Helm,
I am not saying everybody should do this for every piece of pixel art they produce. I am saying it's a worthwhile excercise
I agree with that. The ultimative question is however what we gain from using it, where it's more powerful and where it just sucks in terms of efficiency. I am interested in finding that out.
1. yes, I am saying to avoid any dithering that creates single pixels. If one has a reason they absolutely need a dither pattern, they should explain what it is
I love to use dither pattern for various things
amongst others:
-soft light illustration (low-mid contrast diher patterns, just to show another kind of light)
-high res depth of field (low-mid contrast)
-low contrast gradient smoothing (low contrast)
-illustrating gritty textures (sand, gravel, other stuff depending on distance) (mid-high contrast)
-detail with a different color on a plane (rust, moss, ...)
-for blending clusters on top of clusters together
some of those effects can't be achieved with "blobby non-banding" cluster styles. But that's a choice you usually do if you start with adding dither.
I don't think that single pixels are bad or dither patterns, for me the key isn't cluster sharpness, it's the contrast. Low contrast single pixels don't hurt the eye.
On my new IPS Panel screen you can see the single of a low contrast dither gradient if you heavily focus those, otherwise it will "feel" like any other gradient.
There is the certain point in contrast where the effect tilts. But you can also tilt it effectively in order to show it's pixel art.
3. I do not believe banding can be used to one's advantage. Blurring will necessarily create *some* banding, but it should be minimized. I think it's completely within the scope of the excercise to do a blurred background like in your (awesome) image and have no banding or single pixels. It's just hard.
There we disagree. Blurring can definitely have effects of how to improve your image - lots of it is simple not worthwhile to do with pixel art or isn't achievable with low-res pixel art. But there are ways to use it, or at least I tried it and I think it's an valid alternative.
For a pixel artist the effect of blurring won't work, because he searches initially for clusters, for any other person looking at the image it will subconsciously be connected to an impression.
Minimize the"banding" never hurts.
It's definitely possible to do the blurred background in my image without any single pixels. The easiest way to achieve the same effect is simple with more colors.
I went there with dither and lower color to emphasize that it's pixel art.
Pixel artists always try to keep their palettes small, for better control over visual effects. But I think you have to choose between those 3 if you want to have fake gradients in your style:
-color count
-cluster sharpness
-dither
If you don't intend to have gradients the question won't occur anyways.
5. I take your clarification in stride, even if we can't loudly proclaim that this excercise works for every style, it's still a valuable one to do, I think.
As to your image, I wish I didn't have a dayjob, I'd sit and solve most of it and then we could discuss what is gained/lost by reshuffling the clusters. Select at least part of the image and try it, if you get the time. Don't just tell me why it can't be done, try to do it.
The exercise is definitely valuable, no doubt.
I also don't claim that my example is the perfect solution regarding to style, cluster usage and how I solved various problems, but at least there are some underlying patterns and I can at least state what I tried to achieve in every place with various techniques.
It's already old, I moved on and would solve some things differently.
I am thinking a lot about how to use pixels to your advantage - a discussion in this direction could get interesting.
6. I think it's one thing to do that, and another to spend some time solving the 'puzzle', as Vagrant put it above. It gets you to a different mindset.
Knowing how to use clusters is a basic technique for pixel art, if not the most important technique and everyone who does pixel art should think about it during his creation process.
However you can band and break rules in art to your advantage and create different rules this way.
I mean I also break perspective or in order to get a more beautiful looking cluster or a "clean" line, but you can also do it the other way. Depends on what someones eye is calibrated to.
The pixel artist says: use clean line
The illustrator says: correct perspective is more important
Looking -forward to see what you are showing.
For this years Secret Santa I have made a piece with different focal style choices - we can discuss that one later too if you are interested.