2D Game Art for Programmers | Hacker News Reader

2D Game Art for Programmers

gamasutra.com

282 pointsImpossible38 comments

For a person without a single artistic bone in his body this pretty much amounts to magic no matter how simple it looks. I'm sticking to programming.

Exactly. This is a good step-by-step on how to do a nice-looking under-sea background.

But to know that these few simple things are enough to make a nice-looking under-sea background -- well, that takes artistic skill.

Reminds me a lot of those "draw a puppy using only three essential shapes". Yes, the basic framework isn't that hard, the devil's in the details…

(I do have to work through that "Draw on the Right Side of your Brain" book sometimes, though)

I had never heard of that book, thank you! I feel the same way as many others on this thread, I wish I knew more about how to get artistic. It's nice when someone suggests a resource (and it's well-reviewed, I see).

I'm thankful to Betty Edward for "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain". This is the best book i've ever read on arts/drawing subject. First, it teaches you to see things as they are, without reasoning (mute your left brain). Hold on it (see details with your right brain). And then, it teaches you to copy what you just saw, again without reasoning. One could understand the true meaning of "Good artist copy, great artists steal" by reading this book.

I heard that the second edition got some mixed reviews, which one do you have?

"The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.", revised edition, '99.

The visual presentation of code is one of its most important attributes. Code that looks visually appealing is code that is maintainable. I'm not sure you can be a good programmer without artistic ability because of that.

If you give any consideration at all to bracket placement, use of whitespace, grouping of code, etc. then I am certain you are much more artistic than you give yourself credit for. The rest comes down to practice with different mediums.

Between IDEs and other tools that autoformat code (ie gofmt[1])and languages that use significant whitespace, I wouldn't say programmers necessarily consider those things much these days.

Factoring might be a better example- picking the most convenient order for subroutine arguments, choosing how to bring together redundant segments of code, how to best use language constructs to express the problem. Ultimately I think it's difficult to draw a direct comparison, though- in my opinion, the similarities between graphic art and programming are rather abstract.

[1] http://golang.org/cmd/gofmt/

> [...] picking the most convenient order for subroutine arguments, [...]

Interestingly, this gets much more important in a language with currying.

It's also important in concatenative languages- the choice of argument order can easily make the difference between elegant function composition which "flows" and a twisty maze of "stack noise".

I'm reminded of the excellent Mitchell and Webb Look skit about Gordon Ramsay being much better at cooking than the restaurants that he helps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCU3K6l95Xw

Reminds me of the time I watched Dan Silva effortlessly make drawing after drawing with Deluxe Paint. Having tried, and failed, many times to be able to do stuff like this I realize that my artistic talents extend no further than block diagrams :-)

It reminds me of how to draw an owl:

http://piccsy.com/2010/08/how-to-draw-an-owl/

ahhh I've never seen that, so true!

Actually, the trick to draw virtually anything is really simple:

http://blog.aviary.com/how-to-draw-anything-in-1-step/

Laugh-out-loud coffee sprayed on my monitor.

Thanks for that :)

My same reaction. Completely captures my feeling

What's interesting is that this is quite simple even for a programmer to follow, assuming you want to reproduce those exact shapes. For the fish, a few squares, some deformation, more shapes, and so on are trivial to do and at each step you can tweak the results until it looks visually similar. Competency with Photoshop or similar presumed, of course.

However, taking those concepts and doing a jungle theme with monkeys and vines will be a stretch if you lack the experience as there's no step-by-step to get the right proportions for those shapes.

However, taking those concepts and doing a jungle theme with monkeys and vines will be a stretch if you lack the experience as there's no step-by-step to get the right proportions for those shapes.

That's the great thing about cartoony illustrations -- the right proportions don't matter. If you're really worried about it, just trace a photograph and go from there.

That's the same as when a person tells me that they're just not good at math, or that they don't want to touch computers because they're just not tech people.

I think everyone can get pretty far to surprise themselves doing anything if they really tried. It might take you more sweat. It might take you more time. But I have a hard time believing that you can't do this because you don't have an elusive amorphous quality called 'artistic ability'.

Although I've spent more than 30 years as a programmer, before that I spent 8 years as an art major so I know a little bit about how non-artist types steer away from this kind of thing. That said, there are a few things that might help. One of my favorites is 'I can't draw a straight line...' well, neither can I (nerve damage and age)---when I need one, I use a ruler. Another is the usual comparison to some great artist, Rembrandt or the like. If you actually look at them you usually find out that what they can (or could) do breaks down into two areas---that which can be learned and talent. Can't do a damn thing about talent, you have to be born with that, but learning (which amounts to a bit more than 80% of what most think of as good art), that is a matter of teaching and practice. Best way to get to the goal of decent artwork is to stop telling yourself you can't do it and pick up whatever tool happens to be handy and have a go at it.

Agreed. I am not a great artist but I am a good one, and I basically got that way by learning how to draw so I could make art for games.

Great comment. As Thomas Edison said, "Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration."

Anybody know of tutorials aimed at a similar audience (i.e. programmers with little design background) but for GUI/UI elements/widgets?

There are some nice tutorials/articles at flyosity.com and bjango.com

This is one of my favorites: http://flyosity.com/tutorial/crafting-subtle-realistic-user-...

http://screencasters.heathenx.org/page/6/

This is great, I know it's applicable for game graphics, but I've been toiling away with Photoshop, learning painfully all it's powerful features for ages! It's good to learn about some other tools (free no less!)that may simplify art creation.

So, the instructions are the equivalent of this: http://www.applegeeks.com/lite/index.php?aglitecomic=2006-05...

Which, to a non-artist, looks like this: http://www.applegeeks.com/lite/index.php?aglitecomic=2006-05...

Yup. super enlightening.

For some reason the link points to Part 2 of the article.

Part 1 is: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/ChrisHildenbrand/20111015/866...

I linked to part 2 because part 1 doesn't have a link to part 2, and part 2 has a link directly to part 1 at the beginning. I figured it would be easier for people to see both parts this way. Sorry if I caused any confusion.

  > You should try and aim for the stars. Making games is all about that. Do the best you can and constantly push your limits and improve your skills... but thinking realistically and adjusting your expectations to your abilities and your budget is a big step towards creating the best game you can create.

This is advice that every aspiring indie game developer needs.

I've been using Inkscape forever and I love it. Very easy to learn. It's one of those programs that I never even knew had a settings/preferences window until years later, because the default behavior is just that good.

Even after switching to a Mac, I still use it for everything even though some UI and behavior is terribly out of place.

Oh man, this is the kind of stuff I'm looking for. It's so simple yet I didn't even know how to start it. Now I can put real characters into my javascripts :)

I like it. Are there books that go step-by-step like this and cover a much wider range of things.

This is really cool. So simple and yet it looks really complicated.

Yes. It gives me an idea that I can sit down with Inkscape now and create amazing graphics. I'm sure it won't look amazing like this. I'll botch it up somehow.

Upvote because I never knew about the interpolate feature. That's handy

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