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Messages - Basketcase
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1
General Discussion / Re: finding a balance, and where pixel art stands.
« on: February 25, 2016, 08:55:39 am »
I'm totally unbalanced. I've been pixel art-ing on and off for over a decade. I'm good at specific pixelwork techniques. I can hand anti-alias a smooth curve with the best of 'em. But I almost totally neglected fundamentals, natural media, hand-drawing. Whoops. Overall I'm still an amateur. Oh well. I still get joy from this!

I'm a professional programmer so perhaps I'll live pixel art mastery vicariously by developing a fantastic drawing application for y'all to use.

2
General Discussion / Re: The History of Pixel Art
« on: February 24, 2016, 06:31:54 pm »
This is a very valuable project.

Here are some moments I think are worth noting.

1999 - 2004

16color.com accumulates 40,000 user-submitted animations. Who else remembers this?

They had an app for making animations, which could upload them to the site, which hosted them as gifs. Everything shared a 16 colour palette and a fixed resolution. Tons of amateur doodles, a few absolute gems, lots of disgusting and offensive cartoons, some interesting multi-part series and animated tile things (exploiting the listing pages' layout that showed animated thumbnails in a grid). Pre-Youtube crowd-sourced animations for the masses.

Then it unceremoniously shut down, deleted everyone's stuff, and released a 'best of' DVD.

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All proceeds go directly to the development of 16 Color's next version coming in 2005.

... yeah, that never happened. (Someone else should step in and make a spiritual successor.)

2008-2013(?)
imageboard.net - another accumulation of user submissions, sadly lost to the ages. Some pages are on the Wayback Machine. Not to be confused with a site like 4chan. It was basically a forum without text: threads with only images as replies to images. And not uploaded images, but ones drawn with the site's pixel-art-oriented Flash drawing tool, usually incrementally modified from the previous post. Fixed resolution, unlimited palette.

Largely anonymous, although users could make accounts. But it didn't show usernames--no text, remember!--just pixelly avatars.

Everything was posted with a share-alike Creative Commons license, and user-rated for quality and offensiveness.

Another site that could use a modern reboot.

2008
Mozilla's Firefox 3 is released, with rendering behaviour that automatically anti-aliases zoomed images. Pixel art enthusiasts are pretty much the only people on Earth who complain about this change. [1] [2]

This is largely fixed later: current browsers including Firefox generally anti-alias images by default, but offer some unofficial CSS features to allow site authors to switch it off and render fat pixels.

2010
Apple releases the iPhone 4, with 'Retina display': 4 times the screen resolution density. Pixel art hit again with unwanted smooth-scaling rendering.

A few kinda negative points. Call it History of the Downfall of Pixel Art :crazy:

3
General Discussion / Re: Old Pixelation stuff from around 2003
« on: February 23, 2016, 10:10:25 am »
 :o miascugh didn't make this:



I did. It was a Secret Santa gift. It was based off his own character, who looked much better, and realistically proportioned. I just ripped the colours and make a shorter, stumpier version.

(Looking though Carnivac's treasure archive now... legendary.)

4
General Discussion / Re: Official Pixelation Skin!
« on: February 22, 2016, 12:59:26 pm »
I was just reading a thread at work (lunch break) and saw it suddenly switch. Great work. Hope to get my stuff in the featured bar this year.

5
General Discussion / Re: 2X, What is Your Opinion?
« on: July 31, 2015, 08:05:49 pm »
Depends on the art style (including native game resolution), depends on the screen (size, pixel density, distance from eye). I don't see how you can set any universal rules here when these variables can vary so widely.

I say, For a PC game, since people are going to have different monitors, let us choose 1x, 2x, 3x, 4x in the settings.

There's also the option of emulating a CRT, warts and all. I mean include blur, motion blur, scanlines, concave glass distortion, etc. (http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/KylePittman/20150420/241442/CRT_Simulation_in_Super_Win_the_Game.php)

I still like seeing raw fat chunky pixels.

6
Having your pixels printed on glass could be pretty cool, e.g. https://www.fractureme.com/

7
I found this article on Hacker News. Thought there might be a thread over here about it, and here we are.

I found his title and premise a bit disheartening, as a lover of pixel art and a dabbler in the form. I read his article, and found his reasons for his decision very sound. Dinoform's games aren't vessels for his pixel art. His graphics are there to support the game. And the modern environment for games in the market they're targeting is: high res screens, multiple resolutions and aspect ratios. And given full economic and cultural considerations, pixel art isn't fit for purpose.

Edited to add the following~

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This sounds like "people don't appreciate my pixelart". Ok, why should they?

Yeah, that's what he's saying. And he's also saying there's no reason they should.

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And are you creating primarily "for the people"? If so good for you.

Indeed, Dinofarm's aspiration seems to be mass appeal. Or at least, wider appeal than dedicated pixel art aficionados.

Pixel art isn't for the masses any more. I'm happy to accept that it's a subculture. It doesn't need to be 'for the people' to be of value.

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Why generalize for all visual artists though?

In what manner is he generalising? He's explaining his motivations for the creative direction of himself and his company. I don't see him calling his article 'Requiem for the pixel artists' or something.

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Secondly, pixelart is absolute and eternal in the information it conveys, we all know it here.

I don't know what this means. There's always room for tweaks, refinement, expansion, in any art form.

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High def art, unless it's pure vectors (which are super beautiful as well) is always going to be imprecise, a never ending quest for perfection.

Eh, compare with this: "All art is unfinished until abandoned" I'm pretty sure I read that around here.

Also he renounced, not denounced. Important distinction, I reckon.

[Edited again to fix link above]

8
General Discussion / Re: Modern day pixel art?
« on: September 13, 2014, 08:28:30 am »
All those examples look quite distinct in my eyes.

My judgements:

Hyper Light Drifter: love it
Irkalla: love it
Super Time Force: quite like
Broforce: it's okay
Titan Souls: meh
Fez: the only one I played. I really enjoyed the game's atmosphere. Success.
Gods Will be Watching: dislike
Shovel Knight: tolerable

Haven't seen the others properly. Screenshots provided are blurry as hell.

I think I agree with AlcopopStar about the goodness of the burgeoning bold, flat, fat-clustered style within 2D game art. More please.

9
Pixel Art / Re: [COMPLETE] 'Heaven's Countryland' [adult swim] IDs
« on: September 10, 2014, 06:42:48 pm »
These amused me very much. Great work! The mixture of various low-tech styles reminded me of Made In Wario games.

10
Pixel Art / Re: Kaluto Village - Kaluto Dungeon Entrance - Preview (WIP)
« on: September 10, 2014, 10:38:34 am »
Is that a tree with roots or a tentacle monster?

It's hard to get a sense of the scale and context. I get that it's a wall with doors. Does the brown/green area above show a roof or ground just behind it?

I suggest adding some irregularities to that wall pattern.

The flowers are neat, perhaps too neat and regular too. I get the sense that you're concerned with the pixel-level microdetails at a too-early stage, but you should be sketching out the overall scene first. This is my own weakness, to be honest.

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