Is sprites the right word?

Hi all,

When I hear sprites I think pixelated images and this is quite often what you get. But higher quality sprites remind me sometimes of vector images.

If I'm looking for art, is sprites the right term to use? Or should I be looking for something else?

Thanks!

There is ambiguity to the term "sprites" but it does NOT only mean low-res pixel art.

More importantly, much of the best high res game art and "sprites" are NOT vector based. Many are hand painted, or pre-rendered from 3d or a high-brid of both.

You should be very descriptive when you advertise you need game art done. Specify if its animated or not, rough frame-count, screen resolution, actual size of the character in pixels x pixels on the screen, art rendering style (cell shaded, cartoony, painted, highly detailed, realistic etc.)

It is usually very helpful to link to screenshots of games with a similar art style to what you're after as well.

cheers,

Mike

Magnatolia, if you say you are looking for art, then you will need to be much more specific. Great post above by Mike/Brashmonkey.

For a simple games, I typically divide assets up into three major categories: Sounds, Music, and Graphics. When I want the visual assets, I will generally refer to them as graphics. The one exception I can think of now is when I'm looking for an animation, then I may search for a "sprite sheet", which may still be of any type of quality.

I think of sprites as visual assets that go into a production. And, once a visual asset is in a game, then you can call it an object, graphic, image, and/or sprite.

Anybody else have thoughts on this?

Thanks guys, the reason I asked was if you go to a freelancer website there is no category that exists for 2D/sprite etc, or even skill. oDesk has 3D graphics as a skill though.

What's the average rate you would expect to pay? For cartoony, detailed animated sprites. Say 2 animations each. I got a really great bird draft for $5 from Fiverr. Was really impressed even with the draft quality.

If you found something good a Fiverr, then that is probably the best deal that you are going to get. At least compared to the artists I know who charge $30-$50 per hour. I'm not sure what the average rate for the images you are looking for.

My recent solution though is to work with a budding artist, if you can find one. Then, trade credits in the games for the images. But, this may take a longer process than actually just paying for the graphics.