AuthorTopic: [C+C] Title Screen Landscape (dithering help!)  (Read 2247 times)

Offline nessx007

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[C+C] Title Screen Landscape (dithering help!)

on: July 09, 2016, 06:52:09 am
Hey guys, just spent the better part of a full day working on this thing, but there are still areas lacking polish. I got as far as I could before I got fatigued on detail work. And whats more detail intensive than dithering? Welp, you might notice my sky banding has none at the moment:



I tried a couple variations but wasn't happy with the results (either too tiny/unnoticable, or too chunky). Having the banding arc'd like it is might be part of my difficulty, but I'd be curious on any suggestions from you guys (since there are a million and a one ways to dither something).

As for the rest of the image, I'm open to any CC as well! This is a title screen background for an iOS game I'm working on. There will eventually be text/buttons over this image as well.

Thanks in advance!
Hope this little blurb finds you well! We've got a fun little series documenting our progress on our SNES puzzle throwback game here:
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Offline 0xDB

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Re: [C+C] Title Screen Landscape (dithering help!)

Reply #1 on: July 09, 2016, 08:56:57 am
Some Dither-AA could lessen the staircase artifacts between the Colour Banding. Another thing to try would be to get rid of the color bands entirely and put in a more complex pattern, perhaps something which hints at clouds or nebula like in this North&South screenshot.

It would not eliminate the color banding but it would be much less obvious if the borders between the bands were not as clean cut as they are now.

Offline nessx007

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Re: [C+C] Title Screen Landscape (dithering help!)

Reply #2 on: July 10, 2016, 08:29:12 am
Thank you for those resources! And the suggestion for a more nebulous approach to the shapes. I usually prefer a clean-cut dithered look rather than a potentially messier whisp-y style, but I couldn't deny that it would probably be a good fit here. I landed somewhere in the middle with some scattered star-dithering mixed in. Here is the update if anyone has any thoughts (any/all feedback is appreciated!):

Hope this little blurb finds you well! We've got a fun little series documenting our progress on our SNES puzzle throwback game here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NomLd6Wcbro
Or check out our game art on tumblr:
http://medleystudio.tumblr.com

Offline washk

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Re: [C+C] Title Screen Landscape (dithering help!)

Reply #3 on: July 10, 2016, 08:46:02 am
Maybe you should apply a known dithering pattern, like try out one from the bottom of this thread and work from there. The transition between sky and space is the weakest for now.
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Offline 0xDB

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Re: [C+C] Title Screen Landscape (dithering help!)

Reply #4 on: July 10, 2016, 09:31:58 am
I think it already looks better... was just thinking it might look even better if the idea to have it transition to black space was abandoned. Reasoning: I was googling for "sunset in space" images to find a reference for how that transition should look but the issue is that this kind of transition and the situation in which it can be observed does not match the lighting of your scene... so perhaps just put in a beautiful sky and axe the black space.

Looking at the trees, I had to look twice to notice that those tree groups are basically the same tree copied and stamped over and over... pretty nice trick that I should remember to use sometime... but some variation would be good.

Offline nessx007

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Re: [C+C] Title Screen Landscape (dithering help!)

Reply #5 on: July 11, 2016, 02:43:48 am
Good point yeah, it's not exactly a realistic perspective which might be where some of my trouble lies. I might end up revisiting it a bit later in the future but at the moment I'm already swamped with new stuff to finish! I do appreciate the advice though (and yeah you got me haha, I do use a bit of copy-pasting when I'm first roughing out a composition. I'd agree that it'd benefit from a bit more detail work to hide that fact)
Hope this little blurb finds you well! We've got a fun little series documenting our progress on our SNES puzzle throwback game here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NomLd6Wcbro
Or check out our game art on tumblr:
http://medleystudio.tumblr.com