that we have high-resolution sprites and graphics, I'd love to see a 2d comeback. (***COUGH*** Symphony of the Night 2? ***COUGH***)

Strangelove

I could render that Guernica image onto a 3D surface, and you'd be none the wiser that it was a 3D surface.

Besides, textures can be hand drawn 2D, rather than photoreal 2D, and rendered on a flat surface and you'd have the same exact thing as a sprite. Except its on a flat 3D model, which could be a box for all you know.

Moonchilde

Those arguing that 3D rendered (however artfully) to a flat surface is a replacement to hand-drawn 2D need look no further than "Guernica". That painting is an example of a perspective that won't be derived from any 3D model yet is as powerful an expression in 2D as any. That's not to say model-derived 2D isn't viable, but it's not the only game in town.

BigWeather

@Barts_706:

SSF2THD isn't pixel art. Its just flat "pre-rendered" vector graphics. Its not even hand painted. Its basically made in Flash or Illustrator. Far cry from what Odin Sphere's engine is, which is all hand painted textures on flat 3D models or other traditional 2D games that are hand pixeled.

Aquaria looks more in line with Odin Sphere than SSF2THD. Its "hand painted," like OS is, and uses a similar engine for it's animation.

However, between traditional 2D game animation and Odin Sphere, I bet Odin Sphere has much more life to it's 2D than SSF2THD has. For one thing, Odin Sphere's engine allows the characters to breath without adding a bunch of animation frames for breathing, since it is just polygon morphing. Its much easier and allows for an infinite amount of animation frames, limited purely by how fast the 3D hardware can morph the polys.

Huge difference in style between vector based 2D art and "hand drawn" 2D. Both styles are done in software anyway. When it comes down to pure 2D expression, Odin Sphere's engine will stomp traditional ones used in the past. Thats my main point, that the old style is pretty much dead and that 3D engines are the future for 2D. You can do a lot more with them.

Moonchilde

@giant_historical_crabs: You could be surprised. I can bake a mean shit-cake.

Guizzy

Quest for Glory will always be Hero's Quest to me.
I truly miss the beauty of the lost art of well-done pixel-based graphics... thankfully the DS still delivers!

Runouthearts

@NateN: kudos for the spamalot reference, kudos!

pocketcowboy

@Moonchilde: "With the resolutions we have in console games now a days, this is the only way forward for 2D."

I beg to differ. Someone gave the example of Castle Crashers, Aquaria, remake of Street Fighter in HD. Granted, it is going to be a difficult, yet much more ambitious route for games development.

Barts_706

@JakeDunn:

I'm pretty sure that game was 100% pre-rendered, in a similar way to the Diablo games. Not that there is anything wrong with that... Its a pretty efficient way of handling 2D development.

--------------

On the subject of 2D art being harder, I think it all depends. For resolutions of 320x240, its not all that bad. However, once you start hitting the higher resolutions, you're basically just doing pure hand drawn cel animation, if you're doing traditional 2D animation.

I'm surprised SE actually went through the trouble of doing "higher than normal res" 2D art for the two FF PSP remakes. That was fantastic of them. I think most teams will have a very difficult time in that resolution, and its not all that much higher than 320x240. In an interview with Iga, he stated his team for the Dracula X Chronicles went to 3D for the PSP because the resolution was a lot higher and his 2D team was having difficulties with the graphics.

Still, I think pixel art is archaic at this point. The future of, and what 2D has really evolved to, is the style used in Odin Sphere. A 3D engine with a combination of 2D animated textures plus 3D animated polygons with hand painted 2D textures. With the resolutions we have in console games now a days, this is the only way forward for 2D.

Moonchilde

Ahhh, Hero's Quest. Yes, I know it became Quest for Glory, but in the part of my mind that is still 10 years old it's still Hero's Quest. Plus that way it melds well with Space Quest and King's Quest!

razzle dazzle root beer

@quen: Do you mean the New Super Mario Brothers? I think that's all pretty much 3D.

@giant_historical_crabs: Yes, every new method and technology makes all previous steps worthless. After the camera was invented, no one painted anymore. Once the capability to record video existed, it killed both the camera and the stage. Sure, there are a few no name companies that still dabble with photography (Sony, Canon, Nikon). And there is also that little street in New York that still has a play from time to time, but I hear they're so desperate for material they've resorted to performing live-action Monty Python skits. But you're right, everything old is worthless, let's embrace the future!

NateN

@L_K_M: murry was made of polys?? o.O

pocketcowboy

@L_K_M: Whoa, I think Monkey Island 3 was a truly 2D games, exept for some ships' sprite!!

shadow_judge

@Acunia: Yea, I wrote about Aquaria on my blog some time ago ( [www.bartsnews.net] ) and I think that John Bardinelli was the first one to notice it.

It is already out and I'll grab the demo in any spare moment soon! Highly recommended for all those who prefer 2D with character to generic 3d shoot'em ups!

Barts_706

@quen: Yeah, to body models certainly are 3D, but thing that bothers me are the faces. Actual 3D geometry? Many different textures with correct shading painted on? Painted afterwards on the renders? I honestly don't know which one is it. n_n If there was just one shot (from multiple you can tell the flawless perspective) I couldn't say if it was drawn or not. As a 3D artist I'm certain it would be doable to render sprites that couldn't be told apart from a digital paintings. Not saying that it would be any faster or easier to do than just painting a character, but in animation it would pay itself back.

arashi

A trueer statement has never been spoken...or typed. I'm a 2D artist at a game studio and man, it can be crazy hard to find someone with great 2D skills. We're gotten to the point where 2D or 3D is more of a design choice in games rather then "It's gotta be 3D!!!!" So many people out there want some 2D goodness. The DS is the last strong hold for 2D stuff... that and cell phones.

hondo

@arashi: That's perfectly normal 3D, just at low resolution... (I mean, maybe it was hand-drawn, but if it was, then they hand-drew it to look like 3D... argh.)

Wasn't the DS Super Mario Bros made with 3D sprites? If so (vague memory here) that'd be a better example.

quen

@arashi: Sure, IG could do graphics for a game. Kind of a bad example, though, since they do a lot of 3D stuff and 3D-enhanced-2D... also they tend to work on expensive projects while probably the cheaper ones are more similar to 2D games (less 3D, more reuse).

If you want to see recent example of traditional animation as game graphics, I think Hotel Dusk for DS is probably it; it has hand-drawn character animations, with just a few frames for each pose, used for the 'they're speaking to you' view.

When it comes down to it though, I think anime-style visuals are great at conveying visual style, emotion, movement, and drama... possibly not so good at conveying precise location? Would they really work well for game sprites? I dunno...

quen

@Garo: If you do it properly, there weren't, it's not all that hard, just not something that is logical to aim for so there are not that much examples. Take a look at this for example [www.dieselsweeties.com] is that 3D or 2D?

arashi

.

Hehehe alot of 2D liking people here.
check this out [www.bit-blot.com] ;)

Acunia

i prefer cute little 2D sprites over most of 3D graphics. just look at all the koei games. 3D with all it's HD effects has gotten so normal.

Himiko

@JakeDunn: Mmm, one of the best, yes. But it wasn't purely 2D, even though it played as such, because graphics were at least partially prerendered.

Nevertheless, Oddworld Inhabitants' artists were second to none. Have a look at their artbook (little preview widget in the middle) to see what I mean :

[www.ballisticpublishing.com]

Barts_706

@Evdor:

Quest for Glory 1 : So you want to be a hero?

Indeed. :)

Barts_706

@arashi:

There would be a difference... believe me.

Garo

argh!!! so you want to be a hero!!!
/throw dagger at gobelin

SaintEmpire

@munkah: They could just render each frame out of the 3D models if they wanted to do "real" 2D game out of it. If they would aim for hand drawn look, with materials, colors and render settings set correctly there would be hardly any difference between hand drawn and 3D rendered sprite.

arashi

Well, it's not like 3D cannot be used to create/replicate 2D art. But if you insist on drawing each frame separately, sure, it's hard to find professionals for the task today. One thing I've wondered, would it really be all that hard for a, lets say Production I.G, to create HD resolution 2D game? I know that they do at least some of their TV animation in 4K resolution, so little 1080p should be no task at all.

arashi

@munkah: Also: Monkey Island 3, 4; Sam & Max (the new one).

L_K_M

Abe's Odyssey, now that was a brilliant 2d game.

JakeDunn

2D animation is certainly a hell of a lot more cumbersome than 3d. God bless interpolation.

Jackablade

I thought this was obvious. :O

I love 2D though, I don't think it's ever gonna go away.

Seestoff

Well, who let the SNK team out of there cages?! We could have used them to train more 2d artists.
Where's my Metal Slug HD?!

QuickPick

@Kuraudo:

Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers?

Nikolii

@giant_historical_crabs: wow, thanks for that insightful input!

Plunkett

yep... just like everyone forgot their recipes to make cake out of horse shit...

it's too bad a modern economy makes loads of ingredients easy to find here in america...

we've lost out on our specialized shit-cooks, and very few people still know the art.

pass the torch, bitches, pass the torch.

giant_historical_crabs

A bit of a missleading title.

It's not that they're harder to make its that in this day and age 2D artists are hard to find, with the advent of 3D. My guess is you're not seeing any programs pumping out 2D game artists, were as you've got a bazzilion animators and modelers to pick from.

weasl

Viewtiful Joe did wonders with the 2D gameplay/3D graphics combination.

Raian1

That Quest For Glory image just made my day.

Captain Impulse

I don't know. You look at places like Newgrounds and there's plent of talented artists do making 2D games in their spare time. It's hard to help imagining what they could accomplish in a team with a budget.

Kuraudo

Yeah...it's so hard to find artists that work in 2D. They're always, like, "You want this character drawn on a FLAT SURFACE? Sorry, I only work in polys."

boopadoo

I was my team's designated artist for a 24 hour game dev competition. Coupled with the fact that we were restricted to web safe colors and tiny screen resolutions (we were designing for cellphones), it was a wonder that it looked awesome at all. Swiping Sim City 2000's perspective helped a lot.

outpt

I believe this news to be very true. Imagine the poor bastards having to redraw the sprites all the time, instead of the CG designer who just has to change the poses to make new animations.

I still love me my 2d games though.

Witzbold

Probably the easiest way to do 2D games now is using 3D models instead of sprites; like Capcom are doing with SF4

munkah

Ooops... seems that zillions of indy developers lost the memo!!

tei

On a semi-related note:

If the Breath of Fire series goes the HD-sprite route a la-Street Fighter, I will be in heaven. I miss 2d RPGs (you don't count anymore Atelier Iris guys and Disgaea. I love you, but please stop looking the same!)

Afore Notation

Yep, very true. Nowadays it's very hard to find a good pixelartist or illustrator.
How about Derek Yu [www.derekyu.com] ?

Garo

Thats right, not only is Contra 4 an amazing game it has some of the best graphics out there.

explodingman

2D art is actually pretty tough.. I'm finding this out right now for my assembly class final project (which is a GBA game coded in C; totally unrelated to class, but fun as hell nonetheless).

sugardeath

Holy crap. Is that Quest For Glory?

I loved that freaking series as a kid!

Evdor

@rainofwalrus: Blood was better!

Barts_706

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Odin Sphere. Truly a game that made sure to state that 2D graphics and gameplay is still entirely relevant. If we had more games like Odin Sphere I would be so incredibly happy.

walrusbrown

@Moonchilde:

When it comes to 2D art, it doesn't really matter if it's pixel or vector since it's still hand-drawn. There are plenty of programs that let you paint directly as vectors. And vectors aren't pre-rendered, which implies that they've been converted into bitmap data. Vectors are rendered real-time just like polygons since it both formats are just mathematical data in Cartesian space.

I have no idea what type of engine Vanillaware uses since I don't work there nor have I seen any production video, but I can say with certainty that they don't use 3D for the characters. They might use 3D for particles and effects, but if flat 3D characters were to morph as you say, you'd get distorted textures and a paper effect like Parappa the Rapper/Paper Mario if done in perspective.

The type of animation used in Odin's Sphere is called cut-out. It's the same type of animation used in games like The Rumble Fish and Ragnarok Battle Offline. It helps animators interpolate movement between joints to cut down on hand tweening. This is especially useful if you're a small team (of 15-20) creating an entire game, as stated in the Gamasutra article.

Ainai

I really miss 2D games. But that one PS2 2D game was a real pick up for me. Haven't gotten a chance to play it yet though. I don't own a PS2.

DamienMagi

@shadow_judge, pocketcowboy: You're right, MI3 had very few 3D objects.

L_K_M

@Ainai:

I know what vectors are. SSF2THD isn't real time vectors. However, if you'd look at how they're made, you can tell they were done with regular vector graphics. Some of the stuff was new art, like the portraits, but the regular in game sprites have just been vectorized and then rasterized. Hence why I called them "pre-rendered," because that is basically what they are. It is most definitely not hand drawn, traditional 2D art.

And no, you don't get texture distortion just from morphing polygons. If you do, then you're a bad 3D animator. You also don't have to change the perspective to have a 3D engine in use. Besides, you do realize those shows done with "cutout" animation are done via 3D programs? What do you think Maya 3.0 is? South Park has been using 3D since the 2nd episode in the series.

Its a 3D engine, hands down, no questions asked.

Moonchilde

@Moonchilde:

Actually, to quote the producer of SSF2THD Remix:

"This is all done in Photoshop. This picture shows 4 general steps used to create the frame, but in Photoshop, they are all lined up on top of each other in separate layers." - Rey Jimenez

I will concede that Photoshop has limited vector capabilities, but that doesn't mean it's not hand drawn. Plenty of artists (myself included) use a tablet to touch up and/or create art and I've already mentioned the ability of some programs to paint in vectors. If by traditional 2D art you meant pixel art, then yes you would be correct. But, you must keep in mind that pixel art is a style because traditional art refers to real world media.

Have you done 3D modeling before? Depending on the program, one of two things can happen when you change the shape of a textured poly:

1) The texture stretches/shrinks in proportion to the shape of the poly. If the poly after a morph is not proportionate to its original shape, then the texture distorts. (think aspect ratio)

2) The texture stays exactly the same and either becomes cropped when the poly becomes smaller or tiles (depending on settings) when the poly becomes bigger. (the shape of the poly acts like a picture frame)

Now, if you happen to know (or anyone else for that matter) a way to avoid this, then please enlighten me.

Oh, and I never said anything about changing the perspective (camera) of the game, just the perspective of the poly when it morphs (to preserve the shape and texture). Since your example uses flat polys instead of full 3D models, it would look paper flat in perspective like the characters in the games I mentioned.

Your quip about cutout animations being done via 3D programs is a proof by example fallacy. Just because South Park is made with Maya doesn't mean other cutout-style animations are made the same way (in 3D). Some are still done traditionally with a stop motion camera or 2D animation program on the computer.

And the use of a 2D engine doesn't not preclude the use of 3D.

Ainai

Dude,

[www.garagegames.com]

Specifically here:

[www.garagegames.com]

Its not a 2D engine, its a 3D engine. It has primitive drawing capabilities, but they're basic texture maps.

"PTK is a multi-platform 2D game engine with 3D capabilities built around OpenGL or Direct 3D accelerated hardware, however, it is also possible to create 3D multi platform games with OpenGL."

PTK is a 3D engine, too. Its built on OGL. Thats a 3D engine, lol! Not being a jerk or anything, but 2D engine means strictly old school sprite drawing with hardware optimized for sprites. That doesn't really exist anymore, since "2D" is far faster using 3D such as OGL.

Andorra is a "2D" engine using DirectX and OGL. Those are 3D APIs.

[en.wikipedia.org]

"OpenGL's basic operation is to accept primitives such as points, lines and polygons, and convert them into pixels. This is done by a graphics pipeline known as the OpenGL state machine. Most OpenGL commands either issue primitives to the graphics pipeline, or configure how the pipeline processes these primitives."

----

Sure, some cut out is done by 3D, and some isn't. But you said its cut out animation when it is not. Odin Sphere is clearly not cut out animation since it is running on 3D hardware on a 3D engine. Its certainly not stop motion and it is certainly not pre-rendered sprites based on 2D cut outs. It uses a combination of "traditional" 2D animation scanned into the computer or done via PhotoShop/Corel Painter with SOME inbetween animation frames done with polys and some not. Breathing, for example, is done by expanding and collapsing the polygon which the texture resides on. It creates a breathing look that is fluid at 60 fps. No "distortion" happens of any sort, unless you consider the expansion a distortion, which it technically could be, but the way you implied distortion was in a negative.

So, it is 2D done in 3D, like nearly everything done today.

Same with South Park. The FIRST episode was indeed stop motion animation. However, its a great example of 2D done with 3D. The point is, "cut out" animation can be done with a 3D engine, and is often done today in various forms of multimedia.

------

Yes indeed, Photoshop does have Vector capabilities, and you can tell thats what they're using. Its a no brainer. That stuff isn't 100% hand drawn.

What I meant by SF3 being tradtionally animated, was that yes, it did indeed use real world media to animate the sprites prior to being scanned into the computers and sprited. There were plenty of images available of all the frames for Alex on the net.

[www.zoggles.co.uk]

Its near the bottom. Those are official ones from Capcom, don't know where the guy found them. So yes, it was traditionally animated and then sprited. I was pointing out the difference between this and SSF2THD remix. Two completely different processes, one being done with traditional 2D animation and sprites vs one with vectors and exporting to bitmap.

-----

Just to clear it up:

"but if flat 3D characters were to morph as you say, you'd get distorted textures"

If you didn't intend this as a negative, that is my fault. "Distorted" came off as something an animator wouldn't want to happen. In the case of Odin Sphere, or even GrimGrimoire, if you watch the chests of the characters, you can tell they are using polygon morphing to expand and collapse the chests textures to make it appear as if they're breathing. I wouldn't call that distortion, however, I suppose one could look at it that way. The way I read your posts, it came off as something an animator wouldn't wish to happen. Distortion, in most terms, is a negative, and not wanted in most forms of multimedia.

[education.yahoo.com]

Usually distortion is un-natural. Odin Sphere's morphing isn't, hence why I disagreed with you on that.

So, if it was just poor wording on your part and poor comprehension on mine, then we can just ignore that.

All done for today!

Moonchilde