5 Steps To Gorgeous Game Art

by the end of this video you're hopefully going to know how to double your game's revenue because well you were able to make it stand out among the other games on steam now it's not about skill i don't care if you are the most talented artist or you suck at game art succeeding in game art is all about strategy and as a time featured 2d and 3d game developer i'm going to tell you my five steps to gorgeous game art let's do this now this is my game never song it's been featured by the washington post sits at a very positive score on steam and was bought by apple arcade that was one of the biggest deals i've ever done in my career and it's all thanks to well color this screenshot is beautiful but why is it because of the detailing no does it look realistic no so what exactly makes a screenshot like this look good well it's all about color theory it all comes down to simple math math is beautiful there are a ton of color theories but the six most valuable to know are the following monochromatic analogous complementary split complementary triad and tetradic if it's not obvious what these are basically we have a color wheel here and we've got two or three opposing colors being chosen on the wheel why do complementary colors look good why does triad or analogous i honestly don't know but they just look good the human eye loves these types of harmonies i mean it's the same with sound why do these sounds harmonize [Music] i'm not sure but it doesn't matter what matters is the eye the ear they're soothed by harmonies in this case six color harmonies my suggestion is to use complementary color as often as possible and maybe even be a little bit more strategic about its usage let's find two opposing colors let's say green and red maybe let's shift them to be a bit more warmer and also let's decide which color gets the most attention so maybe a little bit more green less red that is beautiful this is a scene from my game father and we're currently working on this game now let's instead just choose random colors for this scene [Applause] [Music] so do you see why color theory is so important just take a look at these games that use color harmony so effectively night in the woods is using triadic harmony hollow knight is using complementary harmony the same is true with firewatch it uses complementary harmony in fact most beautiful games use complementary color theory posing color harmonies for some reason just catch your audience's attention i love color theory so much it's one of the primary things that i teach in my art programs including this program called 3d art pro and the course is actually 40 off right now but only for the next 14 days you'll also get my new course 2d art pro completely free but only for this sale event there's just 250 seats available and these usually do sell out within the first couple weeks in these programs you're going to learn exactly what me and my team do with our artwork to make it look beautiful and stand out among other games on steam this is a different course than most other courses and that's because it's taught by a guy who's actually making indie games full time so join thousands of my students go at your own pace and master 2d in 3dr doesn't matter your level of skill just click the link below and i'll see you on the private discord server this is an illustration i did with a variety of hyper detailed shapes that i googled now this is an illustration i did with a variety of super simplistic shapes which one looks better the second one but why it's because it capitalizes on a simple fact of our actual world everything is basic shapes most things are basically squares circles and triangles so what exactly does this mean especially if you're an untalented wannabe game artist it means you should prioritize knowing why artwork looks good in the abstract in its most simple basic form before you start adding detailing or maybe don't even add detailing at all one of the biggest mistakes an indie game developer makes is trying to polish his or her game before knowing for certain it already looks good in its most rudimentary abstract form maybe you don't believe me let's blur an image of a horizon now let's zoom out it still looks like a horizon doesn't it that's because it's using basic shapes and honestly good color theory here's a tree what shapes make up this tree here's a pine tree forest what shapes make it up here's a cityscape what shapes make it up here's beautiful alex vance what shapes make her up so as you go about your life just observe and study the world around you and you'll see that it's all basic shapes these basic shapes are the foundation to beautiful artwork and after you understand these basic shapes you can add detailing or just don't even add detailing at all have you ever watched peppa pig that show looks like crap muted but suddenly when you turn the volume up it looks great [Music] what a great painter you are george that's because sound informs our eyes our senses are not independent of one another they're connected here's another example let's play goldeneye with great sound [Music] now let's play it with terrible sound your game can look like it's from the 90s it can use simple shapes simple color theory but if it has killer sound it's going to suddenly feel completely alive and more importantly feel like it's worth the 15 that you're asking for so how exactly do you create beautiful sounds that complement your artwork well there's actually two ways the first is to ensure your sound is immediate this is because of something called game feel essentially you want your player to feel like they are in your world they won't feel like they're in your world if they press a button and they don't get immediate feedback so when they press play on a menu for example instead of no sound or maybe a slow sound why not play an immediate epic sound suddenly the game looks and feels ten times better the same is true for footsteps attacking or snorting the second way to use sound effectively is to provide a full range of frequencies in your sounds so for a gunshot sound instead of just a bassy boom for a rocket why not also throw in a mid-range sound and a high-pitched sound we're taking all these sounds from freesound.org or maybe artless.io and then we're combining them all to hit all the frequencies fast and full audio that's how you make your visuals pop fast and full works in other areas of my life as well especially with your mom this is a scene from my game about a dog doesn't have a name yet but it's a game that i'm really enjoying working on it's kind of a mess there's a lot of strange lines and tangents all over the place there's not really much intention behind this world now this is the same game asset same scene but things are placed strategically it looks 10 times better that's because of organized intention aka cleanliness players can sense even on a subconscious level how much time you've spent on your game's scene they don't know that they sense it but they just do and this feeling of respect this feeling of cleanliness it makes things weirdly look beautiful it's why the original banjo-kazooie from the 90s looks way better than banjo-kazooie nuts and bolts it's because the newer high-res higher poly game is a junk drawer everything is everywhere it's also why super hot looks better than babylon's fall which is rated one of the 10 worst games of 2022. less is more clean up your scene especially if you're an indie you don't have the money or the time to create billions of assets and billions of textures really you should limit yourself because of your budget and that limitation is actually a strength last but most definitely not least let's talk about depth when in doubt add some depth to your scene whether it's 2d or 3d adding depth to your scene is going to make it really pop this is one of the primary reasons hollow knight looks so freaking incredible this scene in particular has i don't know 12 layers or maybe more now depth doesn't just magically occur when you stack sprites on top of each other in 2d or if you create a really big world in 3d depth actually occurs because of two primary reasons fog global fog in 3d is actually pretty easy to apply in unity you just simply tick the global fog box and mess with the parameters and voila it magically appears in 2d this is a bit more challenging essentially you need to decide what color the forest point of the camera is for example a blue or gray sky and you slowly blend the layers into that color as they get further and further away from the camera and by the way this is true in any weather or temperature or climate everything eventually fades into a single color that's because of atmosphere no matter how thick or thin the atmosphere things are eventually going to blend into the sky this is actually one of bob ross's primary tricks in his paintings second you can also use a lens blur effect in 3d or in 2d maybe add some gaussian blur in photoshop to your sprites as objects get further and further away from the camera or they get closer to the camera you can add some blur this is done in games like hollow knight now these two methods are especially valuable to use in low end games from the 90s or just low budget games like yours here's silent hill with fog and without fog if you do these five steps to your artwork i promise you it's gonna make your game look so much better and help you stand out on steam thanks for watching guys if you enjoyed this video be sure to leave a like subscribe for more indie game content like this and also leave a comment below about what you think and don't forget to download that free 2d game kit below or get 40 off my massive 3dr program and you're also going to get my 2dr program completely free join thousands of other students take part in a private discord server and go at your own pace there's about 250 seats available i'll see you there i'll talk to you later cheers

Channel: Thomas Brush

Views: 154,002

Keywords: thomas, brush, Unity, Unity game dev, Gamedev, indie gamedev, indie game devlog, game devblog, how to make a game, software engineering, computer programming, tutorial, how to, develop games, Programming a Boss For my Game, sam hogan, brackeys, dani2, devlog, game, adding weapons, epic, half life 3, Indie, Game, Development, Tutorial, Create games, Learn Unity, Photoshop, 2D Game Art, Hollowknight, How To Make Games, Platformer, Artwork, Unreal, illustration, Start A Game Studio

Id: gTZT8GE5928

Length: 10min 29sec (629 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 09 2022