AuthorTopic: GR#001 - Red Dragon - Dither  (Read 32835 times)

Offline AlexWeldon

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Re: [WIP] Red Dragon

Reply #20 on: November 21, 2008, 07:00:55 pm
This is a good study in facial expression... looking at the sequence of edits in the original post, he went from surprised to suspicious to bored to smug. Later in the thread, he became proud and condescending. All perfectly good and cute in their own ways, but it depends on what you're trying to communicate, and it's good to look at them all and try to see what it is that gives them those moods.

Offline Arachne

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Re: [WIP] Red Dragon

Reply #21 on: November 21, 2008, 10:34:22 pm
the way I'm looking at the problem is more like if we have 3 colors, a light, medium and dark, the dark and the light can't touch, except for the corners, and you have to bridge the colors using the medium color. Problem with this is that i feel like I've seen a lot of good pixel art where you have a really bright highlight, and to 1 side you  have smooth blending, but to the other side you have the darkest color in the palette. I'm not sure if this is a lighting thing, a style thing, or what, if anyone knows, please let me know :)

If you look at the second image I posted you'll see that I've put the light and dark together. The trick is to keep in mind that bright plus dark equals medium, and you can take advantage of that to get rid of banding, like so:

bb
ac
bb

ab
ac
bc

(if you imagine drawing a line between the two b's in this one, you'll see that you end up between the light and the dark, which kind of cancel each other out)

instead of

bc
ab
bc

ab
ab
bc

And you can extend it in many different ways:

bab
cac
cbc

cab
cab
bbb
cab
bbb

aabcc
abbbc
aabcc
abbbc
aabcc

instead of

bab
cbc
cbc

cab
cab
bab
cbb
bbb

aabbc
abbcc
aabbc
abbcc
aabbc

And it can work for double pixels as well:

cb
cb
da
da
cb
cb

One thing to note is that you end up with coarser dithering patterns this way. The most important thing is to try and notice where you can place a pixel so that it looks best. After a while, you'll begin to see a pattern. :)

Offline Dogmeat

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Re: [WIP] Red Dragon

Reply #22 on: November 22, 2008, 06:07:48 am
I made a reference chart based on Arachne's text interpretation. It is much easier to understand :)

Thanks Arachne!

Daisuke Nagano Yokoyama

Offline skamocore

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Re: [WIP] Red Dragon

Reply #23 on: November 22, 2008, 08:31:35 am
Dog, I think you misrepresented her chart a little bit, it should be:

Offline Dogmeat

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Re: [WIP] Red Dragon

Reply #24 on: November 22, 2008, 04:34:43 pm
Ah, you're totally right! I was really tired last night trying to translate arachne's text into graphics, thanks for correcting me :) I stared at this for so long I had dreams about how the patterns should look. Hopefully get some of the dragon done this morning.
Daisuke Nagano Yokoyama

Offline Dogmeat

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Re: [WIP] Red Dragon

Reply #25 on: November 22, 2008, 06:06:41 pm
Using the rules ( modified skamocore one thats actually correct ) I started fudging the area arachne spoke of in a previous post. I may have missed some pixels but let me know if I'm on the right track, I think i'm starting to understand the concept but I want to make sure before I drill it into my head and finish this guy. I think it's looking more smooth for sure and getting that "pixely" feel from it.



Daisuke Nagano Yokoyama

Offline I Am Uh

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Re: [WIP] Red Dragon

Reply #26 on: November 22, 2008, 07:12:16 pm
Tragic reduction of definition. It's Bicep simply looks like fat now. The elbow looks a bit rounded as well. The only way you could pull this off is if it's a very feminine female Dragon. (Which isn't very Prominent in Dragons.)
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Offline Dogmeat

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Re: [WIP] Red Dragon

Reply #27 on: November 22, 2008, 09:53:47 pm
Attempting to correct the muscle problem while still using the banding rules:



Daisuke Nagano Yokoyama

Offline Dogmeat

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Re: [WIP] Red Dragon

Reply #28 on: November 23, 2008, 09:57:02 pm
Latest:



Worked the face.
Worked the legs
Realized the purple works as an excellent highlight for the darker red.
Fudged the tail a bit

Let me know what you think.

Edit:

Thought the back leg still needed a highlight, unsure if this is working well or not.

« Last Edit: November 23, 2008, 11:07:41 pm by Dogmeat »
Daisuke Nagano Yokoyama

Offline Helm

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Re: [WIP] Red Dragon

Reply #29 on: November 24, 2008, 11:30:47 am
First of all I want to tell you that I like this lots, especially the expression. However I think you might be spending too much time with single pixels and not looking at the effect of the piece on the whole.


  • Your rendering is too 'dirty', I think. You don't define forms enough and you put more import on noise dither than such a small piece benefits from
  • You hue shift to hue shift. Do you need purples in a red dragon? It's not that I don't like the effect is that I ask myself 'what does it accomplish'?
  • The forms are too fuzzy with aa and the outlines too heavy. I think you'd do better defining strong, simple forms and then trying them together with pixel tech, not straight off dithers and noises and single pixels everywhere, they just confuse the design
  • The sharp speculars you use make it seem as if the dragon is made of alabaster or something, an ornament on the side of the fireplace catching a lot of glare from flash photography

It's important to realize that I don't think my edit is BETTER than the original in these respects as it is an extremity used to define a range between what you're doing and what else you could be doing. Even if you find an optimal space somewhere between that that's great. I didn't want to be more subtle because then it would look as if I was giving you nitpicks (and this thread has been mostly nitpick critique besides arachne) whereas I think there are fundamental issues with design and pixel art you need to come to grips with. For example note that ordered dither, when used discreetely and doesn't touch other dithers suggests middle shades of the two colors mixed without needed more shades. It looks almost 'oily' as if someone put a brush down and did a strong pass with a feathery finish, that's a good effect. I know a lot of people like nose dither but in such small spaces it mostly creates banding and confuses the forms! Some anatomy also be an issue but eh, it's a cartoony dragon. Usually I suggest to people to think more like painters and less like sprite artists but to you for this piece I'd have to suggest the opposite! Think more about what bodies of pixels do together and not just the value of a single pixel here and there.