You argued that Quake's art is not pixel art, despite the fact that it obviously is. The result of 2+2 is not a matter of taste, it's always 4. 

It's not as obvious as you think. 

Ah, glad to see you decided to ease up on the trolling, OTP. Pixel art is a modern style designed to emulate the look of early textured 3D games. Though id carefully crafted their art direction, it was not what is called pixel art. Yes, it was art and yes, they used pixels, but the comparison stops there. 

Pixel art is a modern style designed to emulate the look of early textured 3D games

Wow. 

It's like he's not even trying anymore. 

 

Mugwump and OTP are my OTP. 

"early textured 3D games" Please read "oldschool pixellated games" instead. Though I mentioned Wadjet Eye earlier, here I overlooked the fact that the term is also used for these 2D games that emulate the look of the 8/16 bit generations. 

 

Well yes, 2D productions a la Wadjet Eye and 3D productions a la Minecraft are both called pixel art. 

Let's put it like this: it's the 3D games I'd use "also" for.

Also:
http://www.wadjeteyegames.com/wp-content/uploads/UV-shelter.png

I can clearly see the use of soft brushes on the background. Looks like you tolerate "mixed style" games after all. 

I would also like to add that even though the term "pixel art" seems to be a relatively recent invention (correct me if I'm wrong), it still applies to older games retroactively. 

Did I ever say otherwise? After all, I do use hi-res textures on simple 20-year-old geometry. Question: how do you infer the use of 3D brushes from a fixed image? 

I wasn't aware of that. I've never heard the term used for these old games. If that's true, I stand corrected. 

I always wondered why the building blocks used for mapping in Quake-like engines are called this way. It kinda makes sense (because laying them is sorta like laying brush strokes), but not really. 

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oh...

*backs away* 

Yeah, 3D editing vocabulary is often puzzling me too. I've looked at your example picture again and I think you may be wrong. You're talking about the reflections on the facade of the building, right? Look again: the perspective of the reflected building right to center is wrong, it should be reversed with the side visible on the left, not right. 

No, I'm talking about soft brushes.

Brush is a thing you paint with. It's also an appropriately named tool in image manipulation programs (because you paint with it). 

Ah, this kind of brushes... I was wondering what you meant by soft. What's the mixed style you were referring to, then? I thought you were talking about the use of 3D brushes in a 2D game. 

Pixel art combined with not pixel art. 

Oh, right, in the sense that pixel art is made pixel by pixel whereas brush work is not. I have no idea how you can spot which technique was used in the final image. 

It can be argued that 256 colors are okay to pixel things. 16777216, on the other hand, is a bit excessive. 

I was certain I read somewhere that a lot of the textures in Quake were painted and then down-ressed. I suspect that many of them were touched-up afterwards in some pixel pushing software (as well as some made entirely pixel-by-pixel) 

I didn't know this game used 24-bit coloring. Is this their latest production? The last Wadjet Eye game I played was The Shivah, which still looked 8-bit to me. It seems the definition of pixel art has broadened.