AuthorTopic: Feature 10 - I Move For No Man  (Read 35086 times)

Offline Pix3M

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Re: I move for no man [WIP]

Reply #20 on: October 02, 2013, 06:49:09 am
@ Pix3m: No doubt about it, yours is superior. You wouldn't by chance have a link or two lying about that explain mathematically correct AA would you? How did you do yours? Thank you for your edit  :y:

Oh funny. I was playing around by comparing two functionally identical images except the pixels are subtley different, as if pixel artists were so weird to be nitpicky over incredibly small, meaningless details no layman would care about.  :lol:

But honestly, I don't completely understand the math to be able to do much of it personally, but what I do is teach myself what perfect AA looks like so I can recognize subpar AA when it shows up.

A little story though: I have attempted twice a couple of stuff that requires a ton of heavy AA but I have gotten feedback from people who aren't even pixel artists that my AA was off and my edges were jaggy. Different monitor qualities were by far the reason why I can't achieve smoothness on everyone else's monitors, and my monitor is definitely suboptimal. As a result, I learned about what gamma correction is and wondered if I could take advantage of that to avoid bad AA.

However, from what I understand, first take this tutorial by ptoing:



It's pretty straight forward and gives you everything you need to know, but there is a pretty subtle mistake. It's only noticable if you try rendering edges that are almost aligned with the pixel grid but not quite, like the Black Knight's sword. Pretty much, the resulting values used for AA assumes a gamma of 1. 50% black and white isn't a 50 on a scale of 0-100 on a HSL color space; the real number is 73 if we're dealing with what should be ideal for a PC. The human eye does not interpret increase in light linearly and is more sensitive to higher values.

Pretty much what I did was construct some edges very similarly to ptoing does in his tutorial. The edge labelled one assumes a gamma of 1 and created values exactly as done in the tutorial. This edge is also a difficult edge to AA since it is so close to being aligned with the grid but not quite. Bad AA technique would be more glaring with this sort of edge, but easier edges, it's hardly noticable.



Then what, I did was take graphicsgale's color adjustment tool and took a shortcut to to fix the colors for me. Middle one was adjusted to a gamma of 2.2 which in theory should be what is standard to PC's, and is more-or-less what this monitor is set to. However, sliding it around got me an optimal gamma of 1.9 (not sure why), which is the absolute best I can achieve on my particular monitor. Yours is probably different.

I told this to a friend and he said that my AA colors are too bright (and amusingly I took my gamma-cheating device and set it to what would appear to be the right gamma for him and he says it's perfect). With that in mind, I also noticed that edges (for some reason) require a lower gamma at 2x scale where 1x scale requires a higher gamma. I have no idea why, but at this point I'm just gonna say that 'mathematically correct' should exist in paper but not in practice.

I'd say take that top edge and play around with gamma-correction tools to try to get it as perfectly straight as possible. Show yourself what perfect AA looks like so you can recognize bad AA when it shows up. Besides, who's gonna take the time to bust out their calucator to do art?  :crazy:
« Last Edit: October 02, 2013, 06:58:18 am by Pix3M »

Offline wolfenoctis

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Re: I move for no man [WIP]

Reply #21 on: October 02, 2013, 01:51:28 pm
Besides, who's gonna take the time to bust out their calucator to do art?  :crazy:

Yeah ... heh.. who would do such a thing ....  :-[

Tried to make a chainmail texture and striaghtened out those lines, any crits before I move on to AA?

Offline Wanyo

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Re: I move for no man [WIP]

Reply #22 on: October 02, 2013, 02:32:53 pm
For some reason I miss the offwhite paper color from the sword and the lettering but I I understand the better fit of the white here and overall those details really livened up the piece!

Perhaps the shadow portion of the chainmail on his right leg could probably use a little tweaking, something about it feels too dark, maybe it's just the inner edge contrasting hard with it.

I need to spend some time and study your metals wolf, they always seem to pop right out.
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Offline wolfenoctis

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Re: I move for no man [WIP]

Reply #23 on: October 02, 2013, 08:00:56 pm
AA'ed version, I decided to not try and get it too smooth, I like the piece to have a little jaggyness to still give that pixel feel and not vector art. Added a sword and some lighting. Unless there are any major crits, I think this is done. A big thank you to all who contributed to the thread, you guys are awesome  :y:

Final Piece: 20 colors

Offline Larwick

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Re: I move for no man [WIP]

Reply #24 on: October 02, 2013, 11:07:38 pm
OH MAN this is badass! 8)
The changes you made really worked.

I see you've tried to go symbolic with the design on his chest, but I think it might look better shaded properly, or at least some of the lines could be softened more.
I think the flag parts could look better if they were connected, rather than split where it begins to crumple. That's the feeling I got from the first version with the flag before you added in that separation.
There's an unnaturally sharp corner on the crumpled flag part in the centre below the sword tip. Could be smoothed a lot.

Offline Decroded

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Re: I move for no man [WIP]

Reply #25 on: October 03, 2013, 01:07:17 am
This is awesome, visually striking  :y:

I was going to leave same comments as Larwick.
There is a bit too much of a straight line where the flag touches the floor.
Maybe you could do without the darker outlines that make that line so obvious and distracting.

I love how the chest looks self-illuminated but I think it could use a bit of blending around the edges.

Offline wolfenoctis

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Re: I move for no man [WIP]

Reply #26 on: October 03, 2013, 05:00:33 am
Thanks Larwick and Decroded, I applied those changes and think it looks better, kept two folds intact for more visual interest:


Also @ Wanyo: thanks for the crit on the chainmail  ;)

Offline Wanyo

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Re: I move for no man [WIP]

Reply #27 on: October 03, 2013, 03:42:21 pm
That turned out fantastic, great job deciphering the speed velocity of an unladen swallow!

I'm not quite at the level to offer some of these awesome edits (I'm sticking around here till I can get there), but I'm glad I can at least offer some helpful advice when something looks weird to me! :D

Another thought that might take up more time, ever thought of making this poster into a desktop wallpaper? It's one of those things that could look absolutely striking on one!
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Offline wolfenoctis

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Re: I move for no man [WIP]

Reply #28 on: October 03, 2013, 05:07:53 pm
Thanks Wanyo, looking forward to some awesome edits from you in the future, and thanks for the critique. I wouldn't make it a wallpaper personally, far too lazy for all that extra work  ::)

Offline Larwick

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Re: I move for no man [WIP]

Reply #29 on: October 03, 2013, 05:11:18 pm
Since you wanted to use this piece for AA practice, I think you should spend some more time on it. There are a lot of rough spots that could be smoothed out.

Here's an edit showing some areas that could be improved.

Sometimes you're forgetting colors that you have available, and sometimes you seem to favor corners over curves (for something that shouldn't really have corners, like cloth).