AuthorTopic: Official Off-Topic Thread 2015  (Read 92364 times)

Offline Ai

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread 2015

Reply #230 on: September 13, 2015, 03:34:16 pm
Thanks, it's good to hear that someone other than me is interested in this ;)

I went ahead and implemented a few alternate tiled display modes, intended to test out tiles in the widest range of configurations.


Another example -- more interesting IMO -- surprising how much organic-ness can come out of 6 transformations of the same tile.

The 'all adjacencies' option uses a 6x6-tile layout that places every possible permutation (4: original, hflip, vflip, hvflip) of the tile in contact with every other permutation along every possible edge.  There isn't a full (6 tiles: original, hflip, vflip, hvflip, rot90, rot270) version of that yet, but I intend to make one, since they are usable as generic 'tile matchup' testing patterns in a normal tilemap.)

EDIT: Also, IMO This font deserves more exposure. The way it's designed means it renders hard-edged very well:

Since it also is quite readable, it's my current go-to font for annotations down to 10pt in size, along with Fantasque Sans. Both are OFL licensed.
(note: font rendering using FreeType with the Infinality patchset. Different font renderers -- for example, Windows or MacOS UI renderers, or to a lesser extent, FreeType without Infinality -- may result in different output)

EDIT2: Sorted out most outstanding bugs -- tiling now works for opaque and transparent, static and animated images, in combination with any other modifier (silhouette, lowered opacity, gamma, negate alpha).
Next: panning could be better (should be infinite in all 4 dirs, and behave reliably for more complex tilings); and we could use any spare space in the thumb 'square' to display bordering tiles, to produce a moderately tiled thumbnail.
« Last Edit: September 15, 2015, 12:26:25 am by Ai »
If you insist on being pessimistic about your own abilities, consider also being pessimistic about the accuracy of that pessimistic judgement.

Offline Ai

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread 2015

Reply #231 on: September 20, 2015, 07:50:27 am
[yet another post about sxiv mods]
Tell me if I'm being spammy, okay?
I've been running sxiv with this 'auto-pixel-upscale' modification of thumbnail mode, for some time now. I posted about it earlier in the thread, it looks like this:

(sxiv in thumb mode)

I'm beginning to have a more mixed opinion of it, particularly how it affects the sense of scale.
I know that 'mixed resolution is icky and weird' is a common sentiment on Pixelation, but does that apply here?

There are a range of other ways to attack this problem (pixel art having uselessly small thumbs), so if you have a definite opinion on this, feel free to speak up :)
If you insist on being pessimistic about your own abilities, consider also being pessimistic about the accuracy of that pessimistic judgement.

Offline RAV

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread 2015

Reply #232 on: September 21, 2015, 12:03:24 pm
For the purpose of an pixel image preview tool, scaling up is useful. Yet comparing true scale also can be useful. However, I'd say the first one is probably more useful in most cases. So either that, or make an option for both, with auto-scaling the default. Otherwise it depends what you want to do with the auto-tiling feature, which might shift the balance of importance back again. Good work anyway, looking good.

Offline Ai

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread 2015

Reply #233 on: September 21, 2015, 12:39:57 pm
whoa. almost forgot about this place. what's new?
If I had to pick one thing, I would recommend you Howard Day's recent thread about realtime 3d-rendering 'pseudo-pixelart'. Very interesting and potentially very useful -- both short term and educationally -- to pixellers, if he chooses to release it.

For the purpose of an pixel image preview tool, scaling up is useful. Yet comparing true scale also can be useful. However, I'd say the first one is probably more useful in most cases. So either that, or make an option for both, with auto-scaling the default. Otherwise it depends what you want to do with the auto-tiling feature, which might shift the balance of importance back again. Good work anyway, looking good.
Thanks for the feedback.
I hadn't really considered having a toggleable option.. that might be good, since there are many different strategies to try out.

For example, you can try to preserve relative scale by considering the whole page of thumbs at once, picking an auto-zoom level accordingly. This would preserve their relative scale at the cost of not zooming the smaller ones as much as you can. And you can execute that particular strategy in a few different ways (absolutely prevent all distortion by using the maximum size as basis, or prevent most distortion by taking median or average size as basis) too.

Actually, that helps.. I just realized that only the current page of thumbs has guaranteed known dimensions, so probably I must limit the checking to that anyway.

The auto-tiling feature does not interact with the thumb autozooming, as 'image mode' runs off different code than thumbnail mode. Do you think it should?
I'm finding that the auto-tiling in combination with the silhouette modes (renders the image as a single color) is a nice design feature, it shows the flow of the image very clearly and can also help spot readability problems.

I also have a modification partly completed that intentionally distorts the image in different proportions -- 1:1, 1:2, 2:1, 1:3, 3:1 etc.. (to help see if the proportions you are using are actually optimal.). I've found it useful so far but it's definitely still buggy:)


EDIT: I've now implemented a compromise strategy, which can be summarized like this:
"Pick a 'global zoom' level based on the average of the base[unzoomed] dimensions of all currently visible thumbs. When drawing each thumb, calculate how much zoom it could have.
If that factor > (global_zoom + 1), then clip it to global_zoom+1."

This curtails some of the more gross excesses (really tiny 8x8 icons like the skull would previously get huge magnifications that would make them feel way too big.)
I feel like it puts each page in good context with the other members of the page, although some mental adjustment is required to the fact of thumb sizes changing..

Overall it feels like one of those graphical docks where the icons get bigger as you approach them..



Bugs shown here:
* Thumbnail outline is using the wrong size cause it's not using the adjusted metrics yet.

Features not shown here:
* Images often 'bounce' (pop out towards you) cutely when you scroll. Totally unintended, an artefact of how the display is rerendered during scroll.

A tunable option, I guess, would substitute that value 1 with 2, 4, 8, or 64 (or 0, or maybe also -1024), which would let you choose relative importance of 'correct relative scale' vs 'easily see pixels'
« Last Edit: September 21, 2015, 01:56:50 pm by Ai »
If you insist on being pessimistic about your own abilities, consider also being pessimistic about the accuracy of that pessimistic judgement.

Offline Rydin

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread 2015

Reply #234 on: September 21, 2015, 01:37:49 pm
whoa. almost forgot about this place. what's new?
Man cannot remake himself without suffering for he is both the marble and the sculptor.

Offline RAV

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread 2015

Reply #235 on: September 22, 2015, 08:23:33 am
You. and I. Hi.

AI, I had a somewhat related problem on another feature, the so called Smart Select. It is most useful, even necessary, in the very most use cases. And yet still, the little occasions in which the Smart gets in the way itself with being "too smart for its own good", make it just as necessary to have the ability to turn off entirely for a more regular and predictable method of selection. Being smart itself is but an option among others. While smart functionality is a desirable convenience often, it can never be quite smart enough to be in undisputable supervision on the relevant task of your every choice; automatons need a kill-switch. But don't worry, AI. :)

« Last Edit: September 22, 2015, 08:36:17 am by RAV »

Offline rahulyadav

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread 2015

Reply #236 on: October 02, 2015, 12:46:47 pm
I will send you a PM.
pls even send me

Offline Ai

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread 2015

Reply #237 on: October 03, 2015, 03:10:16 am
just found this bunch of ascii-art fonts. Most of them seem to have designs which are quite compatible with, and easily translatable to, pixel art.
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Offline surt

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread 2015

Reply #238 on: October 04, 2015, 12:23:13 am
Why on earth doesn't Pro Motion allow even diameter circles?  :huh:

Offline Joe

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread 2015

Reply #239 on: October 05, 2015, 05:20:03 pm
Can Graphics Gale draw with the second color instead of pick color for right click?