What struck me the most was not only the diminishing returns on 17-24, but how the 24's teal highlights became really distracting, it's like my eyes are constantly being pulled towards it

@MillsTC

2 ай бұрын

That's quite interesting, because I read your comment before I got to the part of the video with 24 colours, and I actually quite liked the teal.i didn't really feel much for colours 17-23 and didn't notice them much, but as soon as the teal came in, it felt like something clicked in the piece and it felt so so much more cohesive suddenly

@WarioShaker

2 ай бұрын

It makes it look like a sprite from katana zero me thinks

@livedandletdie

2 ай бұрын

@@MillsTC I agree to me it is the best looking sprite, it's as if it's a final render within a scene, with ambient lighting from behind, and the actual lighting from the front. So it truly looks good.

@wesleyr.6004

2 ай бұрын

Honestly the teal doesn’t look that bad, reminds me of a lot of the promo art for M&L Dream Team

@Green_Bean_Machine

2 ай бұрын

@@MillsTCagreed

This is a great study honestly. It shows both how important color choices are when working with limitations, AND why more isn't always better when it comes to color. I think it's great to set limitations with pixel art to not muddy things up, but honestly, every step of this challenge looks amazing. I'd LOVE to see this done with other game characters, like maybe a Pokemon.

@alyxgraff9121

2 ай бұрын

I agree. The less detailed sprites look more attuned to a GBC title, but by the time 32 colors was introduced it became way too crunchy looking.

@uponeric36

2 ай бұрын

​@@alyxgraff9121 There's quite a few things I don't understand about his process here, it was looking crunchy because he was choosing colors that don't match the sprite; IE adding teal to what should've been a darker curve (as it's going away from the viewers perspective, and mario isn't shiny) along with other oddities like the green, brown, and purple pixels on both of the hands. Of course it will look crunchy if you don't make an attempt to make the new colors you add appropriate. If you increased the color count traditionally via more subtle hue shifting and brightness adjustments you could end up with way more colors than this and it looking better. If you gamified this, you could easily hide most of the "different colors" in gradients that are too subtle for the viewer to see whilst only really having a few main colors. I regularly make 32x~ sprite art with usually more than 20 colors and I've never made art like this before. It's also very strange to me to start with a limited pallet, as all flaws to your colors can be adjusted by eye on the final piece with very few problems these days.

@akdreamer6497

2 ай бұрын

Kinda like how the Sega Genesis has less colors than the SNES but the Genesis uses its colors way more efficiently.

@danitho

2 ай бұрын

Depends on the project and intent. A larger image would allow for more colors. But, he blatantly says he's choosing colors that have no reason to be there at around 4:45. He's following a "adding too much" trend. I've never seen it in this context and it makes for a fun video!

@LRM12o8

2 ай бұрын

@uponeric36 that approach still runs the risk of making your sprite look washed out, or unclean. You can only fit so much gradient in that small number of pixels!

I like how the joke ~256 colour one looks quite striking on a CRT where all the colours blend together in quite a satisfying way. 👍

@SpaceManRD

2 ай бұрын

It almost looks like a watercolor painting.

@McofCOD

2 ай бұрын

Came here to comment just this. I’d like to see this kind of style done for a whole scene on a CRT just to see!

@HQ_Default

2 ай бұрын

It does kind of wind up making the image feel more detailed than it actually is.

@your_sweetpea

2 ай бұрын

The ~256 color one (especially on the crt) has a very "Braid" look to it honestly. Not sure exactly why, but I definitely feel the vibes

@TG_1023

2 ай бұрын

how are you watching this on a crt

It's insane how the new 5 five colors end up being just as good, or even better than the ones with much higher color count on CRT

@ArtRiku

2 ай бұрын

I was just going to say exactly the same ! the new 5 colors look amazing on CRT !

@Green_Bean_Machine

2 ай бұрын

honestly, the 256 on crt looks painted, its kinda beautiful

@LRM12o8

2 ай бұрын

Well, the new 5 color sprite looks almost as realistic as the 24 color one even on an OLED/LCD imo! I guess working without restrictions and then compressing it down like this is a good way to make realistic graphics work on a very restricted system.

@Spooky_Magooky

26 күн бұрын

I'd say it's much better, it captures much more detail whilst working with the same amount of colours. Reminds me of old NES spritework and how modern games like Shovel Knight work to recapture that aesthetic with newer techniques.

I love how the 256~ looked on the CRT. It really help blend the colors to make it look so vibrant!

@Gore_Whvre

2 ай бұрын

It was actually so cool

That comparison to the crushed 5 vs original 5 is insane and provodes a lot of insight over what's possible Would be cool (and overly time consuming) to use that technique to push the limitations of older pallets like nes

@Zizaco

2 ай бұрын

I made a video about this. There is an easy way to achieve that.

@jocabulous

2 ай бұрын

I mean they kind of already did that on the nes, they really had to didnt they

@incognitiosaystransrights

2 ай бұрын

if you look at a lot of chinese bootleg nes demakes, you can kinda see that, most notably in the fighting games, donkey kong country 4 and aladdin

@GraveUypo

Ай бұрын

it's not that hard to give an impression of more colors if you tint the whole thing so different colors can be used for shading and flat coloring on different parts of the pic. a while ago i took a photograph and turned it into only blues, then tried to crush it down as much as i could. i could pull off a good looking realistic picture with just 8 shades of blue and some nice dithering.

Overemphasising the colour count and reducing it back to such a lower amount while retaining some of its identity showed off a really fascinating end result. Makes me wonder of the implications for such an impractical approach

@LRM12o8

2 ай бұрын

Makes it seem like a great approach to make stunningly realistic graphics work on an old and extremely limited system. It would look great in a GBC game, for instance!

@autistic_potato1037

Ай бұрын

I want to see someone make a sonic or mario type game where every sprite has 32 colors, and then use photoshop to cap them at 5 or 7, see how far they can push the abstract yet realistic style.

Damn. As a professional pixel artist who's supposed to have a good intuition about all this, I must say that "orig vs new 5 color" sprites at 7:50 made for a striking image when it's lead up to and presented like this. I've spent 10 minutes just trying to comprehend that these two are both 5 colors, the brain fights it so furiously. Art-styles that get so much out of tiny palettes are always fascinating because the colors they use are highly strategic and purposeful, and you did an incredible job at illustrating how to approach this strategy "in reverse". The logical next step for me was to go "well surely i can use original 5 colors to achieve something remotely similar" - and yes, you can use blue as "dark red" and red as "dark skintone" and introduce sel-out and a shading level and AA and a few tricks to the original sprite to get a pretty interesting result by moving in a somewhat unexpected direction. It opens your mind a little. In other words, this video is golden. From now on I'm including it in my list of resources to recommend to beginners, for sure.

@BJGpixel

2 ай бұрын

Thank you, that comparison surprised me as well! I was curious about how I might arrive at something like the 'New 5 Colour' result organically; it definitely helped to have started from the higher render to guide it into place. A big part of it is that I'd never think to render it with such a crazy use of highlights in the first place, so maybe it's just showing to experiment more regardless of colour count! :D

@cheeseballpete8944

2 ай бұрын

I had to individually count the colors on each sprite because I didn’t even believe it at first

@LRM12o8

2 ай бұрын

It's funny how hard it is to realize the number of colors, even when you know it. I also experience this effect on the GameBoy, which famously only has four colors, yet it often looks like much more (and sometimes also less). The most interesting thing though is how ot doesn't translate to other things. For instance the Super Mario levels. I've never noticed the repetitive nature of the background or the similarities in level design (safe for the most obvious ones), but ever since I've watched a deepdive into how the SMB levels are built and how the glitch levels work, I can't unsee these patterns while playing the game anymore! 😂

The colors used on the final sprite had suprising similarities to the boxart of the Mario and Luigi games

@serenegenerally

2 ай бұрын

Mario and Luigi’s pixel art works becuase it builds up the detail of each character instead of distracting the audience

@ben0k447

Ай бұрын

i was also thinking yoshis island.

sprites 13 - 16 are my sweet spot, when the volume gets a lot more refined.

@narilcrow

2 ай бұрын

Стараюсь держать от 8 - 12 цветов.

@Vee_Sheep

2 ай бұрын

they kinda make me think of the Yoshi's Island art style, which i love so i have to agree with ya

@anonanonymous9670

2 ай бұрын

For me it's the 6th sprite just before the cap gets some shade, I like how simple it looks & it reminds me of of SMB3 which I really love

@PoisonFlower765

2 ай бұрын

I really like 4. It feels retro and minimalist in a way that isn't as annoying as I usually find those styles.

@detectivewhocoulditpossibl6834

2 ай бұрын

12 was mine, I actually really didn't like when he shaded next to the eye and my eye kept being drawn to it like it was a pupil.

this seems like a really great exercise in colour theory. im not sure what its called off the top of my head, but the method of utilising every colour on the colour wheel while also maintaining a sense of harmony has always been such an interesting technique to me.

@PoisonFlower765

2 ай бұрын

I know that in music, opening up to any note you want is called "Chromatic Scale", but "Chromatic" does just mean colorful so it'd be funny to apply that to visual art 🤣

@lav-kitty

2 ай бұрын

​@@PoisonFlower765 one of my artstyles is chromatic scale now

The last one really does look like a shiny reflective sticker.

@PixyEm

2 ай бұрын

What if they maed a Mario game based around collecting and using stickers?

@dextra_24703

2 ай бұрын

@@PixyEm it just needs to have a good reason to use them.

@cadencase5216

2 ай бұрын

⁠@@PixyEmWho's gonna tell him.

My preference ended up being where color choices were pushed to the end of their style: 3 color feels great as a 'minimalist, 7 color just before face shading works well for me, 12 color just before he gets the whites of his eyes feels really fun, and 16 color where he looks like he'd fit in with Yoshi's Island style.

I'm genuinely in love with 5 color indexed Mario, especially on CRT.

Seeing all the Marios lined up like that, it feels like seeing the plumber getting blasted through a bunch of different realities 😆 That was a really great exercise! I enjoy seeing these where you can isolate a single parameter (colour count) and try pushing it to its limits to see how it affects the results. Kinda reframes how you think of these things in the future! 🎨

@BJGpixel

2 ай бұрын

Mario: I've visited millions of futures to see all possible outcomes. Luigi: In how many did we save the princess? Mario: One. And thanks, yeah it was pretty interesting to discover some of the later stuff through colour reduction. I don't think it would have ever occurred to me to render a 5-colour sprite like that so it's neat to find out what's possible.

Cool experiment! The ~256 colors version looks more like an art-project, reminds me of Seurat and pointilism. Of course completely crazy in the context of a pixel game, but beautiful on its own :)

@BJGpixel

2 ай бұрын

Thanks! Yeah the 256 one reminds me of those collage-style pieces, where you'd zoom in and every 'pixel' would actually be a full scene with that particular dominant colour

Now animate it

@user-pl1xi8my2d

6 күн бұрын

LMAO impossible!1!!

@GamingBacon5525

6 күн бұрын

@@user-pl1xi8my2dI am an animator, animating is possible.

@yonakakurai1737

6 күн бұрын

​@@user-pl1xi8my2d It isn't impossible, but it'd definitely take a long time and honestly? Wouldn't be worth it to do it just for a video.

@user-pl1xi8my2d

4 күн бұрын

@@yonakakurai1737 We'll quit half through. But if somebody manages to do it, welp. Congratulate them.

Not to get POLITICAL but I do think this is a good demonstration on what's happening in the video game industry in terms of graphical fidelity. Graphics have become so advanced that each new console is starting to deliver those diminishing returns. I feel like we're in the 17-24 color range at this point, so to speak, and each new improvement is exponentially less impactful than the ones that came before. The bit at the end also shows why art style is ultimately more important graphical fidelity, too.

@DonnyKirkMusic

2 ай бұрын

I would love it if more devs made cel shaded games because they look so good at a high res. Its the best time for that type of aesthetic in terms of hardware because everyone could boost it up to a high res and not have lag at this point, and it makes all the lines look perfect, otherwise cel shading has lots of visible jaggies.

1:03 "I'm just trying to make a goofy sort of running pose, I sup-pose I-" Intentional or not I already see a pun! Very fun!

The 32 color sprite is really cool as pixel art. It looks like a watercolor painting in pixel form! Great work, Brandon! I think my favorite or the bunch ended up being the 2 color red and black render.

The "It's-a Sorta Me!" at 5:30 is hilarious 😂

i gotta say, i LOVE the funky colorfun lighting on the 24 colors one, even if it is a little too over-rendered and distracting. i love cartoony rim lighting and bright lineart, so i fell in love with the redone 5 colors version! it really helps me out as someone who has a style that strives for this type of vibe to see that you dont need to overdo bright colors to have a bright funky drawing in the end.

Holy Heck. 5 (new) looked really good on the crt.

This was absolutely delightful to watch. I like that you didn't really have a point, it was just nice watching/hearing your brain do its thing. The teal highlight in 24 really made it feel like the promo art for Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. It would be interesting to see a whole game scene in a style like this.

That's a pretty cool idea to play with and quite like how those turned out, they just look really neat. As a video I also really like just watching you work that as you mention might not have "a point" but just seeing the process of just playing around with an idea is super entertaining. Like even these type of videos where it's more just playing around with an idea really gets some idea flowing for me for my next works~

nah okay the 32 color one is just how i do minecraft textures. i love doing that kinda stuff. tho honestly, love the "modded terraria" feel of the finished 24 color one. its like way too fancy to be vanilla, and strays away from the color palette like any fanwork does. like thats deadass how some shit looks. also, love how eventually you just ended up doing things that some indie games use in engine lighting for. neat stuff! i wish i could be this much of a crackhead about lighting! and im already insane about it!

@anonanonymous9670

2 ай бұрын

"nah okay the 32 color one is just how i do minecraft textures" There's actually a term for it, block vomit It's when a build has many many different blocks, sometimes it can look good but it depends on the build really

I'm not a frequent commenter on youtube, but I really appreciate your straightforward videos with your amazing pixel art and relaxing voice! Your creativity always makes me want to create art and your content is always exciting. Anyway thanks for the videos, take care and keep it square!

@BJGpixel

2 ай бұрын

I tend to be the same when watching youtube, so I really appreciate this! Thanks for the kind words, and thanks for watching (...andtakecareandkeepitsquare)!

Nice to have you back, Brandon! I always look forward to your videos :D

You are a pixel art god. I love the stylized look with the wacky colors.

I missed your videos! Thanks to you I'm back at it and I'm better than ever! Stay well man and I hope to see you more!

This is honestly probably one of my favourite videos of yours in a long while! Such a fascinating process to watch, and honestly some pretty insightful commentary about the idea of diminishing returns with 'detail'

Wanted to thank you for inspiring to start my pixel art journey this year. Always look to your videos to give my practice some direction especially for retro styled pieces. Looking forward to more videos!

What a great video. I like the color indexing technique, that was a really unique design

I've been doing sprite art as a hobby for a few years at this point, and I can't believe I just now found your channel! Even this one video has convinced me to take a more intentional approach to how I think about color and shading. Definitely earned yourself a sub!

This was really fun and very informative, and I really appreciate it. Especially seeing how 5 colors can look so incredibly different depending on implementation was really stunning.

Just found this channel! I loved this concept and can't wait to see more of your creativity! ❤

your vids are so well done!! great job as always on the drawing

another great video! As always! I learn a lot with your experiments and tutorials! Thanks for that!

Really enjoyed your work! All of the sprites look amazing!

Great video! Super cool seeing that final comparison of 5 color sprites. Can't believe how much depth remained in the new one.

it's crazy that when you squint your eyes, the last ones look insanely detailed

Love it, keep up the good work!

This was such a cool study! Seeing you build up the layers one by one from 1 - 13 colors also provided great insight into how to think about shading in pixel art. This might actually get me to give it a go again in the future. Thanks!

i love your work man, you actually inspired me to start doing more pixelart, im still learning but im getting better

This was very enjoyable and well edited! Engaging, fun, and endearing. Thank you for uploading!

Such a fun exercise! Feels like you explored every corner of it too. That final comparison of the new 5 tones vs the original 5 was so interesting how different they looked.

I really liked this video. And was a big fan of the unique color combinations at the end!

This is so fascinating to me. I absolutely LOVE highlighting things with purple. One of my favorite tones.

This is really cool to watch, and would like to see more of this!

This actually looks amazing! I really like the final result, but I also really like the 8 color

Just found your channel! The pixel art looks awesome =). Guess, I have a a lot of really cool videos to binge-watch!

That last 24 color one gives me Mario & Luigi series game cover / case art vibes

This was pretty cool. I appreciate the insights you provide for each step. In a different video, I saw someone create essentially a mesh for sprite, and some of the ideas in this video could pair really nicely with that to get some dynamic, real-time sprite rendering effects.

Please do this again! This video was so fun to watch through, and I’ve been watching it over and over again

Woah that stylized 5 color mario actually looks really good on the crt!

Omg I saw this on twitter! It was like a little game to see what was added in each iteration. Imagine my surprise when I saw there’s a full video on it!

Commenting for the algorithm, absolutely fantastic work my friend. This as a case study in color counts is a master class. Very nice work and always enjoy your content. Keep it up!

I love this as a way to figure out a palette and to see how you should go about figuring out your placement and contrast. You can see how many colours you need to make something look good enough and worth the effort if you need to do a lot of sprites.

First video that I watched from you, I really enjoyed it, your style is really unique!

I'm working on a lot of pixel art at the moment for a game and this is a very helpful look at what is possible and how one might approach choosing colors or choosing things and I think this is good because it's forced me to be a little bit more experimental

A particular exercise! Simplicity often is key in pixel art (despite how impressive certain complex pieces can get) so looking at it on a palette angle is important! Also notification gang

"I don't think there really was a point beyond just *hey, colors are cool, I guess!*" Dang if that ain't me every day.

This channel is a gem I'm so glad this got recommended to me!!

This is exactly the content I wanted to see today.

I really liked your vid. The 5 color side by side towards the end was neat.

Great video exploring each aspect of pixel art alone

Gradually became a magical vacation/starsign sprite with all those colours

This is a really good pixel art tutorial. Simplifying it down to one color at a time is a really helpful way to break down a complex design.

This is such a creative idea, really like this.

Awesome work, love pixel art

I do pixel art for some years but only as a hobby and I also spend several months without drawing anything, but this video made me so inspired that I wanted to do something similar. I did the same thing with two characters and that was the most fun I've had doing pixel art ever. And also I learned so much!!! For example, my brain exploded when I used the same color to shade two different colors (like you do with Mario's blue clothes and red hat). Thank you so much for this amazing video.

man this is so so so so SOOO cool, great idea for studying pixel art :D it helped me sooo much, I'll definitely try this out >:)

That was really fascinating to watch!

Would love a 2d Mario game with this pixel art 😍

@Barquevious_Jackson

2 ай бұрын

A game with the 2 colors would be interesting, kind of like down well.

I really loved the video ❤ You really managed to squeeze 24, even 32 colors into this teeny tiny sprite, without it looking that bad, which is honestly really impressive

Great video. Always looking forward to your content.

This video made my day, you just earned a new sub

this is... actually a really interesting way to approach it. gonna try this sometime.

Not only insanely cool, but also very educational. You've earned yourself a new subscriber.

17-24 are giving Mario & Luigi box/manual art vibes.

what a fun video! my personal fave was the 12th put of your lineup. Super cute!

What I especially love are the two 5-color results after you played around with the color indexing, then redid it. I feel like I normally shy away from rim lighting as it often distracts my eye, but it's somehow not as bad when it's more of the surface area. Srsly, tho, this is just good color study, something I really never played around with until recently, so this is deffos a video that is right up my alley at the moment. Wow, what a result. :o

This is more insightful and useful than any pixel art tutorial I've seen

The comparison between the 5 color sprites is so cool!!! The new one looks so unique with how it uses the same purple-ish color for the cap and the pants

Comparing the two 5s towards the end was really neat and gave me cool ideas, thank you for the video! CRT New5 looks especially good, wow

This was really cool! That last row feels like the sort of rendering you see in the Golden Sun games on the GBA

This was beautiful, the 5 v 5 comparison at the end was so nice

Jpg compressed mario has some flair to it ngl 😂, love all of them

Cool study! 😊 Thanks for sharing! ❤

I've loved to see all those marios on CRT, but smaller models. To see how pixels got mixed.

It's nice to see another sprite artist out there!

This was super cool. I think my favorite rendering was somewhere in the 14-16 color range, but I think that’s mostly what my experience is in sprite work lol

Amazing video as always!

totally cool! more stuff like this please

This is so awesome omg

this is what I need today, just a chill guy doing something funny.

Very nice entertaining little video, not too heavy. really enjoyed the playful nature of this exercise

The final comparison between the two 5 indexed colors version is great. It shows how limitation can spark creativity if you know what you're doing. Great stuff, thank you for that video :D

This is such a fun video, and a cool idea to try at home

Great experiment! I personally really enjoy the nes-esque vibe. Just enough colors to get the point across. And the contrast is so nice for clarity.