Why you Draw Bad Assets || 2D Game Art
Summary
TLDRThe video script discusses common pitfalls in game art, emphasizing the importance of strategic asset creation. It highlights that overly detailed assets can distract from the overall scene, especially when repeated. The speaker advises artists to consider the use and frequency of assets in the game environment before creating them. They also stress the need for a basic plan to maintain coherent silhouettes and to avoid overworking details that won't be noticeable in-game. The script advocates for a balance between simplicity and detail, directing player attention effectively, and using contrast to highlight key elements without overwhelming the scene.
Takeaways
- 🎨 When creating game art, it's crucial to consider the overall composition and how individual assets will be used in the scene, rather than focusing solely on the complexity or detail of each asset.
- 🌿 In game scenes, assets that are repeated should have simple silhouettes to avoid creating distracting patterns when viewed collectively.
- 🔍 Players' attention should be directed strategically in a game scene, with some assets demanding more attention than others to guide the player's focus.
- 🖌️ Adding too much detail to every asset can lead to a scene that is overwhelming and lacks a clear focal point.
- 🛠️ Before beginning to draw an asset, it's important to plan how it will be used in the game and how often it will appear to ensure it fits within the overall design.
- 🌈 Hue and value contrasts can significantly affect how much attention an asset demands within a scene; strategic use of these can help direct the player's gaze.
- 📏 Simpler assets are often more effective when they are meant to be repeated in a scene, as complex silhouettes can become annoying and detract from the overall aesthetic.
- 🚫 Overworking details on assets that will be used extensively can be a waste of time, as the details may not be noticeable in the final game environment.
- 🔑 It's more effective to add details as separate assets rather than making a single asset overly detailed, allowing for easier recognition and appreciation of those details.
- ✂️ Reducing contrast and saturation on non-essential assets can help to create a more harmonious scene, allowing key elements to stand out more effectively.
Q & A
Why might detailed assets not always be the best choice for game art?
-Detailed assets can demand too much attention and make a scene look cluttered, especially when repeated throughout a scene. They can also lead to inadvertent patterns that are distracting to the viewer.
What is the importance of considering how often an asset will be used in a scene before creating it?
-Knowing how often an asset will be used helps in determining its level of detail. Assets that are repeated should have simpler silhouettes and less detail to avoid creating a distracting pattern.
How can directing the player's attention through art assets enhance a game scene?
-By reducing the detail and contrast of most assets and focusing attention on key elements, the scene becomes more coherent and allows the player to focus on important aspects of the game.
What role does the silhouette of an asset play in the overall composition of a game scene?
-The silhouette is crucial as it determines how the asset is perceived when repeated or viewed from a distance. A complex silhouette can become annoying and distracting when used frequently.
Why is it recommended to create a basic plan before starting to draw assets for a game scene?
-A basic plan helps in visualizing how the assets will be used and how they will interact with each other in the scene, preventing the creation of assets that might not work well when placed together.
How can simplifying an asset's details and colors improve its effectiveness in a game scene?
-Simplifying details and colors can make the asset less demanding of attention, allowing it to blend better with the scene and not distract from the main focus.
What is the significance of contrast in directing attention to specific assets in a game scene?
-Contrast, including hue and value, can be used to draw the player's eye to important elements. Strategic use of contrast can highlight key assets and guide the player's focus.
Why might adding more details and highlights to an asset make a scene look worse?
-Adding more details and highlights to an asset can make it demand more attention, which, if done to all assets, can lead to a scene where nothing stands out and the player's attention is not effectively directed.
How can understanding the principles of game art composition save time when creating assets?
-By understanding how assets will be used and their impact on the overall scene, artists can avoid overworking details that won't be noticed in the game, saving time and resources.
What is the advice for artists who are not confident in their drawing skills when it comes to creating game assets?
-Focus on the strategic placement of assets and the principles of composition rather than striving for highly detailed art. The effectiveness of an asset is more about its role in the scene than its individual detail.
Outlines
🎨 Balancing Asset Detail in Game Art
The paragraph discusses the common mistake of artists creating overly detailed game assets that may not necessarily enhance the overall scene. It emphasizes that not all assets need to be highly detailed, especially if they are used frequently. The speaker illustrates this by comparing two assets, one detailed and one simple, and shows how replacing all assets in a scene with the detailed one can lead to a cluttered and less appealing look. The key takeaway is that asset detail should be balanced with the frequency of use and the overall composition of the scene to avoid overwhelming the viewer.
🌿 Understanding Silhouette and Asset Repetition
This section delves into the importance of silhouette simplicity when assets are repeated in a scene. It explains that complex silhouettes can become distracting when used multiple times, suggesting that simple shapes work better for repeated assets. The speaker uses an example of grass to show how a detailed asset can create an unintentional, distracting pattern when repeated. The advice is to consider the use and repetition of an asset before adding details, and to maintain clear silhouettes in the final composition for a coherent look.
🖌️ Strategic Detailing and Contrast in Game Art
The final paragraph focuses on the strategic use of details and contrast in game art. It argues against overworking unimportant assets and suggests simplifying details and colors to maintain a clear silhouette. The speaker explains that contrast can direct the viewer's attention, and it's crucial to add contrast to areas that highlight the intended focus of the scene. The advice is to evaluate assets in the context of the game scene rather than in isolation, and to consider whether an asset is central to the game or just filling space. The speaker also touches on the idea of adding small details to a clean and simple scene to create interest without overwhelming the viewer.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Asset
💡Silhouette
💡Contrast
💡Attention
💡Detail
💡Post-processing Effects
💡Saturation
💡Tile Map
💡Overgrown Castle
💡Strategic Placement
Highlights
The importance of choosing the right assets for game art is emphasized, as not all detailed assets are necessarily better.
Assets that are seen multiple times in a scene should have a simpler design to avoid visual clutter.
Adding too many details to assets that are repeated can make a scene look worse, as each asset demands more attention.
The problem with detailed assets is demonstrated by creating an overgrown castle with too many intricate details.
Advice on how to improve asset design by focusing on shadows and highlights is critiqued for not necessarily improving the overall scene.
Reducing saturation and contrast in a scene can sometimes help, but it's not a universal solution for all design issues.
The key to a good scene is directing the player's attention, not just reducing the attention demanded by all assets.
An example is given where reducing detail and contrast on all assets except a few makes the scene look oddly acceptable.
The necessity of planning how an asset will be used and how often it will appear in a scene before creating it is stressed.
The silhouette and shape of an asset are crucial; too much detail can be distracting when repeated.
A simple silhouette is preferred for assets that will be repeated, to maintain a clean and non-distracting scene.
The concept of creating an underlying composition or outline before adding details is introduced.
The importance of maintaining silhouettes for a coherent scene is discussed, with examples of how details can ruin the outline.
Contrast and color saturation are identified as key factors that can demand attention and should be strategically used.
The idea that unimportant assets should be designed to demand less attention is presented, to allow important assets to stand out.
A strategy for drawing individual assets is suggested, focusing on not overworking details that won't be noticed in-game.
The value of strategic detail placement is highlighted, with examples of how details can enhance a scene when given space.
The principle of adding details as separate assets rather than making the main asset overly detailed is explained.
The talk concludes with advice to consider the placement and importance of assets before drawing them, to avoid wasting time.
Transcripts
I want to talk about an issue that I
sometimes see when people make game art
that is that they choose to make the
wrong assets take an asset like this one
it's in many ways more difficult to make
than this but is this a better asset
than this well not necessarily why well
if we look at this scene we can see that
it's composed of quite a bit of assets
some assets like this one can be seen
several times whereas other assets like
this one only appears once or twice now
I want us to look back at this asset we
still think it looks pretty nice but
take a look at what happens to this if I
replace all these assets with this one
now you might think that this still
looks pretty nice you might even prefer
this asset to the previous asset and
think that the details are awesome but
the idea of making this type of asset is
generally bad so I want to show you the
problem that occurs when some of you
make detailed assets like this one
suppose you're making assets to fill
this tile map and you want to make an
overgrown Castle so you make this bush
and you start making some nice detailed
tiles and then you want to make grass on
top of the tiles to make them look even
more worn down and overgrown and you add
these nice small details like flowers
and then you want to add vines in the
background once again you really focus
on making it look nice and on top of
this since it's a overgrown Castle maybe
add some pillars and once you're
finished you're happy with it and then
you throw it all together and well it
looks really awful now how would you
solve this well naturally you might want
to fix the assets so perhaps you see a
video with some YouTuber talking about
how Shadows tend to be slightly more
saturated and Bluer and highlights tend
to be less saturated and yellow and so
naturally you go over each and every
asset and add more shading and more
details and now each asset looks even
better we can even do a side by-side
comparison and see that each asset looks
a bit nicer and so you place it in the
scene and the scene actually looks worse
here's the side by side the left one was
before we reworked it and the right side
after more details but it becomes more
annoying to look at why well the thing
is that the problem in our original
scene was that every single asset kind
of demanded attention it was detailed
and intricate and our Improvement was to
add more details and more highlights to
every single asset which just makes
every asset demand even more attention
so suppose at this point you ask someone
else for advice and they tell you what I
just told you they tell you what the
problem is they tell you that there are
too many colors and that the colors are
too vibrant good now you just have to
use some post procing effects and drag
down the saturation and contrast and now
the game should look good right well no
the game still looks bad the thing is
that the key to making a scene look good
is often about directing the player's
attention you want the player to ignore
some things and focus on others if you
just reduce the attention of everything
so that everything demands less
attention you still have the same
problem the player still doesn't know
what to focus on so let me show you what
happens if I reduce the contrast and
saturation of every single asset except
these tile flowers now the scene
actually looks weirdly okay I mean it
looks kind of stupid but even if the
choice I made was a legit legitimately
weird because the fact that I can rest
my eyes on these tile flowers makes the
scene look kind of okay to look at I
reduce the detail reduce the contrast
and move the focus to something
completely nonsensical there's no
purpose to look at these flowers but the
fact that I know to look at them makes
this more relaxing so in practice this
means that before you even make an asset
you need to think about how you're going
to use that asset and how often you'll
place the AET in the scene and before
you start drawing please make a basic
plan so to show you why this is
important I want us to go back to this
scene the underlying composition of the
scene isn't too bad if I just remove all
the details from the scene and just add
flat shapes we get this and it's pretty
cool even if it's just basic Silhouettes
but here we can see another thing that's
an annoying issue we already have with
this silhouette this asset is annoying
and I don't mean the colors or the line
art but the silhouette and shape of the
asset is annoying just like with the
details in the asset when your
silhouette contains too much detail it
also becomes annoying to look at so if
we repeating our asset a lot the
silhouette needs to be simple like a
blob or a block if the silhouette is
complexed and we're repeating the asset
it becomes distracting so let's look at
an example so here we have a simple
scene with just a tile map and I want us
to cover this bottom area with grass now
grass obviously consists of grass
strands so we might draw something like
this but if we look at what happens if
we repeat this we can see that it
becomes a mess even if the asset itself
looks quite decent but this shape the
silhouette is complex so when we repeat
it we create an inadvertent pattern a
distracting pattern once again annoying
to look at compare that to what happens
if we just draw a random squiggly line
and color the bottom green and now we
have grass and it looks kind of nice
even if it's simple so you need to be
aware of how you're going to use it we
can look at this scene the bottom grass
here simple silhouette and the grass is
not that detailed and then we have this
flower it's detailed but it's not
repeated so it works but if you repeat
it it looks bad so if it's supposed to
be a lot of grass you need that grass to
be viewed as one unit the silhouette
should be read as one single chunk of
grass and with this type of grass that
is almost impossible and this is one of
the points of making a basic outline
like this first of all if you had an
outline like this you wouldn't ever make
assets like this because you can see
that this asset would fail it already
looks bad as it is so we should remove
it but more than that we can see that
when we have our final scene we need to
maintain these Silhouettes for the scene
to look nice and what I ruined when I
made the scene is that I made these
Silhouettes hard to distinguish you can
no longer see where each individual
asset begins and ends when you have an
outline like this and the outline for
this looks nice you know that your
finished product will look nice if it
continues resembling this outline and so
with a plan in hand you kind of get the
idea for how your scene should look
without having to invest that much time
and you might think that this doesn't
apply to you because you can't draw an
asset as nice as this well no this same
principle applies to you it actually has
nothing to do with how nice you can draw
but everything to do with how much
attention your asset demands so what
does this mean how do you know if your
asset demands attention or not well
let's look at this asset which one did
you look at first probably this one what
about these two assets probably this one
so why do you pay more attention to this
asset than this one one well one thing
you can look at is contrast if an asset
has a lot of color variation a lot of
different Hues like purple red green
that Hue contrast will demand my
attention if an asset has a lot of value
contrast that is very white things and
very black things the value contrast
will demand my attention conceptually
this will apply to a scene as well if my
scene is overall quite Bland but I have
one or two items that are distinctly
different color and are more saturated
those assets will stay out so if you
have this underlying outline you should
be outlining an added contrast mainly to
the areas that highlight this outline
adding contrast here or here will direct
attention to the wrong places in the
scene and thus make your scene look bad
it's important when we make our asset to
think is this an important asset that I
want the player to pay attention to that
is Central to the game or is it an
unimportant asset that is there to fill
the space and if it's an unimportant
asset I shouldn't just not overwork the
details but probably remove the
details if we look at this scene in
super skelemania yes the main focus is
around the character but at the same
time why do we have all this detail and
contrast on the edges here why do we
want to look here even though I can see
that these are rocks this consistent
pattern makes it look more like a
wallpaper same as what happened in the
scene earlier this mostly becomes
annoying now look at what happens if
instead of a nice tile like this one I
just have a dark brown tile the ugliest
tile possible but a tile that doesn't
contain information and thus doesn't
demand attention it looks better even if
it's the ugliest tile possible a tile
that isn't even drawn I'm not saying
this is good just that this kind of
looks better than this so if we look at
our outline this is the shape we need to
highlight so when we make our Bush these
details here will lurin our overall
shape and so we remove those details and
simplify the colors and we just skip
this asset and instead we can just make
something simple like mountains in the
background on these small Vines we
remove the details as well and now when
we put it together it looks coherent and
nice even if all I did was remove
details so because we know that this
outline works we know that as long as we
add details that maintain this
silhouette then our scene will kind of
work so I repeat you can't evaluate your
asset in this context you need to
evaluate your asset in this context it
might look good here but if it looks bad
here it doesn't matter and this is
actually important not just because it
makes your scene look bad but it will
make you waste a significant amount of
time with every asset that you draw so
let's look at how this affects how you
draw an individual asset for instance
let's look at how we might draw a rock
so you might see that I normally draw my
rocks kind of like this rather simple
but something as the unication is people
starting out like this then they add
some grass and then perhaps a flower or
to now I already mentioned how this type
of color selection is problematic
especially if we're going to use this
asset a lot in our scene but I want this
to look at something even more specific
we can see that this flower I made looks
terrible it kind of looks like I can't
draw a flower so naturally I would want
to fix this right well no that is a
mistake this is one of the biggest time
wasters that occurs when you try fixing
your art before you have actually placed
your asset in game I can draw and fix
this flower now it looks a bit nicer
right at least it looks significantly
better than the blue flower but if you
look at this asset in game it still
looks terrible we still have this issue
where when we see it in game all we see
is this red and blue dot we don't see
the detail we actually barely see a
difference between this flower and this
flower and so we actually don't see how
much I improved this flower and if you
can't see the difference it actually
didn't matter that I spent time fixing
it your asset might quite often look bad
in your drawing software but if it looks
good in game then it doesn't matter the
asset works so skip over working details
that don't matter now this whole rant
might you think that I'm against details
and I'm not I just want you to be
strategic with this placement and more
generally I tend to prefer the principle
that I can add an asset that is a detail
in my scene but I generally avoid making
detailed assets why well when you skip
the detailed assets but add an asset As
a detail it makes it easy to notice that
detail see what it is and think huh
that's cute and then we continue
ignoring it and playing the game a kind
of textbook example of this can be seen
in Adventure Pals most of the time map
is kind of clean and simple but then we
have some small assets like this skull
this flower or this root add it as a
detail to spice it up a bit a
consequence of all of this is that if I
want the detail to be noticed I kind of
need to give it some room if you make it
simple around the detail the detail
sticks out so for instance I might place
a small flower pot here and Bob The Blob
right behind it and now you have this
small nice detail and now the scene
starts looking more intricate and as I
mentioned earlier since we know that
contrast pulls Focus now if we want Bob
here to be noticed now we can make him
bright red since our scene isn't too
saturated and we have no red now we
immediately notice Bob but we can still
see the scene quite well overall I think
this generally looks nicer but all of
this said if we look back at our
original scene with this whopped bushes
this kind of works but only because the
mess is constrained to this area
the rest of the scene is fairly open and
relaxing but you need to have a sense
for where to add detail and where not to
add it and then you can start breaking
the rules more easily so overall many
games do a mix of this without any
problem where they have fairly detailed
sections of their game but at their core
they at least somewhat follow the idea
that this part isn't important so we're
going to fade it out and then they might
think oh we don't want it to become too
boring so we add a small detail here
overall there's a significant amount of
nuance that can be discussed here and if
you're a really skilled artist you
probably have a feel for how to make it
work but for quite a bit of you I just
want you to think about your asset
before you start drawing them think
about the silhouette and how you're
going to place the asset later on and
think about these inadvertent details
that you might be creating that pull
attention that you might not want the
problem might not be how well you draw
your asset but which asset you choose to
draw thanks for watching bye
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