Need Drastic Help with my Black Fading Sprites

[Tetiro]

Hey guys, I really need your help.

For my game I sprited some black fading sprites so that the game areas would fade to black so that the border looks better in the areas.



But in all honesty they suck. They drastically need improvement. But I can't get it right. Every method of fading with pixels I know has failed. I am lost as to how I can improve them to a sense of quality.

Can anyone help me improve them? I don't know what to do.

[looaks]

Not sure of what you are looking for, a context surely will help
My best guess is this:

Hope it helps

[rikfuzz]

Could try pattern dither? 

(didn't do it precisely, just automatically in photoshop)

Found this:

from here:
http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11299

Which might help if you wanted to do it manually. 

[r1k]

what do the rest of the tiles look like?  Is there a reason you cant use more colors?

[Tetiro]

Not sure of what you are looking for, a context surely will help
My best guess is this:

Hope it helps

So naturally made! How did you make this effect?

[looaks]

It is actually pretty simple:
1) I started with a withe rectangle in a white background in PS
2) I added a black glow effect to the layer
3) I flattened the image and added little noise effect (maybe 2% can't remember)
4) I covert it first to greyscale and then to bitmap with a diffusion dither

then i edited the result by hand to have it 'right'

Does this mess make any sense to you?

[Tetiro]

It is actually pretty simple:
1) I started with a withe rectangle in a white background in PS
2) I added a black glow effect to the layer
3) I flattened the image and added little noise effect (maybe 2% can't remember)
4) I covert it first to greyscale and then to bitmap with a diffusion dither

then i edited the result by hand to have it 'right'

Does this mess make any sense to you?

I guess PS is Photoshop right? Dang. Don't have that program

[Manupix]

Can you show these in context? I have no idea what they're for, just curious
I like your original way more than any edit so far. Maybe that will change when I understand what it's all about :S

[Tetiro]

Can you show these in context? I have no idea what they're for, just curious
I like your original way more than any edit so far. Maybe that will change when I understand what it's all about :S

Certainly!



Look at the borders

EDIT: Ok I think I need to take a break. This is getting more stressful than it should. How do you guys cope with the corners when dithering/fading/etc? I can do the straight sides easily but the corners are giving me a lot of grief.

[Manupix]

Well it doesn't look bad at all 
Maybe simple straight lines would work just as well?
Unless you allow for semi-transparency, I don't think you can get anything better.

Corners: in the mockup view without rounded corners, it's just a matter of width: should be an odd n° of pixels. Just remove 1 px in height and in width, maybe a few stray pixels, and things should look good.
Same thing for rounded corners, plus some experimenting as to the best sizes for the circle arcs.

There are other issues in that mockup screenshot though. Next thread!