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Hello,
In your opinion, what is the best suited software to create 2D graphics (not pixel art) for a video game? (using a Wacom tablet)
I own an old version of Photoshop, but maybe it's a bit "too much" for this kind of task?
Thnak you for your advices!
MS Paint is good. ?
Jokes aside, I think this is a broad question that has no one-size-fits-all answer. Adobe products are good for 2d content creation. There are also open source alternatives. Each have their advantages, as well as disadvantages.
If you were to create cover art or similar, I'd suggest Krita. They have good filters and it is open source. Also supports .tga format. It has performance issues though, so beware.
I wouldn't say photoshop is too much.
Full disclosure: I'm not an artist. However I occasionally have to make some graphics myself, and both for creating UI for my engines editor, as well as the 2D-game I'm working on, I totally like both the ease-of-use and power of photoshop. (the game is pixel-art, but if photoshop is “well suited” for pixel-art-like games, why would it be “too much" for more advanced graphics?).
I'm no artist but I use gimp for my graphical needs. Its free and more powerful than you will likely need.
I'm backing up the mentions of Paint and GIMP. Easier to draw in Paint. Can do lots of cool effects in GIMP. Nothing wrong with Photoshop, if you got it.
I posit there is no “too much” with this. If Photoshop works for you, use it. For now, at least, don't worry about the “best suited program for creating graphics,” and instead figure out what's best suited to help -you- create graphics.
Myself, I draw on paper and “fix it in post” with Paint.net.
Photoshop is great for anything pixels.
Illustrator is great for anything vector art, although there are cases where I prefer Inkscape, mainly when the SVG-ness of SVG is important to me.
I'm a creative programmer, not an artist, but all the artists I know also use Photoshop. The Gimp has some nice programmability, but it's just … not … right. It's making moves in the right direction, but it has such a huge deficiency to make up.
You may also want to consider modeling your art in some 3D tool, and use rendering. The later 2D pixel-based RPGs (before they all turned full 3D) used that workflow to generate the pixels. Model 3D, animate walk cycle, render out from all the direction you need.
