Pixelation

Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: Dogmeat on November 09, 2005, 03:00:43 am

Title: Dithering - Practice Activity ( un-official )
Post by: Dogmeat on November 09, 2005, 03:00:43 am
Ok, so for some reason today I seem to be obsessed with dither styles, hand dithering is fascinating to me so I've been messing around for a couple of hours with my own dithering patterns and realizing that they are far lacking from any kind of style whatsoever. So after much practice, I've decided that I could include you guys in on my quest for the ultimate dithering.

So what I figure is I made this gradient of 16 colors, all solids, what we're going to do is hand dither the ENTIRE thing, no making a pattern, then copy and pasting, all by hand, it will be good for you, put hair on your chests, even the ladies *wink*. Anyway, try and analyze your skills, sure some of you have incredible dithering skills and I don't think this really applies to you, but I encourage you to share your talents with us so we can learn. Browse the internet, look up the word dithering on google, do some research, see what kind of styles there are out there. Then try and tackle the gradient with something neat and unique. We'll all post our gradients, and whatever research materials we've found in this thread, who knows maybe we can make a good dithering guide for our newbies out of it or something.

Lastly, use your imagination, don't let the boundries of each color hinder what you're trying to accomplish, think nature, think curves instead of straight lines, and lastly lets have some fun together!

And although, this is totally un-official, I want to thank everyone who's supported me as a Daijin during my term, and good luck to the future daijins.

(http://www.mindcrank.com/activities/dither-template.png)  OR  (http://www.mindcrank.com/activities/dither-template-softcore.png)
Title: Re: Dithering - Practice Activity ( un-official )
Post by: Zolthorg on November 09, 2005, 03:05:21 am
Dog, there are way too many colors in there for this to be worth anything


cut it down to at least 8

and use biggger rectangles >_>;;
Title: Re: Dithering - Practice Activity ( un-official )
Post by: Dogmeat on November 09, 2005, 03:10:08 am
Dog, there are way too many colors in there for this to be worth anything


cut it down to at least 8

and use biggger rectangles >_>;;

Sorry, I made a more softcore gradient, for anyone requiring such. I plan to attempt the original still though :D
Title: Re: Dithering - Practice Activity ( un-official )
Post by: Sihaya on November 09, 2005, 03:33:11 am
lol--let the hair-growing commence--heck, I've never dithered a day in my life--I may be a fur-covered yeti by the time this is all over with!
Title: Re: Dithering - Practice Activity ( un-official )
Post by: Dogmeat on November 09, 2005, 03:37:26 am
ahh good, dithering is good practice, in fact, what i've found doing pixel art, is doing any kind of repetative pixel art really really really builds skill fast. I did these really detailed trees a while ago, they took me HOURS each to do, some of you may remember them, but when I was done, I was incredibly fast at doing regular tasks at work ( I worked for a mobile company ) So if anything, it will build speed :D
Title: Re: Dithering - Practice Activity ( un-official )
Post by: Dogmeat on November 09, 2005, 04:26:25 am
Basics:

(http://www.mindcrank.com/activities/dither-patterns.png)

Just a simple dither pattern sheet I found on the internet, it's a very basic 2 color example, we just want to look at the basic patterns in the image.

(http://www.mindcrank.com/activities/dither-patterns2.png)

Here are some shapes that I am including in my dither pattern along with the chaos of the dither.
Title: Re: Dithering - Practice Activity ( un-official )
Post by: Akira on November 09, 2005, 04:57:08 am
Hmm looks interesting dawg. Mines just quick and easy. Think i'll try out some hardcore patterns on the other if i find the time.
(http://img49.imageshack.us/img49/424/dithering17hw.png)
Title: Re: Dithering - Practice Activity ( un-official )
Post by: Dusty on November 09, 2005, 05:22:11 am
Just thought I'd try my hand at normal dithering before I go playing around with anything original as I don't have the time right now to play around much.

But here's mine:

(http://ee.1asphost.com/dustyshouri/dither_1.gif)
Title: Re: Dithering - Practice Activity ( un-official )
Post by: pixelblink on November 09, 2005, 07:09:45 am
oh man... I am so dithered out after doing this. Just basic dithers here:

(http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y28/pixelblink/8e9dccb2.gif)
Title: Re: Dithering - Practice Activity ( un-official )
Post by: Dogmeat on November 09, 2005, 05:24:15 pm
Fun! Great speed builder, I'm really liking what you guys are doing, I like seeing the different dither styles, i figure we can all learn something from eachother, and I hope thats the case.

(http://www.mindcrank.com/port/dither-template-dog.png)
Title: Re: Dithering - Practice Activity ( un-official )
Post by: Gil on November 09, 2005, 07:13:45 pm
Dog, there are way too many colors in there for this to be worth anything


cut it down to at least 8

and use biggger rectangles >_>;;

Dude, ever seen stuff from Monsoon or Pep? Let's all agree that Monsoon has some of the most sexy dithering, well, he uses alot of colours. High contrast dithering is sooo 1980 and fugly like hell. Compare results people had on the left one compared to the right one...
Title: Re: Dithering - Practice Activity ( un-official )
Post by: Dogmeat on November 09, 2005, 08:56:40 pm
Quote
Dude, ever seen stuff from Monsoon or Pep? Let's all agree that Monsoon has some of the most sexy dithering, well, he uses alot of colours. High contrast dithering is sooo 1980 and fugly like hell. Compare results people had on the left one compared to the right one...

Not sure I get what you're saying here, care to ellaborate?

At any rate part 2! Here we have a simple sphere, let's dither this sucker, try and draw on styles that we've seen so far here and see what we can come up with.

(http://www.mindcrank.com/activities/dither-template-2.png)
Title: Re: Dithering - Practice Activity ( un-official )
Post by: ptoing on November 09, 2005, 09:01:04 pm
The results on the right are not as nice because the colours are not as good, not because it has less colours.

Quick dithergradient (done in promotion) both 2 colours, just to demostrate.
(http://ptoing.net/dither.png)(http://ptoing.net/dither_bw.png)

:P
Title: Re: Dithering - Practice Activity ( un-official )
Post by: Helm on November 09, 2005, 09:21:20 pm
(http://www.locustleaves.com/lensflarelol.png)

Lens flare! Lol!
Title: Re: Dithering - Practice Activity ( un-official )
Post by: Dogmeat on November 09, 2005, 09:26:15 pm
Ha, nice helm :D and thanks for the examples ptoing, are you going to have a hand at any of these, I'd be interested to see what you'd come up with.

anyway, heres my sphere:

(http://www.mindcrank.com/port/dither-template-2-dog.png)
Title: Re: Dithering - Practice Activity ( un-official )
Post by: Ryumaru on November 09, 2005, 09:34:30 pm
eh, heres mine. no fancy patterns or anything just a random dither. looks pretty good i think.
(http://img445.imageshack.us/img445/4929/ditherex1qs.png)
Title: Re: Dithering - Practice Activity ( un-official )
Post by: Dogmeat on November 09, 2005, 09:39:20 pm
Ryumaru, does look good, nice, clean, seems dark for some reason, I think you brought the darker colors towards the center, where as, I brought the lighter colors into the darker ones, interesting to see how it changes the contrast of the sphere. Anyway...

Ok, heres another excercise I thought up, 3 spheres, 3 light sources, only 4 colors though on each sphere, and the goal in this one is to not only smoothly dither the 3 spheres but to connect them with dithering using the blue background behind it, though it may look ugly, i thought it would be good practice.

(http://www.mindcrank.com/activities/dither-template-3.png)

good luck.
Title: Re: Dithering - Practice Activity ( un-official )
Post by: Helm on November 09, 2005, 10:07:11 pm
(http://www.locustleaves.com/dither.gif)

poor creature. Every lightsource hits the other eyes too. Speculars are fun. One colour more added.
Title: Re: Dithering - Practice Activity ( un-official )
Post by: Ryumaru on November 10, 2005, 12:22:40 am
heres mine,
(http://img486.imageshack.us/img486/6576/dithereex29jr.png)
Title: Re: Dithering - Practice Activity ( un-official )
Post by: Akira on November 10, 2005, 01:55:54 am
Looks like i've got some catching up to do.
(http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/8592/dithering20ew.png)
Another cheeky quick random dither (less than 10min)

Edit: Other one is done:
(http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/4001/dithering34eo.png)
Title: Re: Dithering - Practice Activity ( un-official )
Post by: Dogmeat on November 10, 2005, 03:56:32 am
Heres my 3 spheres:

(http://www.mindcrank.com/port/dither-template-3-dog.png)

Let's dither this next! Try and use only the colors in the image, except you helm, you can do whatever you want ;)

(http://www.mindcrank.com/activities/dither-template-4.png)

btw, I love you guys.

oh heres a reference pic, for anyone not knowing what R2D2 looks like, sorry i'm a big star wars nerd...

(http://www.mindcrank.com/r2-d2.jpg)
Title: Re: Dithering - Practice Activity ( un-official )
Post by: Dogmeat on November 10, 2005, 03:58:47 am
Also, I think we're coming far here, if anyone feels like they have some time to perhaps do a little post on how they do their dithering, try and explain what you think as you do something, plus any order in your dithering that compliments the chaotic nature of it. If you could include progress pictures and stuff also that would be great. I think this would be great help to anyone wanting to learn dithering techniques.
Title: Re: Dithering - Practice Activity ( un-official )
Post by: Gil on November 10, 2005, 05:31:05 am
I don't have time to join you guys, just hopping in to give dogmeat a hug...

so

*hug*

yeah, that's it...
Title: Re: Dithering - Practice Activity ( un-official )
Post by: Dusty on November 10, 2005, 06:19:13 am
(http://ee.1asphost.com/dustyshouri/dither_2.gif)

Well, didn't get to work at it as much as I wanted to as I was preoccupied. So it's a lazy job.
But I didn't add any colours, even though I really thought it could have used a lighter shade in there.
Title: Re: Dithering - Practice Activity ( un-official )
Post by: Akira on November 10, 2005, 08:51:26 am
Sigh. I can't handle structure. I agree with dusty, it does need a lighter shade. Might go back and try again and darken the whole thang.

Another random dither (who woulda thunk it?).
(http://img470.imageshack.us/img470/6664/dithering46bc.png)

Edit - newd:
(http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/9286/dithering4b0wd.png)
Got a bit lazy in the end. bout 15mins to palette shift and dither.