What processes, tools, methods are used by game artists to prepare materials for the programmers?
I am interested in tools (ie: photoshop, pixelmator, etc for drawing) and also how they are used together to produce texture atlases or individual images for the programmers.
Methods or way of working (tool-chains maybe), which can be used by the artist to
- Present ideas (sketches)
- Mesh up game images (photosop: front menu, in-game)
- Cut up images/layers into (ie: copy paste?)
- smaller individual pieces
- texture atlases (some other tool)
- Generate coordinates ie: (xywh) for button "Options" on the main screen which is stored as main_options.png or (uvhw, xywh) for in-game HUD which is in a texture_atlas.png.
- Any way to automate some of the steps above?
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The artist(s) might use hand drawings-scanner/sketch pad for illustration. These are then imported and further improved in some other image manipulation tools. The result then can be used to produce both preview of the game (menu, in-game meshups) and final elements which will be used by the programmer(s): individual images or texture atlases.
Which tools are artists using out there and how for game development to produce the material used by game programmers?
I am particularly interested if there are automated tools where a small change at the illustration part can be propagated to produce final production images/textures without the need for the artist to cut/merge them.