What tools do you use to make your art for your games?

I am using Paint Shop Pro, and find it arduous. Most likely, it's my meagre art talents that's holding me back, but this program is difficult to use. I wish I had my old copy of Deluxe Paint for the Amiga. That was a great program.

Paint Shop Pro and Flash - rather outdated versions in both cases. Yeah, I'm cheap - but I tried beta'ing a newer version of PSP and found it confusing, I thought it was best to stick to what I was used to.

However, I've never really been a big fan of filters and visual effects, so it's good enough for me. Flash if I'm in a hurry and going cartoony, PSP if I'm pixeling.

I use artgem and pro motion. Both are much more like using DPaint, PPaint, or Brilliance on the Amiga. I especially love Artgem!

ArtGem is out of business, according to their website. In 3 years, they only sold 300 copies. gee..that's depressing. what if in 3 years, i only sell 300 copies of my game??? :((

Ola, the author of Marbles Deluxe and Superstar Chefs, also created artgem. I am sure he would set you up with a copy :)

I generally use Photoshop for 2D graphics and textures, and Magic (my homegrown low poly modeler) for 3D meshes. Photoshop took a long time to learn, but it was well worth the effort. I don't think I would have managed it if I hadn't been working at companies with professional artists who could give me lots of useful tips and tutorials.

" what if in 3 years, i only sell 300 copies of my game???"

Well then you better make 10 games and sell 3000. After three years, you should have some major skillz built up.

a slightly older version of Photoshop... I don't know what I would do with out it

I hate the ubiquitousness of photoshop. I never liked it as much as Corel Photo-paint for lots of reasons. But most of the time, in my day job, I have to deal with graphic artists that use photoshop, so so do I.

My issue with Photoshop is that it works alright as a layout and editing tool, but it's not great from a creative point of view.

Any my favorite 3D tool is Lightwave, which I still use, but everyone seems to want to use 3DS Max instead.

And my favorite operating system was OS2 warp... but nobody ever made any apps for it.

And I prefer pocket PCs to palm, but everybody has the palms.

And I thought turbo pascal was great... but they took too long to get to 32 bit, and platform ubiquitousness like C/C++ did.

So don't ask me, because my favorite tool always ends up being the one that looses. Except wordperfect. I never liked word perfect. At all. I'm happy with MS office.

Originally posted by jih
I am using Paint Shop Pro, and find it arduous. Most likely, it's my meagre art talents that's holding me back, but this program is difficult to use.

I used PSP back when it was just a shareware pup, and I really liked it. Years passed and I was in the market for a good, inexpensive 2D art tool, so I bought the latest version of PSP solely based on my previous experience with it. Well, that was a year ago, and now I'm finally getting to the point where I can do some neat stuff with it, but what an annoying learning curve it's been. However, as a programmer's art tool, it's still better than Photoshop, IMO, because you can get down to the pixels and easily fidget with them without the app trying to antialias/alpha blend/whatever them. :)

Photoshop all the time (though I'm still using v5.5). I use it for pretty much everything.

-Z-

I use Lightwave 3D for all the characters and objects, and Photoshop for the UI and some of the ground textures.

I find that I never spend more than an hour on a 3d model, since the final rendering will be such a small size. Because of this I don't texture at all and I don't go for much detail at all.

The great thing about 3D is once you have the model you can render and rerender it as much as you need from any angle. I've been thinking of writing an article on Graphics for non-programmers, but first I have to finish my current game.

If people are looking for a program that works very similar to Deluxe Paint you should check out NewTek's Aura (although it's pretty expensive).

I was on the development team for the final versions of Deluxe Paint ( VI AGA (4.6) and V) by the way! I love that program.

~Hanford

I'm not the programmer, but he uses these too - with only two people, we have to share a lot of tasks. We use 3DS Max (everything's rendered as 2D sprites), and I use Photoshop 3 (I stubbornly refuse to upgrade, hehe) for the rest of the 2D stuff - textures, interface, etc. We also use Leveller (http://www.daylongraphics.com/products/leveller/) for some terrain editing.

I also fondly remember Deluxe Paint! :)

-- Sparky, 1/2 of Octopus Motor
http://www.theycamefromhollywood.com

Originally posted by SparkyTCFH
I use Photoshop 3 (I stubbornly refuse to upgrade, hehe)

I'd love to hear why! When I worked at LucasArts there were a few artists who wouldn't upgrade to the newer versions ...

~Hanford

Originally posted by hanford_lemoore
I'd love to hear why! When I worked at LucasArts there were a few artists who wouldn't upgrade to the newer versions ...

Well, I don't like how recent versions of Pshop handle layers. I only use a very limited set of features, and I don't have time to learn where the Gribble tool or the Friznit menu is all over again (they always have to dink with the interface on upgrades). But basically, I'm just ornery and set in my ways.

Originally posted by SparkyTCFH
Well, I don't like how recent versions of Pshop handle layers. I only use a very limited set of features, and I don't have time to learn where the Gribble tool or the Friznit menu is all over again (they always have to dink with the interface on upgrades). But basically, I'm just ornery and set in my ways.

Hehe I feel just the same - though about the difference between 5.5 and 7. I trie dthe demo version of it, but just didnt get on with the new interface. Also the extra features were of very little use to me.

I don't know how different 3 is to 4, but i started on PS4, and upgrading to 5.5 was a very joyful experience.

-Z-

FWIW:

I'm a raster man. Never liked Illustrator. But the way Photoshop 6 (and 7) handles vector shapes is pretty cool. It works just like the Marquee tool, where you can add to a shape or subtract from a shape. But every addition/subtraction is maintained as an outline that can be changed at any time.

It has transformed how I use Photoshop. I do most of my artwork now with Vector shapes. It is really amazing, I can't believe I've converted. I don't use it for everything, but I use it for a lot. If you're doing UI stuff, the rounded-edge box tool is pretty handy.

It depends on what you're doing too (if you're doing texture maps it may not mean much) but the realtime Layer effects are great, too.

Sparky: That's the same reasons the artists at LucasArts never switched versions: they hated the layers changes (specifically, pasting creates a new layer)

Though we have artists who make major work for games, I use both Photoshop and 3DMax for some corrections and some game and website interface details.

Our 2d artist also uses MetaCreations Painter.

I use MS Paint and Arcsoft Photostudio 2000 SE. I've used Photoshop where I work before, and I never did like it. I'll need to learn to use it eventually, though.

I've tried loads of other little freeware/shareware demo things, but those two seem to meet my needs at the moment.

I currently use The Gimp for 2d and Blender for 3d. Both are free and provide all the features that I need. The main downside to these is that the user interfaces are not very intuitive - they definitely take some getting used.

I recently found out about the vector tool in The Gimp (paths). I have also found it very useful for UI stuff.

Well I personally use Paint Shop Pro version 8.0 - I think the newly added scripting interface is fantastic. Actually I think it's a pretty good app (albeit a little buggy at this point) compared to version 7. They did a nice job of fixing what needed fixing.

For 3D rendering and modelling I use Truespace5.2 -- and an artist I'm working very closely with uses 3DStudio Max. In reality I think Maya might be my 3D tool of choice but at 150$ (which is what I paid for truespace on special) there's a huge difference in price and most of the power is there. Truespace can render very nicely with hybrid radiation. The modelling tools are powerful but the interface is slightly clunky, the program a little buggy, and certain features broken. Still it's about 10% the cost of maya or lightwave for similar quality.

Lightwave is a tough learn, and it's pretty expensive. I wouldn't be using it except that I know an executive there and he gets me free copies of his software in exchange for GUI reviews. Not a bad trade.

I know several programmers who are not artists, and have started games, only to get stumped on the art. It's a lot harder than it seems it should be. These days I start immediately with the art to make sure I can handle the art style the game requires. In Rocknor's Bad Day's case, I chose the art style based on what I could do quickly (and it shows!) But I got the game done.

~Hanford

Paint Shop Pro here. Although, most graphics are done by my brother who works at a 3d design company (henc access to just about every 3d package.

PSP 8 is nice, although I still like 7 a lot. Photoshop has some nice filters but its hard to pixil push compared to PSP. (check out www.jasc.com and download a 60 day trial of PSP 8).

I also find that I like the graphis features in Fireworks. I love the shadow effects and its simple interface.

Originally posted by hanford_lemoore

I know several programmers who are not artists, and have started games, only to get stumped on the art. It's a lot harder than it seems it should be.

Why is everyone looking at me? ;)

For pure animated pixel work, Graphics Gale (http://tempest-j.com) is quite nice.

I recommend purchasing a wacom tablet. Although quite pricey, its so much easier drawing with it than a mouse.

I use Photoshop 6 for textures, Maya 4.5 for 3D modelling and I am quite happy with the combination. When I started out doing Space Station Manager I knew that art was my weakest point. I decided to invest in good tools upfront and immediately started working on the art to learn how to use the tools. I even attended a few non-project related modelling competitions just to get a grasp of what you actually are able to do. In retrospect I think the tools have been good investments. I was able to learn without having to wrestle with UI quirks or bugs.

Someone who rode a lot used to say that the easiest horse to learn riding with is a race horse. They are so used to excellent riders with authority that they are very alert and cooperative. The most difficult are training ponies, they are so used to bad riders without authority that they many time simply disregard the one in "charge" .. :)

Well...

I use PSP 7, have 8, but haven't had time to delve in. (started with version 4 years ago) My feeling is that I've learned soo much about art in the last 2 years, it's beyond explaination. Certainly that program is still capable of things I haven't yet realized despite all I've learned about working with images.

Also 3D Canvas for modeling. It is cheap and the developer will talk to you personally.

I typically use POV for rendering.

For playing around Terragen.

For drawing Xara Webster b/c I got it free when I got Xara 3D.

Although I don't have a game out yet, I've done some decent graphics with Paint Shop Pro 7. I'm looking at getting 8....

As for 3D, I don't have all that much experience, but what I have done, I've done with Milkshape. I know, it's not a pro tool, but then again, I'm not a 3D modeling pro either. :)

Personally though, for a programmer and a computer-minded person (as opposed to an art-minded person), I think Paint Shop Pro is The Way To Go (despite being computer-minded, I'm obviously a poet and I don't know it ;) ). I highly recommend it. Especially for the price. Plus, it supports most (if not all) Adobe standard plug-ins. So you can use those nifty Photoshop plugins without paying the Photoshop price.