NEW CLUSTER STUDY THREAD!

[Probo]

what does the term edge flow meanexactly PixelPiledriver? ive not heard that before. anywhere i can read about concepts like that?

[ptoing]

Generally edge flow is a term used in 3D modelling when you describe how the edges/lines of a model flow to describe the surface.

Example image
http://tomparkersartdump.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/topology_breakdown.jpg

I think PPD just means the way that blotches of colour or lines/hatching in a drawing can describe the direction/curvature of the surface.

[Probo]

thanks for clearing that up ptoing!

This thread is a very interesting read, this is a technique ive never thought about. I do love AA and the single pixels myself though! Will you be sticking to this way of working from now on then helm?

[PixelPiledriver]

what does the term edge flow meanexactly PixelPiledriver?

Generally edge flow is a term used in 3D modelling when you describe how the edges/lines of a model flow to describe the surface.

Yes I'm trying to relate the ideas here to other ideas about art.
Probo, do some research about 3D art and why modelers talk about, think about, and practice edge flow.
I think you will find that there are interesting similarities to what is discussed on this forum.
Give it some thought and try to apply it to 2D in your own way.

Does a single pixel lose importance as clusters get bigger?
Sure.
Do the shape and arrangement of clusters lose their importance as they get bigger?
I don't think so.

This thread seems to be about making things fatter.
Thicker.
Increasing the minimum.
Size doesn't seem to be the issue.
If you scale the total image and maximum cluster size, then you can scale the minimum to match.

An image can be seen for what it represents or what it is made up of.
And perhaps as it gets larger it is easier to see the object drawn and harder to see the chunks of color that interact and bring it together.
But it's still there.
And seeing the chunks makes it easier to control.

[r4c7]

Sorry I haven't been able to follow up on what I've said before. I've since then realized what I was thinking about was stupid, but I still feel single pixels can be okay. Examples with single pixels on left and no single pixels on right;

The thing I feel that warrants the most use of single pixels would to remove the jagged staircase shapes created. You can see this in the top right. I really hate the way this looks and it seems others do too. I would write more, but ptoing basicaally summarized what I would say in this post:

I have been playing around with this a bit on some of my older images, nothing really to show, but I came to the following conclusions.

• It is pointless to do this in an image which has AA, because you totally kill diagonal AA and hamper the potential of AA in general, which in a lot of cases actually changes the shape of the curve you might wanna portrait.
• If you aim to make art without any AA, I still do not see how the no single pixels/no single pixel lines (esp this) helps your image.
• It largely seems to come down to personal aethetic preferences if you like this or not. I personally don't (the no-single-pixel at-all-and-weird-fat-outlines paradigm)
• Everyone should just try and pixel as clean or as messy as they want.

I also redid another small piece in this style again. Also got the color count down from 8 to 6 too.

[ptoing]

I have to make a slight addendum to my above quoted post. The black/white/pink bottles that PPD posted are cool, and they show how you can utilise this approach if you use it as the foundation for a certain style, what with fat outlines and all that. So it certainly is helpful depending on what you do, but I do not feel like it works as a blanket approach.

[Dex]

decided to try something from the ground up using this method, and it was actually a lot of fun. not completely finished, but you can get the basic idea

[Cure]

There should be 2 lonely pixels, in the pupil and on the tip of the nose. Regardless of its limitations, it's an interesting and satisfying exercise. A single pixel is like an unpaired electron, it wants to click into a cluster.

[Helm]

Lovely, Cure. I think it's quite sharper.



I'm working on this, it's on a few different layers and it's going to parallax scroll when I'm done with it and learn how to do it. It's difficult to finish this when I have to pixel for ~8 hours a day at work, but I will, soon enough.

[Crow]

Lovely, Cure. I think it's quite sharper.

Is it really? I'm seriously questioning this statement. It's different in places, but both versions are extremely sharp and crisp and pleasant to look at.