Hi there! My name is Xyn, I’m a digital artist and graphic designer. Today I approach the community with a simple but multi-faceted question: When hiring a graphic designer, how do commissioners feel about if the finished piece is stored as a vector image vs. a raster image?
For UI, Icons and other graphic design work, I tend to work in Adobe Illustrator, meaning that most of my completed commissions are fully stored as vector pieces. I learned fairly early on that vector art compresses better, loses less quality when resized, etc. because the image is stored using mathematical equations as opposed to pixels.
But when looking at DevForum portfolios for inspiration and such, a lot of the time I notice that when making UI sets and text logos, many other artists on the platform port their work into photoshop to add extra detail and get a level of control that you really can’t acquire in illustrator.
Looking into all of this makes me wonder:
Do scripters or other game creators care whether an image is a vector vs. a raster?
And for artists who do port work into photoshop or other art programs, do you find that it helps you when working?
Have any scripters/game creators/artists noticed any difference in quality when using raster vs. vector?
If you’ve tried this method, is you adding this type of extra detail worth it to you? Worth extra money, extra time or extra effort, that is. I would love to hear some new viewpoints on this!
I looked into this topic for a long while before making this post to make sure it hadn’t been asked and/or answered before, and to my knowledge, nothing answering the questions in this post has been made. Though, if I missed anything, please let me know and I’ll check it out!
What I’m mainly looking for with this post is feedback and unique opinions from the game-owning and the graphic design communities, people who have dealt with this before and have experience in the subject. Any and all replies are helpful, though! Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this post. :-J
(Quick edit: My apologies if there’s any errors in the format of this post. I don’t often post on here outside of portfolio stuff so I’m not too good at it haha)
As a programmer and former commissioner, I much prefer it when icons are able to scale. When I work on my games, I aim to have a standard where the amount of information must be readable & easy to focus on for any platform, so typically when the art I commission is busy, I would ask for a much lesser variant. Vector seems to fit exactly what I’m talking about.
From a commissioner PoV, it’s great to know the artist has created assets used in games as well, even small projects. That way, we can see how you utilized your icons/art to know what kind of designs you can do to achieve our own game icon goals.
Personally vector will always look better, but I am so used to photoshop that I can’t really use any other programs like Illustrator or Gravit Designer. With that being said the difference between them in game is hardly noticeable and you would only really know whether its Vector or Raster is if they were told.
I don’t believe it should be worth extra money or time since at the end of the day when it is in game (if it is a ui) you won’t notice it so there wouldn’t be any need to pay extra and spend more time. For Icons If they are done using vector they would look a lot cleaner and appealing so for that you may actually want to charge more considering it is a vector and its impossible to import images like lets say a cash icon which isn’t a vector image.
That’s how I feel too. Porting a vector image to photoshop to add some highlights/shadows or otherwise extra detail is nice but I’m unsure if it’s worth it if it means that the image won’t scale easily or retain quality when resized.
Really? I’ve never heard of that program but I will check it out! Thanks so much, and I think photoshop has some shape tools but the basis of photoshop and illustrator is that they’re similar but PS is for raster and AI is for vector art.
Vectors are the industry standard because of the versatility. Anyone can put them on an enormous banner or on the edge of a paper and they’ll maintain the same quality. They pack a lot of practical use, and in far less space than rasters as well.
In Roblox’s case, which does not support .svg files, I’d have to rasterize, so there’s not much difference in imported quality. But I’d still look for vectors as I can export them in any size depending on the need.
My name is Xyn, I’m a digital artist and graphic designer. Today I approach the community with a simple but multi-faceted question: When hiring a graphic designer, how do commissioners feel about if the finished piece is stored as a vector image vs. a raster image?