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[Virtz]

Because Minecraft's graphics was pixelized. Duh.

It's the only reason why we see "8-bit" in modern "indie" sphere. Following the leader, etc.

So much wrong with this, I have to suspect you of being sarcastic.
Minecraft is not "pixelized" it's made of voxels, which is a whole different, "lego-ish", aesthetic. (one which I, incidentally, dislike but judging by the 2 billion price tag I'm in the minority)
compare and contrast
the pixelated look of indie games comes from the "8-bit" look, which (surprise!) come from the "8-bit" era which the developers grew up in.
And even that isn't the only reason we see pixelated 2d graphics. As anyone whose ever hanged around in game dev circles around the early 2000s knows, sprite animation is the simplest one there is, prevented from being the "bottom tier" only by the existence of "perpetual placeholder" graphics. (It's amazing just how "uncool" the style was back then compared to now)

That's wrong as well. That's not voxels. A voxel is a volumetric pixel. And a pixel is monochromatic. Minecraft has cubic tiles with shitty, pixelated textures.

[Ozyton]

That's wrong as well. That's not voxels. A voxel is a volumetric pixel. And a pixel is monochromatic. Minecraft has cubic tiles with shitty, pixelated textures.

It may be wrong, but people have been getting it wrong for so long that the wrong definition has become the popular definition (What's the word for this?). I find the blocks with laughably low texture resolution to be pretty hard to look at, myself. At least in games like Terraria the sprites are small enough that the art isn't hideous, and you can't zoom in on them.

There was a game called Ace of Spades, and while it did have blocks like Minecraft I seem to remember that it was actually rendered with voxels, which made looking up or down at extreme angles to be very trippy.

[Parsely]

Pixel work tends to be pretty clear, when it's done well. Easy to tell what X or Y is. It's certainly a hell of a lot easier to make not-look-like-complete-ass than basically anything else. It's also relatively low barrier of skill and trends toward lower resource drain. "Following the leader" is just... wrong. People were preferring pixel over other styles for 2D games before Infiniminer even existed for Minecraft to rip off.

:I

Pixels are a lot of work.

[Sergarr]

Pixel work tends to be pretty clear, when it's done well. Easy to tell what X or Y is. It's certainly a hell of a lot easier to make not-look-like-complete-ass than basically anything else. It's also relatively low barrier of skill and trends toward lower resource drain. "Following the leader" is just... wrong. People were preferring pixel over other styles for 2D games before Infiniminer even existed for Minecraft to rip off.

:I

Pixels are a lot of work.

Except when you're going for the generic "8-bit look", where you can always reduce the amounts of pixels way down. That also has an additional bonus: you can reduce the animations to a simple rotation movement (terraria) or a switch between two picture states (megaman-escue games and such), and everybody will praise you for "true authentic 90s experience".

True pixel art is hard, but that's not what all these developers are going for, isn't it?

[Parsely]

Except when you're going for the generic "8-bit look", where you can always reduce the amounts of pixels way down.

That also has an additional bonus: you can reduce the animations to a simple rotation movement (terraria) or a switch between two picture states (megaman-escue games and such), and everybody will praise you for "true authentic 90s experience".

True pixel art is hard, but that's not what all these developers are going for, isn't it?

This game? More like 16-bit. And fewer pixels doesn't always mean less work! >:c Communicating details when you only have 256 pixels to work with (in the case of 16x16 tiles) isn't easy!! >:v

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

^^This isn't a very good example (it's cluttered and it's hard to tell who he is and what he's holding without someone telling you), but it's 16x16 and most of my time working on this was spent adjusting pixels one at a time and trying to make details stand out, using 5 colors.

Just because someone is using pixels doesn't mean they're trying to make it look and play like a NES game. Some people want the aesthetic of pixels without all the work that comes with it. You bet your ass that devs back in the day would've used the tools we have now in order to make their jobs easier rather than impose artificial restrictions on themselves which would only make an their job harder. Unless you're trying to evoke that style, a dev isn't going to restrict his artist to 16 colors and no transparency if it means the game will work and look better. Memory isn't an issue like it was back then.

I think it's pretty obvious that this dev isn't trying to go for pixel purism, I think they set out first to evoke an aesthetic, then they decided how to do it in the most efficient way possible, whilst keeping in line with the demands of the game's mechanics.

[rumpel]

Would anyone be so kind and sum up for me what the Starbound hate is all about?

[Levi]

Would anyone be so kind and sum up for me what the Starbound hate is all about?

I tend to think people are just mad its not out yet and it wasn't the second coming of Jesus.   

As for the pixel art stuff, I'm a fan.  It may take less work to make(maybe) but most of the time it looks better than most of the 3d stuff i've seen.

[Scripten]

Would anyone be so kind and sum up for me what the Starbound hate is all about?

Mostly, people are angry because their development time estimates were off, there was something about a horse head, and people got banned on another forum. Maybe there's some other stuff, but it sounds like a whole lot of circlejerk to me most of the time.

[Frumple]

:I

Pixels are a lot of work.

The key word is "relatively" :I

Almost all art creation is a lot of work, especially if you want it to look good, but that doesn't mean some methods aren't easier to get into than others. If I wanted to do some basic sprite work, I could... like, kick open paint. If I wanted to do basic vectoring stuff, I wouldn't even know where the blazes to start. Well, beyond googling more info, anyway.

Would anyone be so kind and sum up for me what the Starbound hate is all about?

Some minor PR snafus blown out of proportion and slower than expected development, mostly. You can read through the last few dozen pages of the starbound thread if you want to see folks embarrassing themselves kicking a horse corpse over the subject. I'd recommend not.

[rumpel]

So it's mostly about the slow update rate? I see them posting their dev blog frequently and the nightly's are cool, too. I guess I'll just continue enjoying the game. Fanks for ze answers!

[Parsely]

Compare pixel art, though, to a hi-res texture on a polygon. Then you have to do multiple polygons for a single tree, so that's several hi-res textures for ONE TREE. Sure, you can copy and paste the tree, but then you can also do that with pixel art.

Whilst yes, in pixel art communicating details can be hard, it's less work making one piece of good pixel art than making a good polygonal texture.

Animation and modeling is relatively trivial in 3D and infinitely editable and blendable. 3D is modular and parts are infinitely reusable.

If you want to show character from a different perspective in 2D, you have to draw up a completely new model. You have to do all the line work and shading all over again. I can render a similar model in 3D and reuse it over and over without having to do the entire model again.

I don't wanna start a war over which is better 2D or 3D, there are pros and cons to both, I was just feeling a bit annoyed that someone should claim pixel art is easy after all the work I've put into it (by some people's rights I should be an expert by now but I'm not). :v In the end it all comes down to creating a style that evokes an aesthetic (nostalgic in part or whole, or completely original) and fits the constraints of the game.

[a1s]

all art creation is a lot of work

If there's one thing you take away from this discussion, it should be this.

[Graknorke]

all art creation is a lot of work

If there's one thing you take away from this discussion, it should be this.

[Frumple]

I was just feeling a bit annoyed that someone should claim pixel art is easy after all the work I've put into it

i never said pixel art was easy *flails about*

I would never claim it's easy! Just that it's easier to get in to than most other forms of art creation I'm aware of. Lower barrier of entry says little to nothing about the effort ultimately required to do whatever it is in question, just that it's easier to start whatever it is.

And almost, grak. A1s stripped out a word

[Graknorke]

The starbound stuff is... yeah, a lot of PR fuckups followed by rather stupid decisions followed by some more stupid comments (Such as a woefully under finished (for what they promised) game being called feature-complete enough to be 1.0 by the devs.)

Wasn't that DF-9 that did that? I didn't think Starbound had too.

And almost, grak. A1s stripped out a word

That's why I didn't quote you directly.