Create Game Assets
Turn a game's visual intent into a consistent, engine-ready asset set. Treat image generation as one production tool inside a controlled pipeline, never as proof that an asset is shippable.
Core workflow
- Inspect before inventing. Find existing screenshots, concept art, sprites, models, fonts, import settings, camera framing, target resolution, and naming conventions. Preserve a coherent existing direction unless the user asks for a redesign.
- Lock the technical frame. Record engine, 2D/3D, camera/view, native display size, asset
dimensions, world scale, transparency, palette, filtering, animation frames, texture budget,
and target platforms. Use
assets/art-direction-brief.mdas a copyable brief. - Name the visual system. Define shape language, silhouette priorities, value structure, palette roles, materials, lighting, detail density, edge treatment, and motion character. Use concrete visual properties; do not substitute a living artist's name for an art direction.
- Make an asset manifest. Copy
assets/asset-manifest.json, then list every required asset, state, variant, size, pivot, collision role, source, license, and approval status. Separate production assets from disposable greybox placeholders. - Approve one visual target. Create or select a representative hero asset or small style board before producing a full set. Judge it at actual game scale and against a gameplay background. If the user delegated the choice, pick the strongest viable direction and record the decision instead of blocking.
- Produce related assets as families. Reuse the approved target as an edit/reference input. Keep palette, view, proportions, lighting, outline, and texture density invariant. Generate small coherent batches; avoid unrelated one-off prompts that drift.
- Normalize deterministically. Crop, size, anchor, slice, name, compress, and check alpha with ordinary image/DCC tools. Never trust generated grids, transparency, seams, pivots, topology, or dimensions without inspection. Use the bundled scripts for raster QA and contact sheets.
- Import with engine-native settings. Set filtering, mipmaps, pixels-per-unit/world scale, color space, compression, sprite slicing, texture types, materials, and collision deliberately. Read the relevant engine skill before editing engine files.
- Validate in context. Inspect a contact sheet and the actual game at native resolution. Check silhouette, scale, animation stability, seams, legibility, palette, collision fit, memory, and compression artifacts. Iterate on the source asset, not only on runtime compensations.
- Record provenance. Keep the source URL/tool, license or generation note, edit history, and restrictions beside the manifest. Preserve embedded provenance metadata when the pipeline can.
Choose the production path
Image-generation handoff
When a capable image generation or editing tool is installed, use it for live visual creation. If
the workspace exposes an imagegen skill, read and follow it for the actual generation/edit call;
this skill owns the game-art brief, constraints, normalization, and acceptance gates.
Build prompts from these blocks:
For edits, say both what changes and what stays fixed. Ask for transparent output through the tool's native transparency option when available, then verify the alpha channel—prompt wording alone does not guarantee transparency.
Raster QA recipes
Inspect constraints and emit a machine-readable report:
Build a nearest-neighbor contact sheet over a checkerboard:
Run script paths relative to this skill directory, or resolve the installed skill path first.
Both scripts require Python 3.10+ and Pillow. Install the only dependency with
python -m pip install -r scripts/requirements.txt when it is not already available.
Quality gates
- Cohesion: related assets share palette roles, line/edge treatment, view, light direction, scale, and detail density.
- Gameplay read: silhouettes and state changes remain clear at native resolution, in motion, and over real backgrounds.
- Technical fit: exact size/frame count, usable alpha, stable anchors/pivots, correct color space/filtering, no clipped content, no accidental labels or baked mockup chrome.
- Animation: identity, volume, proportions, costume, facing, and baseline do not drift; timing and anticipation read in an in-engine preview.
- Tiles/backgrounds: required edges tile without seams; repetition is tolerable; parallax layers have intentional depth and no baked collision cues.
- 3D: transforms, scale, pivot, normals, UVs, materials, topology, rig, collision proxies, LODs, and runtime format are checked rather than inferred from a render.
- Rights: every shipped file has recorded provenance and terms compatible with the project.
Do not call an asset production-ready from a prompt result alone. Approval requires the relevant technical checks plus an in-engine or native-scale visual inspection.
References
- For visual-system decisions and maintaining consistency, read
references/art-direction.md. - For sprites, animation strips, tiles, backgrounds, UI art, and engine import settings, read
references/raster-pipeline.md. - For concept-to-mesh, textures, glTF/GLB, LOD, collision, and runtime validation, read
references/three-d-pipeline.md. - For licenses, generated-media records, and provenance, read
references/provenance.md.
Related skills
game-ui-uxfor layout, navigation, readability, and accessible interaction.game-feel,shader-programming, andaudio-designfor presentation after the source art fits.- Engine import/rendering skills such as
godot-tilemap,unity-tilemap-2d,pixijs-rendering, andthreejs-gltf-loading.
