Make the Game Art for Your 2d Platformer

Inkscape is the tool we'll be using to draw the game art and in this unit, you'll get familiar with the essentials of this amazing free, open source vector illustration software.

In this lesson you'll get familiar with the user interface of the program as well as learning how to handle yourself in the document.

Objects are one of the most important parts of vectorial illustration, in this lesson you're gonna learn what are they and how to use them.

Paths are the other half of vector illustration, in this lesson youre gonna learn how to use them to create your own custom shapes.

Before letting you go to the rest of the course, i want to share with you a few essential tips that i've gathered thru the years of working with Inkscape.

In this lesson you'll be able to download the resources and exercice files belonging to the Inkscape mini-course.

Before starting to make the game art of our 2d platformer, there are a few things we need to know, a bit of theory and practical techniques that we are gonna be using all thru out the rest of the course.

In this lesson you'll learn everything you need to know about tilemaps for this course.

Now that you know the basics of Inkscape, it's time for you to learn how to use the program to make actual illustrations. In the next few lessons, you'll learn the essential illustration techniques that you'll be using, not only in this course, but in pretty much any illustration you'll ever do. Starting with everything you need to know about boolean operations.

In this lesson we continue learning the essential Inkscape illustration techniques be learning how to handle complex objects.

We end the techniques lessons with the basics of illustrating light and shadow using Inkscape.

In this unit we'll make all the assets that we need to create a full mockup of a 2d platformer game.

Before making the assets we need to set up a couple of important things in the document that we'll be using all thru out the rest of the course.

Every Mario inspired game needs a few blocks, in this lesson we'll start by making the simplest one, the classic question mark block.

Let's continue with the blocks by making the classic brick block.

Now it's time for the items. In this lesson we'll be making the classic green pipe and the collectable coin.

More items, this time we'll be making a power up and a crate.

We won't be making a full user interface, but a convincing mockup needs at least a simple HUD and that's what we'll be doing in the next couple of lessons.

Let's continue with more HUD elements.

Before starting with the tileable terrain, i want you to get familiar with the basic techniques we'll be using to make it, and to do that i want to start with a slightly more simple non-tileable terrain, the classic floating terrain that's very common in a ton of 2d platformers.

In this lesson we'll start making the tiled assets of the course. And while other assets did fit a square tile, this terrain assets are truly repeateable and that requires a slightly different approach.

Let's end the tiles lesson with the terrain end tiles.

As i said earlier, this course won't go over the design and animation of characters, it's just too broad of a field to tackle here. However i do think that it won't hurt making a few simple and quick character sketches to better dress up the mockup, just keep in mind that neither of the characters are made for the mock up and are not optimized in any way for an actual game.

Let's continue with the characters making our second enemy, the carnivorous pipe plant.

Let's end with the most complex of all characters the playable character Marlo, the plumber. However becouse of the complexity of the character in this lesson we'll be making only the head.

In the previous lesson we made the head, now it's time for the body and the finishing.

Now that we have all the assets done, we need a background where we can build our level. In this lesson we'll set up a few things we need before starting making the background of our mockup.

We have everything ready to start actually drawing the background, so let's just do that.

In this final background lesson, i want to refine and add a few extra details, so the background looks as good as possible before start placing the assets.

Now it's finally time, let's put the assets we made in place and create our level!.

The level is done, but now we can give it some finishing touches that will make everything look much more finished and polished.

Learn the basics of exporting so that we can later export our assets to a game engine.

In this lesson we are gonna rip apart the mockup and export each individual object as an asset so we can use them in a game engine.

In this lesson i want to show you some of the best tools I've found that you can use to make your own 2d platformer without the need to learn to program.

Congratulations! you're done with the course!. Now, what should be your next move?.

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