I'm not sure what advanced AA you saw me do... I'm not sure I'm doing anything different from before.
On blurry AA that creates banding, look at this animation in your pixel program frame by frame
a. This is just an 1bit shape. As you see there's jaggies.
b. This is AAing that top ridge using a 16 color gradient. That's a lot of colours! The eye can't see any pixels banding at the edges because the gradient's too smooth.
c. But realistically, for most pixel art purposes we wouldn't have 16 colors or whatever for that, we'd have 3-4 or so. Look at how the same perceptual AA creates banding in...
d. These are problems that once the eye sees, they can't unsee.
e. is one solution, where the AA is allowed to 'touch' from each line break, but the pixels are offset in such a way so as not to create doubled staircases.
f. this is another solution where the image is sharpened up so the lines do not touch. The principles are the same.
Keep this symbol in mind when you're thinking about banding:
It will ward off the evil spirits.
As to 'shape bluffing', I personally do not endorse that term. I think large flat areas are a boon and the artist should not be afraid of them. Complete opaque uniform color is a benefit of digital displays and computers, why should it be hidden? If detail must be added, it should convey actual texture and volumetric shape, not just 'shapes'. Then again, a lot of people like that sort of thing, which I believe is closely related to 'stylistic' types of dither. Ask Ptoing or ilke about that stuff, they know better.
Keep in mind that pixel.schlet mirror is a bit outdated, there's been more posts in
the ongoing Ramblethread. Nothing too important but there's some followup, and you can contribute if you want.
Do talk about 'stylish shading', but be wary of inventing cool techniques, it usually doesn't help.
