The document describes Bronte Parsons' process for animating and producing a pixel art video game. Some key steps included: 1) Setting up animation pages in Photoshop at 240x160 pixels for ease of drawing and coloring. 2) Creating a scrolling background by positioning a long background image and using the tween tool to make it scroll frame by frame. 3) Animating movements like walk cycles by turning layers on and off while moving them between frames. 4) Exporting the finished animation from Photoshop at 1080p and compiling all assets in Premiere, including sound effects and music.

1. Production Reflection
Bronte Parsons

2. Process
The first step in animating using Photoshop is
setting up the size of the page that you will be
working on. I set the measurement to Pixels which
means the brush tool will draw using pixels. I
normally set the Width to 240 and the Height 160.
This means that there is a that the page is quite
small so it is easier to shade and colour in.

3. Process-scrolling background
• When I created the page for the
background I used the same height but
increased the width greatly. I did this
because after I have finished drawing the
background I make it scroll from left to
right using the tween tool.
This is achieved by importing the
background picture onto a normal size
project, positioning it so the only left side is
visible, then I added a frame and click the
"tweens animations frames" and put 30 in the
frames to frames to add section. This means
there should be 30 frames of footage in total
and in each frame the picture will scroll
slightly to the left. When these steps are
complete I animated the foreground and give
it a green background which will act as a
green screen. The green screen is activated
when the utra key is placed on the clip
containing the foreground animation and
then select green to be the colour that gets
deleted.

4. Process- Movement animations
• To create walk cycles I made two
different layers in which the legs and
arms are in different positions. I turned
the first layer, added a new frame then
I turned on the second layer and
switched off the first layer whilst
moving the second layer in the desired
direction. After this turn the second
layer off and switch the first layer on
and move it even further foreword. I
repeated these steps many times over.
However when I created the walk cycle
for the protaganist in level 2 I didn’t
move the layers as they stay fixed in
the middle of the screen becasues of
the moving background. The technique
of turning turning layers on and off
can not only be used for walk cycles
but also for attack animations, death
animation or text that changes colour.

5. Process-Tool used
I used many tools within the Photoshop software.
The main tool I used was the brush tool which is
used to actually place draw pixels. The colour
boxes underneath the tool list enabled me to
change colour and switch quickly between the
selected pixel colour. When I am using the paint
tool I set it to size 1 so it is one pixel wide which
allows me to draw more accurately. If you hold
shift whilst drawing 1 pixel and then draw a pixel in
another place on the page a line between these
two point will be made. I used this feature of the
tool to create the diagonal edge of the road in the
first level. Another tool I used was the eraser tool
which I used to delete pixels that I have already
placed down. When using the eraser tool to
the pencil or block as it allows me to erase in
pixels instead of cirles. A very useful tool is the
bucket tool which allows me to colour large areas
of the layer. I had problems with the when I
wanted to switch one area of colour using the
bucket tool because it ended up changing other
areas of colour as well.

6. Process-exporting
• Before I exported the animations I changed the
image size. I did this by clicking on the Image
section at the top of the project then click on the
Image size section within the dropdown. Once I
was within the Image size section I changed the
width to 1080 and the height will automatically
change to the right size. Before clicking the ok
button I made sure that it was set to nearest
neighbour which stops the pixels from becoming
distorted when the size is changed. I changed the
size of the pictures that so when I turn the
animation into a video it is 1080p so the detail in
the animation isn't blurry. After this I exported
the animation by going to the file section then
Export the Render video. Make sure the frame
rate is 30 and make the video will be correct size.
I created a folder called York College Pixel Art
Video Game and exported all my video and
animation files to this folder and one
drive.

7. Process-Music, sound effects and
premiere
• I imported the videos of animation from the folder into the project window in
premiere and then I arranged the clips in the correct order in timeline. I
downloaded a lot of the sound effects that where hard recreate such as the
gunshot and car crashes noises from a website where I could download royalty
free sound effects. I made the music myself using cubase and Beepbox.com
which allow me to make 8 bit songs. I also did made some of the some effect
myself and my friend Torran did the voice acting. Once I had all of the
animation and audio clips all had to was put them in the right order in the
timeline and make sure that the sound effects match up with the visuals.
• I had rendered the video as I was working on it by pressing the enter button
occasionally I exported the video to youtube by clicking on file, then export,
then media. At this point the export setting window appeared. I clicked the use
maxium render quality for a higher quality video. After that I went to the
publish the section and clicked on the box next to Youtube this means that
when the video is exported it goes straight to Youtube. I then made the video
public gave it a title and selected the channel I wanted to upload it to. Then I
clicked export and the video was sent to my Youtube account.

8. Process-Music, sound effects and
premiere