AuthorTopic: 'sub pixel' animation (Read 19162 times)

baccaman21 · **on:** December 19, 2006, 01:30:51 pm

right... I know I'm old hat at a pixels... but something i've never really got my head around is sub pixel animation and related techniques... i'm more of a cartoony selshaded officiando...

so... can any of you lovely people help illuminate this field of pixels for me as i'm in need of some sound advice and direction.

ta.

Pete

ptoing · **Reply #1 on:** December 19, 2006, 01:47:40 pm

Heya Pete,
it's not that complicated, basically you use antialias to move an element in the picture seemingly by less than a pixel at a time.

Made a quick picture to show it. Top: one pixel at a time, bottom: sub pixel movement so smoothen it out.

For actual pixelart this can be used for small idle wobbles of stuff like motors or for subtle breathing animations on smaller sprites where you can tween between 2 frames like this.

baccaman21 · **Reply #2 on:** December 19, 2006, 01:50:10 pm

thought it was... so essentially it IS anti aliasing over time... cheers sven...

I've never actually tried doing this EVER... (shocking I know) - I may give it a whirl on my next anim... (which is taking longer than I thought)

btw - I'm handing in my resignation end of the week... so I'm off very early jan... WEYHEY!!!

.TakaM · **Reply #3 on:** December 19, 2006, 01:56:14 pm

curse you ptoing, I made almost the exact same image!

baccaman21 · **Reply #4 on:** December 19, 2006, 02:01:32 pm

that's what I like... a nice quick thread that ends as abrubtly as it starts... thanks chaps...

<case closed>

NEXT!

ptoing · **Reply #5 on:** December 19, 2006, 02:17:01 pm

well another thing there is, is the rgb subpixel aa you can do on lcd displays.

I am using a weighted approach here, not using full red, green and blue, but variants which work much better and look ok on CRTs as well.
For classical pixelart this is pretty much useless tho unless you could make a game only in black and white, it does not work anywhere as well with colour and of course some screens use BGR and that would fuck how it looks completely.

No aa, subpixel rgb aa, 1 pixel classic and 2 pixel classic aa

Basically it works because each pixel is made from 3 little strips of R, G and B, so if you want darkness on the right 2 thirds of a pixel you put a red pixel, if you want only the right one third dark you put yellow there which is both red and green activated.

So yeh, pretty much pointless for normal pixelart.

EDIT: Hahaha, Takam, I bet I was faster because I used the power of Promotion's animbrushes

.TakaM · **Reply #6 on:** December 19, 2006, 02:29:45 pm

lol, you got me, I was using mspaint

I'll get into promotion soon I swear

Helm · **Reply #7 on:** December 19, 2006, 07:09:23 pm

Quote from: .TakaM on December 19, 2006, 02:29:45 pm

lol, you got me, I was using mspaint

I'll get into promotion soon I swear

No no no, don't. Mspaint is much more hardcore and it impresses the laymen.

Rox · **Reply #8 on:** December 19, 2006, 07:22:19 pm

Oh, shut up..

Helm · **Reply #9 on:** December 19, 2006, 07:23:36 pm

ptoing · **Reply #10 on:** December 19, 2006, 08:03:32 pm

Larwick · **Reply #11 on:** December 19, 2006, 08:59:19 pm

Quote from: ptoing on December 19, 2006, 08:03:32 pm

Dude that just messed with my head..

pkmays · **Reply #12 on:** December 19, 2006, 09:07:19 pm

Cow · **Reply #13 on:** December 19, 2006, 09:09:42 pm

I think there should be one topic about the various pixel art programs. Topics seem to derail quickly whenever MsPaint is involved.

(Involved, or even mentioned.)

alkaline · **Reply #14 on:** December 20, 2006, 04:45:05 am

Hehe....subpixel animation. Fun stuff. Moderately hard to pull off successfully though.. but good to know for smooth anims sometimes.

AdamTierney · **Reply #15 on:** December 20, 2006, 06:19:20 am

It works great with subtle animations, like characters breathing/idling. Also known as animating with colors.

There is another type of sub-pixel art, but that deals with creating art that takes advantage of the RGB layouts of LCD screens to create the illusion of more horizontal detail.

EDIT: Whoops, Ptoing beat me to it.

baccaman21 · **Reply #16 on:** December 20, 2006, 02:25:36 pm

got another query regarding this topic... thnx for the replies btw - even the OT ones..

So, I understand the technique now - it's pretty much what I thought but you've clarified it for me.

I got a technical question... Sven/Ptoing, in both your examples you demonstrates the anti alias color which the motion is moving from and to... this makes perfect sense... (essentially creating a kind of motion blur from one pixel to another) however, my query regards masking sprites out - now obviously, it's easier to demo the technique with the samples you've shown against plain backgrounds... so presumably if one was to create sprites, for say, a GBA game - (not that I think I ever will anymore but for arguments sake)... then presumably one couldn't do the sub-pixel aliasing on the edges that are external of the sprite as this would (I'd imagine) 'fizz' against the various broken colored backgrounds... as you can't dicate what colors your aliasing to - if that makes sense?

So, realistically, in a practicle application, what's the solution? Surely, subpixel anims can really only work within the confined space of the sprites profile/outline...? yes or no...?

If no - how does one manage to reduce (what I visualise) as edge noise - without resorting to alpha maps - which one lo color pixel work you tend not to have access to?

I've not actually tried this as yet so this is pure hypothesis... I may be completely off mark.

Cheers
pete

ptoing · **Reply #17 on:** December 20, 2006, 02:31:34 pm

Yes, only on the inside for sprites unless you have only one colour for the background guess.

Here is an example:

He has some esp at the top of the shoulder.

.TakaM · **Reply #18 on:** December 20, 2006, 02:57:44 pm

heres another example:

my link sprites had quite a bit of subpixel animation, on the sword especially
my decision was, since I had a black outline, to have the outline 'lag' behind the movement of the sword, Im not an expert with subpixel animating, but I think it had good results and at the very least a resolution you could consider

baccaman21 · **Reply #19 on:** December 20, 2006, 03:16:13 pm

hmmm... yeah I see... this is great chaps... real food for thought...

something I can see I'll need some time experimenting with... I'm now starting to have ideas of where to take this as a technique and using it within my own skillset and adapting it...

hmmm... food for thought indeed...

I wonder...

<...trails off in thought...>

.TakaM · **Reply #20 on:** December 20, 2006, 03:18:19 pm

i look forward to seeing what you make

Xion · **Reply #21 on:** December 21, 2006, 10:52:31 pm

Yeah, fun stuff.
More examples:

I'm still proud of this one. The silhouette doesn't change during the idle part. (At least I don't think it does...Not much anyway.)

Yep, good ol' Samus. Again, the outline doesn't change anywhere but the back thingy.

skw · **Reply #22 on:** December 22, 2006, 01:11:10 am

I'm happy there are topics like that on Pixelation. Some new practical knowledge acquired!

Quote from: Xion Night

That's really pro stuff, Xion.

Conzeit · **Reply #23 on:** January 01, 2007, 01:14:50 am

Baccaman, the solution I usually employ when I want to make less than a pixel of movement for scrolling a sillouethe...is simply to selectively modify the sillouethe.

how can I explain it?......hm.okay I dont have to

see marco's shoulder there? it's transforming like there's no tomorrow. it's only supposed to be going up, but in order to make the movment more subtle than bumping it up a pixel, it's shape gets deformed as it moves up. in order to animate like this you need to have a picture of the sprite inside your mind which is more detailed than the actual resolution it's at, only that way you can modify it's shape and stay faithful to what it should look like, otherwise you're just making a blobbery mess.

am I making any sense at all?

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AuthorTopic: 'sub pixel' animation (Read 19162 times)