8 Bit & '8 Bitish' Graphics-Outside the Box

GDC Festival of Gaming · 568.6K views · 2017-01-10 · 1:25:34

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Overview

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.

On Hacker News

HN repeatedly recommends it as a master class in limited-palette pixel art and palette cycling, from an artist behind Loom and Monkey Island.

Recommended by 13 HN people across 17 months · HN mentions 2018–2026

Topics

Game history & retro gaming Visual arts, photography & architecture Creative coding & generative art

What people said

corysama · 2025-01 · Strong recommendation
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 [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]
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chongli · 2024-02 · Strong recommendation
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] [VIDEO]
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imachine1980_ · 2022-05 · Strong recommendation
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 [VIDEO]
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Sources

Video by GDC Festival of Gaming, played through YouTube.

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