Making graphics for games is a bottomless task. No matter how deep you dig, you will always find more. More to learn. More tools, more tasks, more ways to build, and more ways to screw up.
I watch a lot of YouTube videos. There are a handful of channels I watch for entertainment. Things I find entertaining at least. It is mostly a cavalcade of old man nerd shit. Something that involves a fair bit of soldering. The other channels I watch are some sort of art, or technical art thing. A drawing or painting exercise I want to try, a procedural modelling technique, or some new way to compress textures more efficiently. I honestly can’t get enough.
I don’t just watch them though. I try a lot of these techniques. I test them out. A little at a time. Most of the time I try them once and then put them back on the mental shelf to collect dust. I can imagine to some people that would seem like a waste of time. Maybe they are right.
On the other hand, the absolute mishmash of techniques that make up my 2D game (that is really 3D) might not be possible any other way.
I recently watched a video about the graphics capabilities of the Sega Megadrive / Genesis. Something about the way the palette on that console worked triggered a thought and that reminded me of a modern technique for creating dither patterns and quantizing color in a fragment shader. A few code searches later and I had assembled a rough test of this technique for my game.
Is this the most efficient way to work? Am I getting enough work done on the game? Probably not, depending on the metric you measure that sort of thing by. But this is how my brain makes connections and how I work. With one foot firmly in the technical and the other in the artistic.
With that said, I also tested out some better ways to use color in my paintings, an area I know I struggle with. Those results are a little less easy to quantify. Shaders and code, though still creative, are a bit more concrete.
Maybe next week I can post up a few screen shots or a video of how it’s coming along.