Hello,

I think you'll find that there's a pretty large amount of variation in what people do for 2D work.  It's going to depend a lot on your specific medium: pixel art? Painted assets?  Vectors?

Anyway, glad to have you on board.  Drop by the IRC sometime, though don't be surprised if it takes a while for people to respond at first.

I use GIMP the most, so .xcf files are great, but as a programmer I prefer .png's (with transparency). Also, .png's are nice because they're lossless and have an alpha channel, so there's no need for a color key. 72x72ppi is ideal for me. However, like Redshrike said, there is a lot of variation here. Different strokes for different folks.

I think you'll find this is a great place to hone your skills. People here are very friendly and happy to provide useful advice. :)

I also use GIMP. GIMP is great since you can do pixel art with or draw with wacom tablet. No need to learn to use different programs for that. While working with GIMP I use .xcf since it supports layering but when I need to get 2D art to game PNG is superior. It is lossless and support alpha channel. Alpha channel can be uses also for partial transparency which is useful when creating special effects for games.

I'm a GIMP believer also.  Not always perfect for pixel art (lack of a good 'outline' function, etc.) but it gets the job done.

Love your profile pic!

Johnno56

I have Wacom tablet and Linux and it works fine. Just plug-it in and no need to install drivers. When I bought my Wacom it had two versions: One without drivers or CDs to use with Linux and 10 euros more expensive for Windows users. 

So the Gimp technique I've seen suggested for 'outline' is to make a selection and then use 'Stroke Selection'.

If you use the pencil tool you can get a 1 pixel outline.  The problem is that this traces the selection rather than truly 'outlining' it the way you'd think of (or at least as a former DPaint user, I'd think of).  So what you get is line that covers part of the image you're trying to outline.  Hard to explain, but if you just picture a selection along a straight horizontal line.  The selection line exists /in between/ the pixels.  So when the time comes to do the stroke, it's an open question wether the single pixel pencil should draw it's pixel above the line or below the line.   From what I can tell, GIMP will go below and to the right of the selection line.  So along the top and left the outline actually draws over top of the selection.  This is totally fine when using fancier brushes at high res, but with the one pixel pencil on a 16x16 pixel sprite it's a disaster :(

The other method I've seen suggested is to make a selection, then 'grow' it by 1 pixel, then fill in along the edges.  This works but is kind of tedious and always makes 'thick' outlines, where sometimes you want thin ones.

Well maybe there are some better techniques but those are the two I've found googling it and they don't work that well :(

BTW

The other popular pixel art editor I can think of is Grafx 2:

https://code.google.com/p/grafx2/

The idea of it is to be modern version of the old Deluxe Paint program on Amiga.

I grew up using DPaint IV so I find this a noble endevour indeed, and it is fantastic tool.  

Unfortunately, for me now that I've got all Gimp's keyboard short cuts, I find it too much to try and learn new ones.  Must be getting old and set in my ways I guess ;)

There are also a lot of great pixel art centric plugins for grafx2, not the least of which are Dawnbringer's palette analysis tools:

http://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=12854

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=76519

So it's a good tool to have in your box even if you don't use it as your main saw. :)

re: Star Trek, I wasn't there for the launch of TOS (that must have been AWESOME!) but I was around when TNG started up.  Those were they days, when once a week you could be transported across the galaxy for another fun adventure!   Guessing the answer is yes, but have you ever played the NES Star Trek TOS game?   Definitely my all time favorite!  And that pixel art bridge, amazing!  Mind blowing how the NES palette was just such a perfect match for the TOS color scheme!  Oh and the Led Zeppelin themed puzzle is pretty rocking too!

Capbros: why would an outline tool be necessary?  I've never seen a workflow where that would be useful for pixel art.

@Redshrike:  I've mainly wanted it when working with fonts.

oh, something else, if you're new to OGA, be aware the main search engine is borked and won't display anything submitted after July 2014.   Fortunately, the new and experimental search engine doesn't have this problem, so that's the one you want to use:

http://opengameart.org/search/solr

Here's hoping someone fixes the main one sometime soon!