Sub-pixel by hand? Silly little experiment.

[djork]

This is just a little experiment.  Not really art, I guess.  Anyway... this little diagonal line is exactly 1.33 pixels, or 4 sub-pixels, wide.  It only works on an LCD screen as far as I know.  The goal is to use the individual red, green, and blue components of a pixel as pixels themselves.  I tried to do a little bit of anti-aliasing, but it's kind of an unusual mental exercise to draw this way anyway, and it was late.

Without further ado:



I want to make a sub-pixel game in a 32 x 32 square, with an effective resolution of 32 x 96 due to the extra horizontal accuracy.

Here's two more... a sub-pixel chain or helix, and a curvy variation.  Keep in mind that the strip of colored pixels is only 2 pixels wide...

[Ryumaru]

this is fucking amazing sir. maybe not to the qualified pixelers here, but atleast to me. the double helix thing is just amazing.

[djork]

Here's one more I did to demonstrate the technique to a coworker.  You can do a lot with 2 pixel-wide fonts

[Xion]

 

I'm impressed.
Extremely.
These are only 2px!?
*zooms*
Amazing.

[Faktablad]

Wow, great experimentation.  I especially like the third image in the first post.

I understand now, the red pixels tend to appear more totwards the left, and the blue pixels tend to appear more to the right?

[Rydin]

I vaguely remember something about this way back on the old forums.  Doesn't it have something to do with the triangle shape of a single pixel or something like that?

[robotriot]

No, on a TFT screen, a single pixel consists of a row of red, green and blue. They're slightly offset left/right to each other since they have to be arranged in a square to make up a single pixel. Now if you only use 255,0,0 for example, the green and blue parts stay black, so it looks as if only one third of the pixel is actually lit on the screen.

[Larwick]

Man... I wish i had an LCD so i could see this... 

[ndchristie]

Man... I wish i had an LCD so i could see this... 

me too, since CRT monitors arrage differently and it just looks like nonsense

[goat]

On a similar note to anyone interested in 2D console art:  many artists working on systems such as the SNES used aliasing and contrast selection techniques to give the illusion of subpixel detail, exploiting the way a TV tube displays a square pixel at that resolution.  For the sake of comparison, we use different techniques like AA and selout to arrive at a similar result on our sharper PC/handheld displays, which is why a lot of art drawn natively for a console will look grainy or messed up on a pc monitor, and fully anti-aliased pixel art put on a tv screen will look too fuzzy and flat.

I was working on a full writeup of this a few months ago; if I find it I'll try to finish it in more detail and post it later.

[Helm]

Please do, as I find it hard to believe anyone developed FOR tv-blur specifically.

[goat]

Why's that? Pixel art has more direct relation to the quality of the display than any other digital medium since the basic unit of pixel art AND the screen it's being viewed on is the pixel; it's a 1:1 correlation. 

Wtih most of the TV-targeted pixel art you see it appears that the artists have only neglected a few steps of refinement that TV blur obscures, not enhances, but once in a while you see choices made in pixel placement and color selection that are very hard to explain in any other way than intentionally exploiting the TV blur. 

It only makes sense that artists would change up their process to make the end result look good on the intended display, instead of treating it as you would a conventional monitor, which doesn't always result in art that looks crisp and has depth when viewed on a TV. Among other things, the blur causes pixels and colors to bleed together a bit depending on hue and intensity.  It also makes small areas of contrasting pixels such as spot highlights darken due to the light being spread out over a larger area.  It needs to be compensated for somehow.

Anyway, didn't mean to derail this thread, if I have anything else to say I'll address it in the writeup :p

[Helm]

I've never seen a sharp developed-for-pc image that didn't look better on TV than what you say are specifically-for-TV-viewing pics. That's my reasoning. Waiting for the writeup.

[niceidiot]

I am sorry to bump such an OLD thread, but I think I know of an instance that is being referred to here, unless I am TOTALLY off base.

It has to do with the CGA palette when outputting to a non RGBI monitor.  Wikipedia explains it better than I do, but do to some crazy dot crawl the designers were able to make colors based on a form of pixel bleeding.

Take a peek. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Graphics_Adapter

This would seem to be an instance of development specifically for TV output, since having a real monitor would not allow the same effect at all.  Check the Ultima ][ and Kings Quest examples specifically.

[Rosse]

Well, since this thread is on-top, I can share a link Arne posted once in ca.org which describes sub-pixeling perfect

http://www.grc.com/ctwhat.htm

[ptoing]

I am TOTALLY off base.

[niceidiot]

Meh, Not an instance of sharpening, but an instance of using the inherent quality of the display device, in this case a CRT TV to create something that is much different from the development display.  As the discussion devolved into creating graphic that are created for and look better on a TV, here is one instance, that is all.

And I am off-base.

[smiker]

Man... I wish i had an LCD so i could see this... 

me too, since CRT monitors arrage differently and it just looks like nonsense

yeah, but the concept he is trying to stamp in here is just amazing, i had an idea some days ago but like that but haven't experimented it yet...
hehe i've a 19''CRT so i cannot see it either. x X