The pitfalls of pixel art

[pandas]

@beschizza

But he explains that the artistic qualities of pixel art are such that players and critics are expected to “decipher a language they don’t understand”

Isn’t that true of all art though?

[cementimental]

Making-of here, Jack White explains it wrongly at the beginning in a way which implies any of it was CGI rather than computer-assisted replacement stop motion tho - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzebYFxuB-A

[anon26940528]

This article was probably the best thing I’ve read all week. Sadly, I have to agree with its author. Do people listen to classical music anymore, really? It’s not popular, even though it can be absolutely phenomenal. Don’t get me started on excellent old movies that just don’t enjoy the same level of enthusiasm as the next Michael Bay sound-explosion-orgy.

[PhasmaFelis]

@funruly

As Pixelation is defined as a technique that delivers the desired jaggies, we’re left to try to debate what makes or breaks “art.”

I think most attempts to define an art style as exclusive to a particular technique are prone to fail. It’s like saying Impressionism can’t be “dot-matrix art” because they used an unorthodox technologie.

Pixel art is a technique, though. It’s broadly defined as digital art in which each individual pixel is deliberately placed, usually with a limited palette. This isn’t a value judgment; downsampling hi-res rendered images can produce a cool, artistic result, but it’s not “pixel art” any more than a photo run through a Photoshop watercolor filter is a watercolor painting.

[anon73629133]

@PhasmaFelis

Pixel art is a technique, though.

This is an interesting debate.

Who categorizes art? Does the creator get to categorize art based on the technique used? Or does the audience get to classify based on style, i.e., stylistic resemblance to others of the genre?

Did Bob Dylan break the rules of folk music when he plugged in, or was he still making folk with a more modern technique?

[HMSGoose]

Sounds more like post-pixelcore vectorstep to me. But my roommate does some bitmap-inspired dither-punk that has some similar tones…

[penguinchris]

Something to keep in mind with that line of thought is that there is still a remarkably large audience for classical music - including more young people than most people would think - with active orchestras in most cities, including economically depressed ones. Plus, there is a huge audience - again, including many, many young people such as myself - who are more into older films than new stuff. These things don’t get the marketing blitz of the new stuff (and no, the market is not as big) but they endure and they will endure - and not just as a retro trend, which does happen every few years of course.

I don’t see pixel art and this style of game going away either. Yes it’ll become more of a niche thing over the coming decades, as the original technology becomes truly ancient. But - and this is clearly my theme - truly young people (I’m young but old enough that games were still low res 2D when I was a kid) are still playing those games (especially old Nintendo games) and totally get pixel art. I mean, truthfully many probably don’t even play the games but they still understand and enjoy the pixel style.

I think that pixel art is capable of being extremely evocative in a way that really nothing else in the digital realm can touch. I have enjoyed graphics in games since that time, but the art quality is always lacking to my taste - even now with the extreme quality that is possible, and all the money spent on art for games. Pixel stuff still looks better to me. Often, of course, better graphics are preferable because it really does make the game play better - shooting games and simulators and so on especially. It can be hard to go back and play old low resolution games of that type. Most every other type of pre-3D game generally holds up though and is often more enjoyable (aesthetically, if nothing else) than the modern equivalent.

[DocMelonhead]

As a CG artist myself (who’s specialized in vector art, raster art, and 3D modeling) I pretty much agree with the article in an “economic” sense, and disagree in a “artistic” sense.

[anon26940528]

I agree with you, it’ll be a niche thing enjoyed by a large minority. Considering how much money gets sunk into game production, pixel art is going to mainly fall into the category of labors of love. Hell, at this point, preservation is an issue. I spent an hour trying to get Red Alert 2 to run on my Windows 7 yesterday, in part because of this article. I finally made the kludge necessary by editing an .ini file. Who knows what’s going to happen when I move to Windows 10.There is some irony in the way that Minecraft may yet save the form, however.