SNES Pixel Art

Basically, just go crazy. 2bpp, 4bpp, and 8bpp graphics are aloud, but please state which one you are using and don't use over 8 palettes in 2bpp mode or in 4bpp mode unless you say you are changing colors mid scan line. (Basically, the graphics just need to work on real hardware.) Also, It is preferred if you try to use the 15bit color space, but it isn't the end of the world if you don't because in terms of color fidelity, it doesn't look too far off from 24 bit color.

Here's some artwork of a space-cloud thing I did. (It's 2bpp and the palette is on the top left)

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Here's another thing that I've had for awhile that I feel like posting. It's a female character that I felt I would put in a Contra-Style game, but I never even got to putting arms on. I think I'll get back to it some other day.

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Here is an animation from the game I'm working on. This is 20fps.

Err, I drew this guy a while ago. I think it fits the constraints just fine. Stylistically I think it looks more like an '80s era game, so maybe PC-Engine is a closer approximation.



I think for the most part the graphics of this game I did with a friend a few years ago qualify as well:

I'm curious, but what kind of game would the character be in? I'm in between and action/adventure plat former or a beat em up based on the kicking move. I remember you having another version of the character with teal hair where you said an interesting remark... I think the legs looked better in that version because they where a different thickness at different parts of the leg, but I don't know if you changed it because you want a more "cartoony" look.


I know you said stylistically, but I don't think it could be a PC-Engine game based on the color fidelity. Also, what was the game you made created with? I don't really have an interest in making computer games, but I'm just curious.

Now... Here's the first frame of an explosion I'm trying to draw.

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Does anyone know how to make good looking explosions? Mine look a little too much like popcorn.

By the way, I like how are of our graphics use completely different art styles, with psychopathicteen's looking a bit anime, mikejmoffitt's kind of reminding me of indie games that are supposed to look like old games (I've found that a lot of them don't really shade their sprites that much and almost look like 16-bit renditions of early NES games), and mine, which I'm trying (but failing) to give a somewhat serious tone but still making it a bit "cartoony".

I wrote a guide to making explosions based on the one I made for Thwaite. It's 2bpp but you could consider adapting it to higher bit depth.

I think it looks good, but maybe a bit too circular. I think it would work a bit better if the picture was more of a cluster of circles. It does look perfect for a firework though.

I guess that's a good thing, because the game is about repurposing fireworks as a makeshift missile defense system.

And is this what you meant by "don't really shade"? I took my NES sprite, disambiguated the clothing colors a bit, and darkened the outlines and undersides of things.

A lot of games I've seen either don't hardly shade anything, or when they do, they make the shade color so close to the regular one that you can't even tell. (Which wouldn't be very possible on the PC-Engine or Genesis because of only having 512 colors.) I was thinking about how Mario's sprite in SMB doesn't have any parts shaded on it unlike in SMB 3 where they used black.

I did some stuff to the runner that mikejmoffitt made. I ended up using a lot more colors, but you could always get rid of some of the middle shades for the same general idea.

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You might end up with higher contrast when you quantize the colors to suitable matches on the PCE palette, but there's nothing really preventing it from being on that platform.

The shading detail is well done, but I've always been more of a fan of two or three tone shading, similar to what the Street Fighter Alpha series does, compared to the smooth gradient type seen in Street Fighter 2. I guess in some circumstances people may refer to it as pillow shading, though that is only really a problem when the light source isn't well established or is dead center on the object.

Alright, after several days of "hard work", I finally made another explosion sprite and I wanted to know if everyone thinks this one looks better. (I can tell I'm going to have a "blast" animating this. )

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That actually looks really good!

Thank you! I personally think I'm a better artist than a programmer, but unfortunately, I like programing more than drawing. The problem I have with programming is that I'm too scared to write anything too inefficient, as I usually somewhat know how to do something but always ask for help to see if I'm doing it correctly. I'm also crazy about how my art looks, as I usually always try to make something look better but usually just end up messing it up. (I had to force myself to upload this to stop myself from working on it.) I'm a bit concerned about how long it would take me to draw whole levels (I don't really like repetitive tiles and would probably replace some every time the screen scrolled) if it took me about three days just to draw that.

I think you would want to boost the contrast a bit on the explosion, and also work on the edges to make them darker a bit.

Any better? I'm trying not to make the explosion too dark, because it is going to be the first frame.

Edit: I got a cool idea to make BG3 look better if anyone wants to hear (It probably wont be worth it though, because it will take up about 1/4 of vram!) I was thinking you could use a 256x512 tile map and have every 8 tiles downwards have a different color palette. You would then use HDMA to change the y scrolling position to have the second line on the screen be the eighth on the tile map and the 3rd to be the 16th and so on. Eventually, the tile map would run out 32 pixels down the screen and at this point, you would use HDMA to change the tile map parameters to display a new tile map and you would set the y position to 0 again.

That looks better.
It seems really big for first frame of an explosion though...

It isn't much bigger than the one I was looking at when I created it: (my explotion is going to be 64x64 pixels, like the one I was looking at. I might shrink the first frame latter, though.)

How is that going to fit into VRAM? 4 64x64 sprites take up half the available memory for sprite patterns. You can fit a couple more frames by trimming metasprites around the frames, but you're going to run into problems if you plan on using 10 frames. Gunstar Heroes on the Sega Genesis, only uses 4 frames of explosion animation, so it can't be that bad.

It could but it would be difficult. say regular enemies explode with a 32x32 explosion, but when bosses do, they'll explode with a 64x64 explosion. Since large enemies aren't going to be present through out the entire level and only specific areas, it could work then if you change the frames in the explosion by using DMA. (can't DMA change about 8 64x64 sprites in one frame?) So the explotion wouldn't fit in vram, but it could still work in specially scripted areas.

A DMA copy takes 8 master clocks per byte, and there are 341*4-40 = 1324 usable clocks per scanline and 262-224 = 38 vblank scanlines (minus one if there's some restriction on the last blanking line that I'm not aware of). Then 38 lines * 1324 clocks per line / 8 clocks per byte = about 6 KiB that can be copied per vblank, which needs to include the 544-byte OAM display list plus any updates to nametables, sprite tiles, and background tiles. A single 64x64 pixel sprite cel is 64*64/2 = 2 KiB.

I don't know why, but I wasn't thinking that other things affected how much you could DMA to VRAM... Anyway, I already know that the first frame of the explosion fits in a 40x40 box, but I plan to use 16x16 and 32x32 sized sprites, you would put it in a 48x48 box. With that being said, you could put 5 of the first frame explosions on a scan line and have 32 pixels left over, I decided to make this as an example of what I want to do. (The explosions will spread apart when they get bigger to avoid overdraw problems and for awesomeness. )

This is saying how it will work:



This is how it will look:



Edit: Oh yeah, so at absolute best circumstances, you can only update 3 64x64 sprites? How is Final Fight 3 able to display 2 characters and 3 enemies that look to use almost about 16 8x8 tiles, which would be about 5 64x64 sprites? Or am I just crazy? (I know the game uses giant black bars to make it look like the sprites are bigger though.)

Probably by loading new cels in at less than 60 fps. Consider that traditionally animated films run at 12 fps.

I had no idea that you could "freeze" VRAM like that. I thought the only way to upload that much VRAM was to freeze the entire screen, which would effect scrolling. (I think I can settle for 20fps animation.)

Basically what you need to do is only use DMA when there is an animation frame update. Have the game logic predict how much time is going to be spent on DMA during next v-blank period, and if there is not going to be enough time left for a sprite animation update, update it the next frame.


http://wiki.superfamicom.org/snes/show/ ... ffectively

Alright, I shrunk the first frame of the explosion and was wondering if this looks any better. (It is 32x32 pixels.)

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I'm sure there's no real answer to this question except "just do it", but do you know a good way to animate something like this, while still keeping it pretty consistent with the other frames? I currently darken the picture a bit, increase the size of the picture, then I just make it a bit more gnarled looking. I use Gimp and I have each layer be a separate frame of animation.

Animating explosions is one of the hardest things you can do in pixel art, IMO. Sure you can go the cheap way and just change the size or something if your game has heavily stylized graphics (Mega Man got away with plain circles, for crying out loud), but if you want more natural explosions you'll have to work a little harder.

One type of explosion that I think works really well is to start with a sudden burst, with spike-like shapes coming from the center. That has to be quick, so maybe only 2 frames until the burst reaches its full size. After that, the tips of the spikes slow down and disappear, and a big portion of the center quickly burns and starts turning into smoke, going from yellow/red to gray/brown. Then the smoke gets darker and moves outwards and up, dissipating completely after a few frames.

Something along the lines of this? Except, you know, not green? (I'm only talking about one of the explosions in the explosion.)

Yeah, I really like explosions that start that way, like a sudden burst of spiky fire, which then burns into smoke (the frame you've been drawing would probably be at the beginning of this transition) and dissipates.

I would like to someday compile a list of games with nice explosions, because they aren't that easy to find. Also, explosions can be an easily ignored aspect of a game, people just don't pay much attention to them. I surely can't remember what explosions were like in most games I played.

Then in that case, I should probably use the bigger explosion, because having a 64x64 explosion starting off with something less than 32x32 will probably look really weird. (While I guess you're here, I feel like asking if your profile picture is supposed to be an Atari 2600 rendition of Sonic The Hedgehog.)

Edit: (I didn't even see you write this for some reason.)
Well, I have two games for the list already:

1. Any of the Metal Slug Games (except Metal Slug Advance of course )
2. Gunforce 2. I really don't know why I like that game so much, but I really do like the explosions. Fun Fact: to make it seem like there are more sprites then there really are, the game actually crams something crazy like 10 64x64 explotions in a 128x128 sprite. (Its basically pre rendered, if that makes scene.) The thing (128x128 sprite or metasprite) also gets animated for 20+ frames. (Obviously VRAM wasn't an issue...)
3. Also, as a bonus, the explosions in DKC 2 and 3 looked nice, but they were a bit small, so I'm not sure if they really belong on the list. The explosions in DKC1 are actually different, and they look really weird to me. They're also surprisingly low colored because they share a palette with the oil drum I think (which makes absolutely no scene, as they're only in Oil Drum Alley and not every level with a TNT barrel Edit: correction, they are also in torchlight trouble (and I call myself a DKC fan )) unlike the ones in DKC2 and 3 that have their own designated color palette.

I think it would be fine, but it should probably be that small for the first frame only, while the second frame is a full blown outburst, occupying the whole area you have. The center will still have some space to grow, because only the "spikes" reached the edges by this point. The center can grow while becoming less fire-like and more smoke-like.


Yup. I made some sprites and animations a while ago and played with the idea of making an actual game, but there was too much to overcome in order to achieve the kind of gameplay I wanted and I didn't have much time to spend on writing and rewriting kernels.

This has to be possibly the lousiest update ever, but I got a palette done for the explosion.


The main thing I wanted to ask was I know that transparent sprites on the SNES are sprite palettes 4-8, (edit: palettes are numbered 0-7, not 1-8) but do you know if all four have to be transparent, or if you can just pick one or two of the four to be transparent? I think a transparent explosion would be cool, but not if I only have four other palettes to use.

I thought I remembered that when you enabled transparency on sprites, that half of them would be transparent, while the other half would stay normal. (Did I just respond to nobody?)

I made a post then deleted it because I wasn't aware of the palette 4-7 difference described in this document.

I know it's not SNES but probably one of the better NES explosions. Can't find an animated one and don't have time to make one.

That's a very exciting looking explosion. Is the rest of it much the same way?

The animation is not as cool as it looks, IIRC. It quickly animates to a full blast and kinda pauses in that frame, it's weird.

The pictures gone... (never mind, the dumb web filter at my school didn't allow it to show...) Also, If anyone was wondering, the game with the explosion was Metal Storm, which was an NES game published by Irem. (My second favorite videogame company, behind Rareware.)

Well, I was occupied for a while and I have some more free time right now, so I think I'll post this. It's the character from earlier in a slightly different position with arms and a gun.

Edit: I fixed the pictures a bit and changed them because the arm was a bit ugly...

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I'm getting Amiga vibes from that haha.
Looks pretty good ~

Thank you, I'm just so picky that I redid it a bit and I'm posting it now...






The main reason I did this was to actually get the thing to fit into 16x16 tiles a bit better (because I like 16x16 and 32x32 tiles), but I also redid it a bit to make it look better. One problem with the other one was that the butt of the gun stuck out to make the arm look fat, so I just got rid of it. If I were to think of my artwork, I'd say of a scale from "cartoony" to real, It would look something like:

Metal Slug
Gunforce 2
mine
DKC
Mortal Kombat

It actually fits into 2 16x16's and 2 8x8's, even though I'm using 16x16's the walking animation will obviously have to have more sprites for the legs.

Hey...seeing all these explosions got me thinking...what if you tried to create a radially-symmetric explosion? You would have to go for a very stylized look, but you could create a 64x64 explosion by only drawing the 32x32 parts of the explosion. Here's a really rough example of what I'm talking about...Ideally the final explosion would be seamless along the boundaries and use a lot more colors.


(6 frames of 32x32 sprites)

Oh! Or you could go for a really stylized circle-style explosion like I did for my Dig Dug NES sheet:





The whole thing only uses 8 minisprites, but it takes up a 64x64 space and creates no sprite flickering by itself. Frames 9-16 are 8 overlapping minisprites across at their widest points.

Here is a gif screencap of an old demo. I was pretty happy with the little animation.

Getting into more intricate/usable stuff soon

Not SNES, but Shienryu has some of my favorite pixelated explosions:



Looks even better when animated and you've got lots of burning debris flying across the screen.

I don't think this should come as a surprise...