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Originally posted by sanehatter:
**You can see similar differences with old cartoons versus some of the newer, flashier ones. Go watch Scooby Doo, and you'll see an example of flat-shaded animation. This is typical of what we think of as "Cartoons." Now, go check out almost anything you would call "Computer Animated," for example, the new FF movie, and you'll notice that the shading is what distinguishes it from a cartoon. Despite the fact that contemporary "cartoons" are done on computers (South Park, Powerpuff Girls, etc), they use flat shading for the cartoon feel. It's a matter of style.
So it is with "16-bit" console games. The look is more a matter of style than any particular technical trick.
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well, that's part of it... there are a whole lot more differences between cell and computer animation -- but I won't get into that on this topic.
if you really want an 8-bit feel to your graphics, there are some things you might want to keep in mind.
ย draw out a basic character by hand. you need to know what you're aiming for no matter what style you're using.
ย if you're using something like photoshop to make your characters with, then limit your pallet to something like an old Apple 256 color standard.
ย generally, the reason why 8-bit games looked so "pixelated," is because the screen resulotion they were using was so low. choose a low res for your game screen (640x480 - maybe even 320x240...), and figure out how big your character would be in comparison to the whole screen.
ย once you know approximately how big your character sprite would be, you can work within those bounds. part of the 8-bit style is that it is so limited, so to mimic it you'll need to impose limits on yourself.
ย an easy way to do things in 3D (if you are so inclined) would be to just render out your graphics at a low resolution and then bring them into photoshop and clean up the details there. that would save you time on animation, as well.
I said all of that very briefly, but I can ellaborate if any of it wasn't clear enough. but remember, like saphfire said, there is no set method for creating that type of graphics -- "8-bit" is really just a generalized name for a common style of graphics used at that time.
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), go for it! Be sure to register online though, as idevgames states that the number of people who register is one of the things which will help them to decide whether to offer such things again in the future.