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Topics - Stefano
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Pixel Art / [WIP] C64 tiles: water and sand.
« on: January 30, 2011, 06:04:21 pm »
This is obviously not good, but I can't find new approaches to try, so I've decided to ask for help.
I've looked at both water photos and game tiles. Then I've tried to come up with something of my own, but failed.

I'm using Ptoing's slightly lighter C64 table () and figured less contrasting colours would work better for ground tiles.
Water: 4 best results, 4 tiles each.

Sand: I need 2 types of sand... My best 2 attempts.

Anyone has ideas on how to improve them?

If you feel like taking a look at the rest of the tiles (for curiosity or to critique), please do: HERE.

2
Pixel Art / Dithering practice.
« on: December 31, 2009, 07:26:36 pm »
I have been practising my dithering skills to try and improve my entry for the Random Challenge. Pixel art wise, dithering has always been a major pebble in my shoe (along with palette picking) and this seems like a good opportunity to try to get rid of it.

For starters, I'd like to say that I'm fairly well acquainted with with the basic concept of what dither is (and what it's used for) and tried to study Arachne's marvellous mastery of this technique in some of her works. I've also read many useful posts.

And yet something seems to be still lacking... :blind:

----[EDIT 1]----

I'm now dithering something with a less dull topography (still in 2-bit, for the extreme contrast).
I'm starting with the black lines on white background, adding a 50% dither band, in places I see fit.
01.27.2010 - Still upgrading.

----[EDIT 2]----

[Ptoing's dither reference!]
The major difficulty seems to be creating a illusion on 3Dness with such a markedly 2D-enforcing pattern.
Looks like the less uniform bits of pattern can't be used or they'll break the rhythm and pop up from the rest of the pixel "mesh". Maybe they're meant to provide a smoother ramps for huge areas? I'm in fact using only 4 or 5 out of 256:

Hum....

----[EDIT 3]----

I spoke too soon. I'm managing to assimilate more and more of the shown patterns into the mixture.
It seems the brain slowly starts to visually make sense of each repeating formation (as if they were little pictures or letters) and after a while it feels a lot like you're "reading/writing" the gradient, on a multi-directional text. It's really weird.

I still didn't get rid of the "dot-matrix printer" effect because I could't get it to look right. *sigh*

----[EDIT 4]----

Well, the scope of this work is rapidly getting of getting out of control. But in a good way.
It's teaching me so much more than diether techniques as I read through magnificent dither-related posts I keep finding.


I hope I don't get lost inside the sea of information and end up neglecting my piece as it has happened many times before, but dang: this is interesting!

----[EDIT 5]----

Yep. I'm still working on this one (April 15th).
I've been studying anatomy and hopefully that'll allow me to improve this piece.

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Pixel Art / [WIP] my first avatar...
« on: January 15, 2008, 12:04:29 am »
As stated the title (wippy wiping wip):


I kinda like it, which is a hard thing when it comes to stuff I did.

Please feel free to say whatever yanks your crank. (about my avatar, of course).

Cheers,
-Stefano


PS. Hum. Looked good on ProMotion but it seems a bit too dark, compared to the forum BG color.

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Pixel Art / [WIP] updated - forum graphics
« on: October 09, 2007, 03:54:46 am »
I was asked to help overhauling a forum interface, making stuff such as rank icons, smileys, etc.
Although I'm learning a lot, it's been a bit rough for my level of pixel knowledge. So here I am asking for your help.

Medieval Pennant (forum administrator):
Orgininal:
My mod:

Smileys:

Are these readable (guess not)? What should I do to improve?

Thanks in advance,
-Stefano


5
Pixel Art / Cave background...
« on: July 17, 2007, 05:56:28 pm »
First of all, greetings to all of you guys. Some cool stuff you've got going on here.  ;)
I've already seen some familiar heavy-weights champions from AGS and on top of that, after all the great stuff I've seen here, I think this is the place to improve my skills.

Anyway:
I did a silly pixel background for the next Sprite Jam competition that I'll be hosting at AGS forums and it turned out to better than I expected.
I'm not saying it's the most beautiful background ever (:P), but despite of that, I think it's at least worth some critics and comments so I might actually learn something from it.

The title of the competition will be UnderWorld. It's supposed to be the entrance to a strange world under the earth, filled with strange creatures and lit by bioluminescent mushrooms.
I know I could add new elements to spice the scene up (the mushrooms, crew entering the cave, a hiding creature, etc) but it had to be a quickie, so apart from that what would you do to improve it?



Thanks.
-Stefano

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