What do you use to create PC Engine graphics?

[touko]

RGB2PCE

[SignOfZeta]

Do any (all?) of these "pixel art"-specific programs easily accommodate working from scanned original line art? I'd really like to get into this sort of thing but I about as far as possible from those dudes that can draw with a mouse.

I want to do this "Capcom 1995" style.

Gimp, if you want to go the free route, and it's a good program. Just a bit of a learning curve.

From what I know of Gimp it's basically a Photoshop clone for a system nobody uses unless they have some kind of political axe to grind. I don't want anything close to that powerful. I want something tailored to low res low color graphics.

I already have Adobe CS 2, btw.

[Nando]

Do any (all?) of these "pixel art"-specific programs easily accommodate working from scanned original line art? I'd really like to get into this sort of thing but I about as far as possible from those dudes that can draw with a mouse.

I want to do this "Capcom 1995" style.

Gimp, if you want to go the free route, and it's a good program. Just a bit of a learning curve.

From what I know of Gimp it's basically a Photoshop clone for a system nobody uses unless they have some kind of political axe to grind. I don't want anything close to that powerful. I want something tailored to low res low color graphics.

I already have Adobe CS 2, btw.

It's available for Unix, Win and Mac, so not sure what you are referring to there, but if you have CS2, you've got plenty of horsepower right there.

You may want to download this

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-kEqV4nGSbHs/T14FjBUivOI/AAAAAAAACDs/twRXY-zes2U/s800/pcenginecolourpalette.png

it's the color palette for the system. Took that one from Paul on one of the spriting posts here. 

[Arkhan]

GIMP is only useful to un-f*ck the palettes from Photoshop.


It's GIMPed otherwise.

[spenoza]

Well, GIMP is free and Photoshop is like $700, so even if GIMP is a lot harder to deal with it has a distinct economic advantage.

[Necromancer]

Well, GIMP is free and Photoshop is like $700, so even if GIMP is a lot harder to deal with it has a distinct economic advantage.

There's also the GimpShop version (still free) that makes it look more like Photoshop.

[Arkhan]

Well, GIMP is free and Photoshop is like $700, so even if GIMP is a lot harder to deal with it has a distinct economic advantage.

For free, you could just use Grafx2 instead, or get one of the other freebies.  GIMP and Photoshop are both over complicated. 

For retro game art, bitches ain't need nothin but MS PAINT.

[SignOfZeta]

Well, GIMP is free and Photoshop is like $700, so even if GIMP is a lot harder to deal with it has a distinct economic advantage.

I think both are ten thousand times more powerful than what I want for a job like this.

[Arkhan]

Zetotottoo:

Try Grafx2

If you don't understand how to use it, you should probably never open a paint program again. 

It's like, the easiest pixelfu program in existence, to be honest.

What you see is what you get.  Big Amiga looking buttons.

[Nando]

Well, GIMP is free and Photoshop is like $700, so even if GIMP is a lot harder to deal with it has a distinct economic advantage.

I think both are ten thousand times more powerful than what I want for a job like this.

They are for sure.

[spenoza]

Well, GIMP is free and Photoshop is like $700, so even if GIMP is a lot harder to deal with it has a distinct economic advantage.

GIMP and Photoshop are both over complicated. 

For simple stuff like this, hells yeah, but I still think GIMP isn't totally GIMPed given what it CAN do in skilled hands, especially given the cost.

[Arkhan]

You should see what people I know have done in MSPaint.  Good artists can get shit done with shitty tools!

[nodtveidt]

I use Paint Shop Pro 7.02. Version 8 and higher tries to be too much like Photoshop, including the time it takes to start the f*cking program... 7 starts up really fast and is well-suited to low-color work, plus has good palette management stuffs and easily works with 16 color PCX files.

[soop]

I got my PCX background and it was nice and easy   I'm using Grafx 2 right now.

The picture I'm using is a bit small, so I guess I'll just have to use a border or something.  However, I can't believe there isn't a drag and drop option for multiple tiles in Mappy - Do I have to do an entire screen by hand?

Or can I perhaps make 32x32 tiles and convert them when the map is done?  And I guess the other thing is, if I have a static background, how many unique tiles can I get away with?

[nodtveidt]

For static backgrounds... if you're using the load_background() function, there is no "practical" limit aside from VRAM limits... if you're using the mapper though, you're limited to 256 unique tiles, regardless if you're using 8x8 tiles or 16x16 metatiles.