Deluxe Paint

I think that Autodesk Animator was frequently used too.

I didn't work in games until the early 2000's, but I'd imagine that in the early 90's game artists were also using early versions of Photoshop quite a bit (verions 2.5 and 3.0 most likely), as well as 3D apps like LightWave 3D and 3D Studio for DOS, or perhaps Softimage 3D and PowerAnimator on SGI workstations if they were lucky enough. A good amount of the artwork for 2D adventures from Sierra and LucasArts were also done using traditional media and then scanned.

SiliconClassics wrote:

I didn't work in games until the early 2000's, but I'd imagine that in the early 90's game artists were also using early versions of Photoshop quite a bit (verions 2.5 and 3.0 most likely), as well as 3D apps like LightWave 3D and 3D Studio for DOS, or perhaps Softimage 3D and PowerAnimator on SGI workstations if they were lucky enough. A good amount of the artwork for 2D adventures from Sierra and LucasArts were also done using traditional media and then scanned.

During the Kickstarter for the new remake of Leisure Suit Larry Al Lowe had some interesting info on creating the art in the late 80s in a video interview. Let me see if I can find it.

I have the three primary versions of Deluxe Paint for DOS, the original, 2, and 2E, and I actually STILL use 2E for doing game art, though mostly just to plan ahead to ensure my stuff will look OK at low resolution, then I upscale to high resolutions using more modern software.

They were pretty powerful programs for the time and supported a huge array of graphics hardware. DP1 even supports JOYSTICK control... :O

But yeah, short of the legal nonsense EA tried and failed to enforce on people with Deluxe Paint, it was used quite a bit with game artwork. Granted, DP had a stronger following on the Amiga range of computers, with at least 5 different versions that I'm aware of.

Found it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfFeZEkyhM0 from 11:50

Autodesk Animator was an amazing piece of software for its time. After using it for a while it was easy to spot game artwork made with it (IIRC, the "contour gradient" feature was kind of distinctive).

Pretty sure that a lot of games used PC Paint as well - .PIC and .PCX were at least as common as Deluxe Paint's .LBM.

Hmmm...

During highschool, a geek buddy of mine was tinkering with an animation software named Graphic Animation System for Professionals (G.R.A.S.P). Not sure if it is widely used for game art, though.