Modern NES Super Mario Bros Mockup

A place for your artistic side. Discuss techniques and tools for pixel art on the NES, GBC, or similar platforms.

Moderator: Moderators

Post Reply
User avatar
Drew Sebastino
Formerly Espozo
Posts: 3496
Joined: Mon Sep 15, 2014 4:35 pm
Location: Richmond, Virginia

Modern NES Super Mario Bros Mockup

Post by Drew Sebastino »

I felt like procrastinating from doing SNES coding or trying to learn Japanese or whatever, and I was bored, so I drew this, and I felt like sharing it because I thought it turned out pretty good. The question mark block could either be its own palette, or a sprite overlay for the whitish color. It's actually only 2-3 palettes for the BG.
Untitled.png
Untitled.png (1.73 KiB) Viewed 7204 times
It's free to use. And again, whoever thinks making NES artwork is more difficult than the SNES is crazy. Doing any sort of artwork (or anything, really) on the SNES is a chore.
User avatar
rainwarrior
Posts: 8731
Joined: Sun Jan 22, 2012 12:03 pm
Location: Canada
Contact:

Re: Modern NES Super Mario Bros Mockup

Post by rainwarrior »

Espozo wrote:It's free to use. And again, whoever thinks making NES artwork is more difficult than the SNES is crazy. Doing any sort of artwork (or anything, really) on the SNES is a chore.
Says the guy who does SNES development but not NES development. :P
User avatar
Drew Sebastino
Formerly Espozo
Posts: 3496
Joined: Mon Sep 15, 2014 4:35 pm
Location: Richmond, Virginia

Re: Modern NES Super Mario Bros Mockup

Post by Drew Sebastino »

I chose poorly... :lol:
User avatar
mikejmoffitt
Posts: 1353
Joined: Sun May 27, 2012 8:43 pm

Re: Modern NES Super Mario Bros Mockup

Post by mikejmoffitt »

Espozo wrote:It's free to use. And again, whoever thinks making NES artwork is more difficult than the SNES is crazy. Doing any sort of artwork (or anything, really) on the SNES is a chore.
That's a weensy bit naive. The challenge isn't drawing and arranging several tiles, it's working under the relatively harsh constraints (number of palettes, number of addressable tiles, attribute table party mode)
tepples
Posts: 22705
Joined: Sun Sep 19, 2004 11:12 pm
Location: NE Indiana, USA (NTSC)
Contact:

Re: Modern NES Super Mario Bros Mockup

Post by tepples »

Perhaps the challenge is making the more detailed shading that players expect out of a Super NES game compared to the skin-shirt-outline palette of an NES game.
User avatar
Drew Sebastino
Formerly Espozo
Posts: 3496
Joined: Mon Sep 15, 2014 4:35 pm
Location: Richmond, Virginia

Re: Modern NES Super Mario Bros Mockup

Post by Drew Sebastino »

mikejmoffitt wrote:
Espozo wrote:It's free to use. And again, whoever thinks making NES artwork is more difficult than the SNES is crazy. Doing any sort of artwork (or anything, really) on the SNES is a chore.
That's a weensy bit naive. The challenge isn't drawing and arranging several tiles, it's working under the relatively harsh constraints (number of palettes, number of addressable tiles, attribute table party mode)
Eh, I've done a fair amount on the SNES and NES and I'd still argue that it's a good bit more difficult on the SNES, because the shading and the fact that you usually have to draw more graphics in general (bigger sprites, more diverse BG tiles, more BGs, etc.).

I'm fairly good at planning things out like the color palette, so that's never really been the issue for me on the NES.

I know you could just go for the NES-style but on the SNES to avoid any difficulty like the number of tiles or whatever, but it'll probably be frowned upon. I think Mode 0 would actually be pretty useful for a lot of modern "retro" games that are meant to look like an NES game, but would have no chance of actually running on the system.
Sik
Posts: 1589
Joined: Thu Aug 12, 2010 3:43 am

Re: Modern NES Super Mario Bros Mockup

Post by Sik »

I would argue that the biggest problem with the NES is sprites, since they can only have 3 colors and many games try to go for a cartoonish look which means one of those two goes to the outline (so there's really only 2 colors unless the outline is one of the main colors too, but that only looks OK when it's a color close to black). Backgrounds at least can make good use of the background color (besides the three ones in each palette).

Incidentally, save for the mushroom everything in that pic is background.
User avatar
Drew Sebastino
Formerly Espozo
Posts: 3496
Joined: Mon Sep 15, 2014 4:35 pm
Location: Richmond, Virginia

Re: Modern NES Super Mario Bros Mockup

Post by Drew Sebastino »

Sik wrote:Incidentally, save for the mushroom everything in that pic is background.
They aren't in this case, but the coins very well could be. I don't find the 3 color per sprite deal nearly as bad as the fact that there's only 4 palettes available. I was drawing a Koopa and a Goomba, but I immediately ran into trouble because I wanted a bright beige color for the Koopa's stomach and eyes, and for the Goomba's eyes and teeth and body, a darker yellow like color for the rest of the Koopa, a brown for the goomba's head and highlights of the feet, and a brown for outlining and drawing the Goomba's mouth, and for the rest of the feet, as I wanted to make it look like the feet were darker. Unfortunately, this is 4 colors total, but it's only 3 per object. I actually wanted to see how SMB 3 handled it, and it appears that the Goombas actually have the same skin color as the Koopas, which I found odd. I guess it's better than using sprite overlays for the eyes for Goombas, or for Koopas, as this will cause excessive sprite flicker. The palette the eyes would be taken from is Mario's / the mushroom / whatever, and the other colors would be their own palette. I had started this, but I got bored.
User avatar
rainwarrior
Posts: 8731
Joined: Sun Jan 22, 2012 12:03 pm
Location: Canada
Contact:

Re: Modern NES Super Mario Bros Mockup

Post by rainwarrior »

Working with the palette limitations is really the heart and soul of NES development, visually. Decisions you make about palette management can have a dramatic impact on the design of the game.

Would you plan to have a status bar, clouds, or background hills?

If coins are to be sprites, are you planning to redesign all the levels so that only 4 can ever be present horizontally? What palette will you use for coins? (Sprite coins in SMB use the same palette as red turtles; which actually looks kind of strange, but you don't see them for very long.)
Sik
Posts: 1589
Joined: Thu Aug 12, 2010 3:43 am

Re: Modern NES Super Mario Bros Mockup

Post by Sik »

Espozo wrote:They aren't in this case, but the coins very well could be. I don't find the 3 color per sprite deal nearly as bad as the fact that there's only 4 palettes available.
Espozo wrote:Unfortunately, this is 4 colors total, but it's only 3 per object.
Now you see what I was talking about =P
User avatar
Drew Sebastino
Formerly Espozo
Posts: 3496
Joined: Mon Sep 15, 2014 4:35 pm
Location: Richmond, Virginia

Re: Modern NES Super Mario Bros Mockup

Post by Drew Sebastino »

I mean, both objects are only using 3 colors, but they have two colors identical so I really wouldn't want to make a whole other palette for one different color when I could just overlay them.
rainwarrior wrote:Would you plan to have a status bar, clouds, or background hills?
Not a status bar, but the other things. I'd probably just use another palette with 3 shades of blue or something for the clouds and those weird hill things.
rainwarrior wrote:If coins are to be sprites
I said they'd be both, like the ones suspended in air would be BG tiles but if you hit a question mark block, the coin that would come out would be a sprite, just like the NES games.
ptoing
Posts: 47
Joined: Sat Sep 21, 2013 11:56 am
Contact:

Re: Modern NES Super Mario Bros Mockup

Post by ptoing »

As an artist who is pretty OK at what he does, I would say that making pixelart for the SNES is not harder, it is just A LOT more work.

If you are a good artist you should be able to get good results from almost any machine, given its limitations.
From personal experience, working on a WonderSwan Color game atm, I can say that having more palettes does not make stuff easier, or harder. Just a lot more work. What is totally the case though is that you have to be a bit more clever about your palette use (at least on the WonderSwan where you have 8 16-colour palettes which can be used for sprites, and another 8 for background tiles (the tiles can actually use the sprite palettes as well, but not vice versa). So getting the most out of this is pretty fiddly and requires a lot of optimisation.

On the NES on the other hand you don't have as much stuff to worry about, so things are certainly a bit more straightforward, and while there is still a lot of room for optimising your palettes (which of course needs to be done at any case, on the SNES or WonderSwan Color you could halfarse and still get OK looking results), but if you do optimisation on systems with more palettes and want to get the most out of it, it's just MORE work, not harder.

The simple fact that when you got more colours to put in a given space it will take more time to make pictures using those extra colours.
Again, not harder (given you are a decent artist), just more work.
tepples
Posts: 22705
Joined: Sun Sep 19, 2004 11:12 pm
Location: NE Indiana, USA (NTSC)
Contact:

Re: Modern NES Super Mario Bros Mockup

Post by tepples »

That plus a parallax layer in the background plus a tendency toward larger sprites with more frames per animation equals a lot more work, meaning you may have to hire someone.
Post Reply