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8 Bit & '8 Bitish' Graphics-Outside the Box

GDC Festival of Gaming · talk · Watch on YouTube

Game history & retro gamingVisual arts, photography & architectureCreative coding & generative art

What it is

Mark Ferrari, the LucasArts background artist, explains in a GDC 2016 talk how he draws 8-bit graphics. He covers color cycling and palette shifting to create complex animated scenery without frame animation.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN repeatedly recommends it as a master class in limited-palette pixel art and palette cycling, from an artist behind Loom and Monkey Island.

  • 13 people recommended it
  • 17 different months
  • 6 strong recommendations
  • first 2018, last 2026

What HN commenters said

  1. “you really should sit down and watch it.”

    Mark Ferrari on palette animation and 8-bit art.

    corysama, 2018-06 · Strong recommendation · in “GrafX2 – a bitmap paint program inspired by Amiga programs”

  2. “Obligatory recommendation for this talk by Mark Ferrari”

    Talk by the artist behind Loom's EGA backgrounds.

    Macuyiko, 2021-03 · Strong recommendation · in “Loom EGA/VGA Comparison”

  3. “this is incredible talk form the Background Artist of monkey island”

    Explains in detail how palette cycling works and modern uses.

    imachine1980_, 2022-05 · Strong recommendation · in “Living Worlds: 8 Bit art animated with palette cycling (2012)”

  4. “I recommend this talk to anyone who is interested in the details and history of working on limited colour palette games!”

    Details and history of limited colour palette games.

    chongli, 2024-02 · Strong recommendation · in “How video games use lookup tables”

  5. “Artist's view on constrained palettes and artistic inspiration.”

    codetrotter, 2018-11 · Recommendation · in “Dithering Process, Return of the Obra Dinn (2017)”

  6. “Watch this talk from Mark Ferrari, for example”

    Shows early PC pixel art and color cycling.

    kick, 2019-12 · Recommendation · in “A Pixel Artist Renounces Pixel Art (2015)”

  7. “Ferrari on creating pixel art for LucasArts games.”

    arexxbifs, 2020-05 · Recommendation · in “I wrote Task Manager and I just remembered something”

  8. “The things they achieved with pallette switching were unbelievable”

    Classic adventure game artist on palette switching in paint programs.

    rozab, 2020-12 · Recommendation · in “Designing 2D graphics in the Japanese industry”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: palette cycling, pixel art, mark ferrari, lucasarts, deluxe paint, gdc

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