AuthorTopic: NEW CLUSTER STUDY THREAD!  (Read 80599 times)

Offline Mr. Fahrenheit

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Re: NEW CLUSTER STUDY THREAD!

Reply #120 on: January 28, 2014, 12:47:02 am
Looks nice helm. What I'm seeing is that the space part looks like it was something rendered on a machine that uses tall pixels. I feel like there has to be a way that is more inventive then just 2 pixel tall clusters then what would normally be single pixels.

A lot of the areas besides the sky seem to have a banding, especially the ground, it hurts to look at!  :P.

Anyways, I cant wait for the developer of this theory to demonstrate exactly what he means.

Offline Helm

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Re: NEW CLUSTER STUDY THREAD!

Reply #121 on: January 28, 2014, 12:56:52 am
The stars are double-tall because the starfield will scroll horisontally vertically at the end (it's a trippy effect). So they're brush-strokes that cohere to the direction of the movement. The ground isn't finished, of course.

Crow: to me, at 1x zoom one is immediately sharper than the other, but then again I've trained my eyes on this concept for some time now.
« Last Edit: January 28, 2014, 01:44:14 am by Helm »

Offline ptoing

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Re: NEW CLUSTER STUDY THREAD!

Reply #122 on: January 28, 2014, 01:27:19 am
[...] scroll horisontally [...] brush-strokes that cohere to the direction of the movement

vertically then?

Crow: to me, at 1x zoom one is immediately sharper than the other, but then again I've trained my eyes on this concept for some time now.

To me at 1x zoom the new one looks less consistent because it has parts which have AA and then parts which are very blocky because of lack of AA, for example around parts of the hairline.

Also, how do you define sharp? Is sharp in this case jagged edges, where I would agree. Because I do not quite see what you mean really.

Mr. Fahrenheit also raises a good point. On a system which has a sufficiently tall or wide pixelratio (or supports modes that do) there are no percieved single-single pixels.

Personally I feel that this whole discussion is extremely esoterical and almost entirely outside the realm of objective reasoning.

That said, that piece you are working on is great, though I still feel that the embargo on single pixels hurts more than it helps in certain places, especially when it comes to issues of AA. As I stated before, double pixel AA forces a different, often suboptimal, outcome when pixelling curves. Also your AA is kinda blurry in places. Another small crit: Her castshadow should not widen, but be either relatively straight or taper like \ / a bit. Probably more toward almost straight tho. Because for the shadow to be like it is the lightsource which is behind her would have to be pretty close.
There are no ugly colours, only ugly combinations of colours.

Offline Helm

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Re: NEW CLUSTER STUDY THREAD!

Reply #123 on: January 28, 2014, 01:45:17 am
Honestly, I do not see where objective reasoning enters the conversation over aesthetics.

Offline ptoing

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Re: NEW CLUSTER STUDY THREAD!

Reply #124 on: January 28, 2014, 01:53:14 am
What I meant with the objectivity part is that if you look at other aspects of pixel art you can make objective statements. Like when using AA one should keep the "higher resolution" of an object in mind, as not to distort the original shape/curve of the thing you AA, but to aid it.

This is where I think the 2 pixel thing often does not help, because again, it creates, imo, suboptimal AA.

I see this kinda practise helpful as far as building a style around it goes, but same goes for other. One thing I would give this approach (not necessarily the no single pixels approach at all, but a generally cluster focused one) is that it improves workflow.
There are no ugly colours, only ugly combinations of colours.

Offline Helm

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Re: NEW CLUSTER STUDY THREAD!

Reply #125 on: January 28, 2014, 02:18:59 am
"What I meant with the objectivity part is that if you look at other aspects of pixel art you can make objective statements."

I never have had any interest in making any objective statements about how AA should be. My intuitions and the framework I've explained over the years in the ramblethread come from a different place, even though the language I've used sometimes can be construed as trying for objectivity (because I talk like a robot). Let there be no misunderstanding, I state it plainly now (and as many times more as I have to in the future, I will), what I'm talking about is about aesthetics, and aesthetics are personal, third parties either see something in them or they don't (or they do further down the line). There needs to be no consensus and no objectivity talk.

I find the concept of 'objective statements in art' to be fascinating sometimes but mostly a fantasy in application and do not wish to feed that approach to art. I urge you to find what it is about 'suboptimal AA' as you call it you find aesthetically displeasing because I'm certain it's not about anything objective. I certainly don't find, for example, banding displeasing because of objective reasons, but because I find horisontal/vertical breaking to look ugly.

Insofar as we can discuss things, of course we present arguments that try to be structured and logical. I can say why I prefer a staircase of pixels instead of a 45 degree single pixel line now, and you can assess that position and agree or disagree, that's all good - but I do not want to talk about objectivity in any of that, we are all bringing in our personalities in making aesthetic choices. Finer and finer apparent resolution is not a set in stone goal of all pixel art.

If you like order, things in a structure, then you might be used in a very specific type of order. This approach here that deemphasizes more abstract cluster connections (because that's what single pixel connections are - more abstract, the mind has to fill in more missing data) might upset you because it's a different type of order. Have you tried it? Have you pixelled anything in this style from the ground up, to see if your mind readjusts? I certainly would find this whole thing preposterous if I read it and hadn't tried it first-hand.

By trying to find a place for this thing by saying that the Rhythm Tengoku glasses PPD drew are okay for it (but not other things?) you're trying to impose some order on something you don't have a lot of experience with. The picture I'm drawing has nothing to do with Rhythm Tengoku, and you might not like it and you might find things wrong with it, but they are choices I'm making on purpose to achieve a different thing than what you're expecting (which could be achieved with single pixels).

So, in all, I would suggest making a few pictures with this method before you write your opinion in ink. And try to be brave about them, they don't have to be ink-drawing iconography like PPD's glasses. I never got into pixel art to impose order on something, I got into it so I could cultivate some impulses in a form on which I had the most control.

re: critique on the image, thanks.

Offline ptoing

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Re: NEW CLUSTER STUDY THREAD!

Reply #126 on: January 28, 2014, 02:37:51 am
I agree with most of what you said, very much actually. I have not done any of this from the ground up, because of being busy atm, tho as I said I tried to apply it to older works, and just felt that they got worse.

I did not mean to say that it is not good for anything else other than the kinda stuff PPD did, but that it would only really work if the whole image was done with it in mind from the ground up, as your woman in front of starfield picture shows (which I like a lot so far).

The thing about order is true to the extent that I have certain tendencies when it comes to neatness in some fields, such as consistency. Consistency is something that is important to me, maybe more than it should be. But from that point of view the new version of the image Cure made, to me looks less consistent and as such less aesthetic.

When I say "suboptimal AA", I mean AA that does not best suit the form that you are trying to show, and this could be backed up mathematically if you were making a curve for example. You will have cases where single pixel AA or AA made from a bunch of single pixels of various shades will yield a better result than forced double pixel AA. So I would say that, yes, there is something objective about this claim.

I guess the closest I have done to this kinda approach is probably my MSX stuff, which still has single pixels, but also a very focused approach to clusters in general, both because of necessity, but also preference of neat clusters.
There are no ugly colours, only ugly combinations of colours.

Offline Helm

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Re: NEW CLUSTER STUDY THREAD!

Reply #127 on: January 28, 2014, 02:49:57 am
But do you see why for other people it might not be important to be mathematically correct in conveying a curve, or at least as important as it is to not have to use single pixels to do it? Because they might be losing some other coherency in their picture by doing that, and they might find that to be an uneven sacrifice?

This is what this is basically about. I'd rather see fat 45 degree swords than skillfully subpixelled complex curves in 16x16 pixels. I can - and have in the past -been dazzled by people who can mathematically find solutions by hand on how to do this - I can even, sorta, kinda do proper AA if I try really hard - but the problem is - I suspect - that the facade falls apart when you zoom, the image loses coherency, the pixel islands become too far apart, information becomes stranded and my mind strains to connect things that I wanted to be connected on their own to begin with.

Mental challenge: try to think of a pretty vector piece. Zoom in on it gradually in your mind, every shape still being coherent even though everything becomes more abstract and less like 'a real thing' the more you zoom in. Distances between shapes become greater, but the shapes are still readable.

This is an element you would expect for there to exist in an art made of atomic bits, a pixel art. But it doesn't. Because we do not treat single pixels as clusters, but as tapers and connectors of bigger clusters - or even worse, buffers between two large colors (1point aa). We abuse them and they look like burning dots on a canvas the more you look closer.

I think the perfectly AAed curve is a big sacrifice to make to destabilize something in zoom-in. But if someone has that desire and that ambition, I'm not going to tell them to not AA.

This is a thread for people who, regardless of how crazy this might all sound in the beginning, after a little bit of testing, might have an 'aha!' moment. I'm not seeking to pressure people into converting into scientology or anything.
« Last Edit: January 28, 2014, 02:51:29 am by Helm »

Offline ptoing

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Re: NEW CLUSTER STUDY THREAD!

Reply #128 on: January 28, 2014, 03:14:09 am
But do you see why for other people it might not be important to be mathematically correct in conveying a curve, or at least as important as it is to not have to use single pixels to do it? Because they might be losing some other coherency in their picture by doing that, and they might find that to be an uneven sacrifice?


I can see that, yes.

Quote
Mental challenge: try to think of a pretty vector piece. Zoom in on it gradually in your mind, every shape still being coherent even though everything becomes more abstract and less like 'a real thing' the more you zoom in. Distances between shapes become greater, but the shapes are still readable.

I see what you mean there. Opposite to that you can also imagine zooming out, which is when you get stuff like AA being used as tapers and so on.

Quote
This is an element you would expect for there to exist in an art made of atomic bits, a pixel art. But it doesn't. Because we do not treat single pixels as clusters, but as tapers and connectors of bigger clusters - or even worse, buffers between two large colors (1point aa). We abuse them and they look like burning dots on a canvas the more you look closer.

Saying that we abuse them is a bit much I think, seeing as some people enjoy/prefer that kinda look. It all depends what you want to do and how you feel about it aesthetically, and it also HEAVILY depends on your target resolution. Arguably pixel art made outside of games or other practical application does not necessarily have a target resolution.

Quote
This is a thread for people who, regardless of how crazy this might all sound in the beginning, after a little bit of testing, might have an 'aha!' moment. I'm not seeking to pressure people into converting into scientology or anything.

I can also see this and I am sure I will have an aha moment at some point if I sit down and do some ground up work in this approach. Clusterology sounds funny.
There are no ugly colours, only ugly combinations of colours.

Offline Cure

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Re: NEW CLUSTER STUDY THREAD!

Reply #129 on: January 29, 2014, 07:16:16 am
tried one from scratch
the stars suck but everything else turned out ok.

« Last Edit: January 30, 2014, 04:27:32 am by Cure »