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Weekly Challenge

Weekly Challenge: Eight Bits (due Aug 10th)

Clint Bellanger
Monday, August 2, 2010 - 07:43
Clint Bellanger's picture

Back in my day, we only had 8 bits and we liked it!

8 Bit art encourages artists to think beyond the limitations and create something masterful.

We already have some great 8-bit style art on OGA:

  • Check out this amazing 8-bit "chip tunes" style soundtrack
  • These town tiles would be perfect in an old school game
  • And these characters to match!

I've been on a big chip-tunes kick so I'd love to hear new music in that style!

Although you have 256 colors at your disposal for 8-bit 2D art, keep in mind that everything on the screen had to fit in that palette.  Often one sprite would only use 4 or 8 distinct colors, so that the rest of the palette could be devoted to all the backgrounds and interfaces.

There wasn't really any 3D art in the 8-bit era, but there are retro ways to do it.  Like turning pixels into blocky 3D representations ala http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoFYEtj2tDw

Good luck, and happy creating!

  • Entries are due by Aug 10th, 2010
  • Tag your entries: Weekly Challenge, Eight Bits

 

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bart
joined 14 years 1 week ago
Monday, August 2, 2010 - 11:13
bart's picture

Here's a chiptune version of an earlier song:

http://opengameart.org/content/hold-the-line-lospec-mix

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bart
joined 14 years 1 week ago
Monday, August 2, 2010 - 11:35
bart's picture

Here are some chiptune tips, if you're trying to replicate the sound of an original NES.

The NES has a total of four channels.  Two of those channels play a square wave, one plays a triangle (this is usually used for the bassline and bass drums), and one is a noise generator, which is good for snare drum sounds.

The NES had 8-bit sound, so if you're trying to sound authentic, you need to lower the resolution of your sound output to allow for only 256 levels.  If you don't do this, you'll lose out on some of the harmonics that give it a more authentic 8-bit feel.

Set the volume envelopes on your synths so that they don't fade in or out.  Generally, you want to immediately go to 100% volume, and immediately cut to 0% on release.  Drum sounds are an exception for this -- I set up a simple linear decay on the noise channel for a snare drum, and it worked well.

Some NES pieces have an interesting vibrato sound in the lead instrument.  This is accomplished by having 2 square wave synths, the second one about 2hz off from the first.

You can accomplish a bass drum sound with the triangle wave that slides down quickly in pitch.

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LFA
joined 15 years 1 month ago
Monday, August 2, 2010 - 13:30

wow awesome pointers!  that is super interesting to know :D

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bart
joined 14 years 1 week ago
Monday, August 2, 2010 - 17:56
bart's picture

Note that I fixed the bassline one my submission (the notes were wrong, and it was too loud).  I recommend listening to it again.

 

Bart

 

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bart
joined 14 years 1 week ago
Wednesday, August 4, 2010 - 07:02
bart's picture

Here's a Mega-Man-2-esque drum loop. :)

http://opengameart.org/content/get-equipped-8-bit-drum-loop

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bart
joined 14 years 1 week ago
Wednesday, August 4, 2010 - 20:30
bart's picture

Are you guys going to let me sweep through this competition unchallenged?  Here's an 8-bit remix of my airship theme.

http://opengameart.org/content/through-pixelated-clouds-8-bit-airship-remix

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bart
joined 14 years 1 week ago
Thursday, August 5, 2010 - 08:02
bart's picture

Here's a link that has the complete NES color palette a few posts down:

http://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showtopic=215169

The NES split its colors up into sets of 4, and each 8x8 tile could use one of these sets of 4 colors.  For sprites, you were allowed 4 sets of 4 colors, and for the background you were allowed another 4 sets of 4 colors.  So theoretically, your background could consist of a total of 16 colors.

Now, the catch with sprites is that one of the 4 colors you choose had to represent transparency, so in reality, NES sprites were limited to 3 colors total per 8x8 square.  Sprites could not have more than 12 colors in total.

So, all told, at any given time, the NES could display 28 colors on screen simultanously -- 16 in the background, and 12 in the foreground.

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Clint Bellanger
joined 15 years 10 months ago
Friday, August 6, 2010 - 08:18
Clint Bellanger's picture

Finally got my entry done!

Someone should make various weapon sprites to fit this animation!  It would be a great 8-bit challenge entry.

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bart
joined 14 years 1 week ago
Friday, August 6, 2010 - 19:22
bart's picture

Here's another silly chiptune:

http://opengameart.org/content/jump-and-run-8-bit

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Clint Bellanger
joined 15 years 10 months ago
Monday, August 9, 2010 - 06:50
Clint Bellanger's picture

Voting Time! http://opengameart.org/category/art-tags/eight-bits

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