This course is aimed to give you the tools and knowledge you need to start creating simple art for video games made in the Unity game engine. Through the aesthetic of pixel art we will explore artistic principals like shape language, color theory, and composition as well as show you a step by step workflow for creating assets that you can use to make your own games. The course is broken into 4 main modules, props, environments, characters, and animation. Each of these courses will have a series of video lessons alternating between artistic and technical skills culminating in a peer-reviewed project based assignment. The last module will challenge you to take the knowledge learned in the previous 4 and use it to create your own pixel art asset pack.
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Pixel Art for Video Games
This course is part of Art for Games Specialization
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Instructors: Andrew Dennis
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There are 5 modules in this course
What's included
7 videos1 assignment1 peer review
What's included
6 videos1 assignment1 peer review
What's included
7 videos1 assignment1 peer review
What's included
6 videos1 assignment1 peer review
What's included
1 reading1 peer review
Instructors
![Andrew Dennis](https://d3njjcbhbojbot.cloudfront.net/api/utilities/v1/imageproxy/https://coursera-instructor-photos.s3.amazonaws.com/ed/3f66c069c111e89a1177b280755026/dennis-andrew.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&dpr=1&w=75&h=75&fit=crop)
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Recommended if you're interested in Music and Art
California Institute of the Arts
Michigan State University
California Institute of the Arts
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Reviewed on Aug 16, 2020
Honestly a very fun and helpful course. Was able to learn a lot about pixel art.
Reviewed on Nov 13, 2021
I loved it! Explanations were very clear and assignments were fun to work on.
Reviewed on May 4, 2019
This is amazing, helps a lot...especially when you are a programmer and you need some art support... Thanks Coursera, thanks Michigan University Staff...
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Frequently asked questions
You can use any image manipulation program you like, however as Photoshop is an industry standard image tool and works directly with Unity, we chose to instruct the course with it in mind.
Projects and companies can vary wildly between who is responsible for what. Even if you end up working on a project where you as an artist simply create the art and are not required to handle the engine side of things; understanding how to prepare an asset for a game engine and the work involved will make you a better team member. You should always strive to have some understanding of how your work interfaces with others.
While the style taught here is simple 2d game art designed to get you up and running quickly, you will find the difficulty of the projects has a lot to do with the complexity you attempt. If it is your first time tackling these subjects I recommend keeping it simple for this course. You can always spend more time later improving and polishing your work. Perfect is the enemy of done!