Hello everybody,

I have a Question about 2D Pixel Art Games. (English is not my native language sorry)

I love Pixel Art and games made with it, so i was thinking about digging a bit deeper into this subject and make a small game with this art style. Nothing special, just a simple prototype-like game. As i was thinking about it and looking through some Youtube videos for some inspiration and help i came across a problem and i don't seem to find a solution for that problem - er maybe i don't  like the solutions that came into my mind.

It’s, as the title says, about changing visuals of the player character.

So i get that right, that, if i would like to change the upper armor part of the character, i would need to have every single animation for that character redone with that new upper armor part?

If i have an idle animation of 5 frames and have 5 different upper body clothing choices, i would need to make that same idle animation 5 times, which means 25 different frames?

Not to mention, that if i make the game isometric, i would need that same idle animation 3 times? 1x left right which would be mirrored i guess. 1x facing up and 1x facing down?

Is this the only way for Pixel Art games? or are there any tricks/tools i don't know about?

I Think this is why 2d pixel art games want to limit the ways you can look or try to have standard proportions and places where items are drawn. If for example hats always goes in the same place you can at least reuse them on different characters. By drawing several layers when rendering the character you could mask clothing in the different layers with different colors and get variation.

Good luck with the hard work!

6 hours ago, Giuno said:

every single animation for that character redone with that new upper armor part?

Yes. Like MatsN said some parts only need to be stuck into one point, like hats.

There is some shortcuts that exist. Like making the arms there own part moving this in your editor and then adding it to the sheet.

Making a vector plane and sticking the pixel art on it will give you a easy way of redoing pixel art, however it will stop being real pixel art.

Look into sprite bone animation or 2D vector animation to know more.