• Light/Dark

How the hell was Hollow Knight's art made by a single person in mere 3 years?

fantalas

fantalas

Member
Nov 15, 2020
1,826
Hungary
ss_946e83ea924eff46a93e14e841bdbb1accd1654c.1920x1080.jpg
ss_5478c9192023a3b3e438c030caa0809b62523587.1920x1080.jpg


I'm not an illustrator but I have experience in game dev and have a hard time believing that Ari did all this alone in what I reckon was about 3 years or a bit more, I think it goes under the radar how much of a baffling achievement this is. Discourse is usually centered around the artstyle of the game (understandably) but it's worth admiring just the sheer amount of work a game of this scope requires in the art department (not to mention game design and coding/scripting is a meal of its own).

Just consider all the stuff that has to be fit in 3 years:
  • More than a hundred enemies and NPC, fully animated and often with multiple attacks
  • An insane amount of expansive tilesets, background and other decorative assets
  • A good deal of unique environment assets
  • A complete animated UI and icons
  • Heaps of VFX to accompany the environment, combat and UI - from tiny water droplets to attack VFX to glimmers on the UI
  • ...
  • + Sketches, iterations
Is there any other feat in game development comparable to this? (Or am I overreacting?) Again, it's not just the amount of work being done but moreso the relatively tight timeframe it had. (in game development standard that is)
 
Last edited:

Deleted member 3924

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
46,074
Talent and a workflow which can easily employ iteration to play to their strengths. There are videos on how they made it.

Deaths Door was done largely by 2 people.
 
Last edited:
Skittles

Skittles

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,627
Probably a case of a talented artist who works fast and won't get slowed down by having to go through corporate approval.
 
stati

stati

Member
Oct 20, 2019
5,271
Copy-pasted assets. In the second screenshot you can see repeat silhouettes and pillars. It's still a significant amount of work, but that's what you get when you spend every working day making more assets!
 
Wrestleman

Wrestleman

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,360
Virginia
They've done interviews where they go into the process of animating enemies and stuff, and it's particularly quick. They also use visual scripting IIRC and were able to quickly iterate. Quickly figuring out and locking down mechanics and enemies allows for you to only produce the assets once, and the simplistic art (not derogatory, I mean in comparison to the background art) for the characters allowed fast production. The bulk of the art load here was the environment art, which isn't quite as bespoke and diverse as it appears, once you look closely at it. They are doing a lot of smart reuse and especially do a lot of silhouette that removes the need for every asset to have immaculate detail.
 
TheMink

TheMink

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 26, 2017
2,984
Connecticut
AIan said:
Copy-pasted assets. In the second screenshot you can see repeat silhouettes and pillars. It's still a significant amount of work, but that's what you get when you spend every working day making more assets!
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Indeed, making the most out of the assets you already have is game development 101.
Their pipeline to implement new animated characters is incredibly impressive and efficient.
 
NediarPT88

NediarPT88

Member
Oct 29, 2017
16,301
I don't know but it's really impressive.

Also besides the art I love how the world reacts to your character, which makes the whole thing feel much more alive.

 
Dyle

Dyle

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
31,428
You can do a lot if you're passionate about it and the art style allows you to work at that pace. If you look at some of the stuff that a mod like Afterbirth managed to achieve from amateurs working in their free time for nothing it starts to feel slightly less impossible.
 
hydruxo

hydruxo

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 25, 2017
21,418
Every time I play Hollow Knight I'm just like how the fuck did they make this with such a small team. It's insane.
 

Deleted member 20831

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
1,951
I guess its the right time to mention that the a portion of the animations are updated at 50Hz, so for a smoother visual experience of the game you need to set your display to 50Hz (or 100Hz or 150Hz) and limit the game to 50fps (or its whole number multiples)..

Hollow me if I am wrong!
 
bounchfx

bounchfx

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,112
Muricas
yeah he absolutely killed it. it's gorgeous, cohesive, and honestly I'm so impressed with just the overall designs, and all the animations are excellent too. Can't wait to see if they're ever going to make a sequel.
 
jp319

jp319

Member
Oct 27, 2017
586
I think Iconoclasts was made by one person? Not just the art, but the music and the coding IIRC. Granted that game took like ten years but it can be done.
 
Dreamwriter

Dreamwriter

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,461
If you don't have a corporation slowing you down and love what you do, you can get stuff done pretty efficiently. Volgarr the Viking was done by just three people in a year - a programmer/designer, artist/designer, and sound designer.
 
effin

effin

Member
Jan 20, 2019
225
I'd love for any resources anyone has about the creation of the game. It's truly mind blowing to me how much art was done in that timeframe
 

Eugene's Axe

Member
Jan 17, 2019
3,824
I remember I hated the game on my first try but mainly because it was kind of depressing, however on my second try it clicked with me and I loved it. Didn't finish it because got lost but that's on me.
I didn't know it was made by only one person, lots of respect for creating such a beautiful piece.
 
OP
OP
fantalas

fantalas

Member
Nov 15, 2020
1,826
Hungary
Eugene's Axe said:
I remember I hated the game on my first try but mainly because it was kind of depressing, however on my second try it clicked with me and I loved it. Didn't finish it because got lost but that's on me.
I didn't know it was made by only one person, lots of respect for creating such a beautiful piece.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
3 people, Christopher made the music, William did game design, level design and coding and Ari made all the art (also probably helped out in game/level design idk exactly)
 
Necromanti

Necromanti

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,121
It probably helped that one member of the team used to run an animation studio, so the experience with managing those kinds of projects from start to finish must have been invaluable.
 
Jobbs

Jobbs

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,639
Quite simply, Ari is uncommonly fast. He has a background in boutique animation which obviously requires a lot of discipline and dedication. Combine that with Hollow Knight's purposefully simply rendered characters, and he can create animations for most units quickly.

It's definitely an amazing feat. The answer is fairly simple though -- it's by working efficiently and being productive consistently.

Incidentally, I'm making a metroidvania style game by myself that is very art heavy and is almost complete, so I have at least a little insight into what this is like! It's very hard but a lot is possible if you put the time in.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.