GDC Festival of Gaming
13 HN recommenders · recommended in 18 months, 2018–2026
1:25:34 · 569K views · Jan 10, 2017
Mark Ferrari, the LucasArts background artist, explains in a GDC 2016 talk how he draws 8-bit graphics. He covers color cycling and palette shifting to create complex animated scenery without frame animation.
HN repeatedly recommends it as a master class in limited-palette pixel art and palette cycling, from an artist behind Loom and Monkey Island.
20 comments from Hacker News
Mark was nice enough to invite me to his home studio when I was a new high school grad to talk working in games as an artist. He told me the story of the fight over dithering. I give him strong partial credit for ending up a game engine/art pipeline coder instead and got to thank him after his most excellent GDC presentation on the lost power of palettized textures this video You can see that power in action here [LINK] (Hit show options) [LINK] BTW: Deluxe Paint has been remade in Python if you want to give it a try [LINK]
If you are here and you haven’t seen Mark Ferrari’s GDC talk, you really should sit down and watch it. He is perhaps the greatest pallete animator of all time. Even if you aren’t familiar with the games he worked on, HN folks have likely seen his gallery of single-image animations linked below. this video [LINK]
this is incredible talk form the Background Artist of monkey island, about 8 bit and explain in details how palette cycling works, and modern way to doing the same more efficiently for modern games. 8 Bit & '8 Bitish' Graphics-Outside the Box this video
He gave one of my favourite GDC talks of all time [1]! I recommend this talk to anyone who is interested in the details and history of working on limited colour palette games! [1] this video
Every Deluxe Paint fan out needs to watch this video of the master of that tool explain his craft Mark Ferrari: 8 Bit & '8 Bitish' Graphics-Outside the Box this video