Hi, I've seen that there's a separate theme/category of pixelfonts here, and I also see that the preview of these fonts usually feature very small characters.

This seems indiciative of these fonts being true pixelfonts in that they're actual bitmaps/raster images stored within a font file, but when I try to download them, they come in .otf and .ttf format.

From what I've read, otf and ttf are vector formats which seems confusing since a vector-based font made with rectangles used to emulate pixels is not really the same as a true pixel font, or are they just vector fonts with special hints or settings set for specific font sizes?

I'm curious since I would like to try and create my own pixel-font and therefore I need some information on what software to use, or what parameters/settings I need to use in my existing font design software to create such a font.

With FontForge , if you want to create a new font with no outlines, only bitmap strikes, you would use File->New to create a new font, and then Element->Bitmap Strikes Available to add some (empty) strikes to it. As soon as you add a strike to a new font, the font will become a bitmap only font.