Why pixel art matters
February 14th, 2010
A few games these days still use pixel art, but they usually fall either into the category of "retro", or they are updated to be super high definition. Both of these approaches ignore the strengths of the pixel art style, and its benefits to modern game artists. Pixel art still matters because there are a number of current, successful platforms ...
Making terrain textures
February 13th, 2010
When I first start getting a new terrain in the engine, it usually looks something like this: Overgrowth terrain visualization Using bright colors is an easy way to visualize the different information I have generated using GeoControl such as slope, erosion deposits, and so on. Once I am convinced I have everything I need, I move on to creating the ...
Overgrowth Soundtrack: Combat 5
February 12th, 2010
We've uploaded another song to the Overgrowth Soundtrack playlist on YouTube. The songs are composed by the talented Mikko Tarmia and often feature Anton Riehl on the flute. This is one of my favorite combat tracks. You may recall that it's already been featured in the Lugaru Fighting Fundamentals video. Be sure to do it justice by checking ...
Comic update, pages 25-27
February 5th, 2010
Here is another update for the Overgrowth comic. Terrain work has been taking up a lot of time, but I finally had a chance to finish up these pages. As I mentioned in my last terrain post, I needed to pick up the pace. I have been able to do this, and I am on track for getting 5 new ...
iPhone spec 3D art
January 31st, 2010
At one point we were interested by the idea of an iPhone space shooter. For fun, I did a couple test assets to show what it could look like. One of the interesting things about the iPhone hardware is that although it can display very few triangles, it has an enormous amount of texture memory compared to it's screen ...
Yet more terrain!
January 30th, 2010
Here are two more environments that I have recently added to Overgrowth. These are a couple screenshots from some new levels that I started last week. Some of these levels took a lot longer than I expected to finish. By looking over my progress on levels, I see I am averaging about two terrains a week (this is in addition ...
How to make pixel art in Photoshop
January 22nd, 2010
Although Overgrowth is my top priority, I really love pixel art too. As an artist it is important to keep practicing all of my skills because you never know when they will be useful. For example, I ended up making a lot of pixel art icons and buttons for the iPhone version of Black Shades, and I also helped David ...