AuthorTopic: A question about 'Selout'  (Read 37751 times)

Offline ptoing

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Re: A question about 'Selout'

Reply #20 on: February 02, 2009, 04:58:32 pm
See Jad, this is the burden of our friend blumunkee here. He made this shite up years ago and called it selective outlining, or sel-out in short. It is nothing but aaing towards a background colour, be it black or something else. It hardly ever really works all that great. But yeh, it is a shit term, and blumunkee should pay money every time someone asks about it. Or alternatively spend 1 aeon in purgatory for each time. Seems fair to me.
There are no ugly colours, only ugly combinations of colours.

Offline Jad

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Re: A question about 'Selout'

Reply #21 on: February 02, 2009, 08:44:52 pm
Yes, and I'm saying the same thing.

We shall purge the 'sel-out' from the collective mind and we shall use the term 'selective outlining' when we see 'selective outlining' in effect because that's a two words whose combination carries an inherent meaning and thus needs not be asked about as much as the ambigous abbreviation that we all hate.

The thing that is called sel-out that is obviously ONE way to do 'selective outlining' (to not make a 1px fully enclosing outline) should, though, be called a BROKEN OUTLINE or something along those lines, because that's what it is also.

Also I was lurking here when the term first came up so I won't need the history lessons. Or rather I actually do because I didn't know it was all BLUMUNKEE's FAULT D:<

There is no forgiveness from me.

No but really even when the term FIRST DEVELOPED I thought we were already clear on the subject that this 'sel-out' was obviously JUST AN ABBREVIATION for SELECTIVE OUTLINING

Why is everyone an idiot and just took it as a name for a TECHNIQUE to create broken outlines? Aaaaargh.

tl;dr

Everyone is an idiot and sel-out is not a technique
' _ '

Offline ptoing

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Re: A question about 'Selout'

Reply #22 on: February 02, 2009, 09:04:25 pm
Why is everyone an idiot and just took it as a name for a TECHNIQUE to create broken outlines? Aaaaargh.

Helm answered this. Blumunkee aka PKMays coined that term back then, he called it selective outlining and called it sel-out for short, and he described it in his tutorial as the broken aa crap as observed in capcom games (not that capcom are the only ones who did this).
There are no ugly colours, only ugly combinations of colours.

Offline blumunkee

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Re: A question about 'Selout'

Reply #23 on: February 02, 2009, 09:13:02 pm

Offline ptoing

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Re: A question about 'Selout'

Reply #24 on: February 02, 2009, 09:19:35 pm
Quote
This is a big reason Capcom, SNK, and other professional game sprites look so good, this funky, seemly random shading inside the outline. The keyword is "seemingly" -- after the studying I've done, I've found out a few things about how to do it. I'll do my best to explain it as clearly as possible.

 :lol: :ouch:
There are no ugly colours, only ugly combinations of colours.

Offline blumunkee

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Re: A question about 'Selout'

Reply #25 on: February 02, 2009, 09:22:34 pm
 !yus!

Offline Atnas

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Re: A question about 'Selout'

Reply #26 on: February 02, 2009, 10:39:41 pm
hahaha I used that tutorial four years ago, I had forgotten where it was, and I didn't know who wrote it. In my mind's eye the quality of the graphics were much better. (suppose I stored them as relative to my ability) :) Good thing I never paid much attention to that selective outlining article, I guess?

I feel like there's a losing battle going on when people start dithering gradients on sprites and ask, "how's my dithering" rather than "how do I properly define my forms". I think the problem rests in the mindset, people think they can get something for nothing. Instant gratification, shortcuts, techniques. Honestly it isn't that sel-out is used, it is how it's used, or maybe why it's used. I guess you could say blumunkee did commit some kind of sin. However.

Selective outlining has it's time and place, it can work. But maybe it shouldn't have a name at all, maybe it should just be treated as something capable of smoothing the edges of sprites placed on a darker background. Maybe even then, dithering shouldn't have a term coined. It should just be commonplace knowledge that when you don't have a color, you make one by making a pattern out of different colors. But that's the problem, because they are so commonly used (and actually have their uses), it's not up to any one person to decide if they should or shouldn't be a technique, because they already are. You can't change the mindset of society, you can't infiltrate different communities and erase awareness.

I guess I'm addressing
Quote from: Helm
techniques' must be destroyed. Someone looking at Symphony of the Night and saying 'wow this style is rad, I bet they have specific techniques they used to get this result' probably hurts their artistic growth more than it helps. Fool's errands are popular because they seem to suggest shortcuts to artistic ability. "Learn selout and your sprites will become much better". This is meaningless and should die. "Learn art fundaments and your sprites, along with the rest of your art, will become better". This should be promoted. Dithering is a technique. Anti-alias is a technique. Banding is a discernible effect that should be talked about to much greater length. Selout is a byproduct of some bigger artistic decision that younger artists should face up to, not just look at the end result and pick selectively.
Truly, I agree with you. But I also believe that once something is established it can not be practically destroyed.

You can see in the beginner's work that he does not treat his game sprites as art. I don't know how else to put it. Because he does not see it as an art, he tries making game characters without first studying art. Is there a digital disconnect? I believe that this contributes more than all else to the mindset that 'techniques' will make your art better, rather than you using techniques because the situation calls for it. Ideally we'd all be problem solvers and come up with these techniques on our own. But because we choose to socialize in a place such as this, terms are coined. When terms are coined, I believe then the practice becomes a technique and the novice treats it as a weapon in his arsenal. Ultimately it leads to what you feel so strongly about with words such as "destroyed" and "die"

So I don't think blumunkee is to blame, it would have arisen anyway. And so too anything that hasn't been given a name yet. And I don't want to search for these undiscovered "Techniques" lest they be equipped by someone who is not adaptive but merely uses what is in their 'arsenal'.

At least on Pixelation we can try to "destroy techniques" but this place is only so big.

This has been an embarrassing post for me. I think in circles and don't make up my mind before I start typing, sometimes changing my opinion within the same post. I usually don't say much but I felt like I should speak up instead of just keeping it to myself this time.

Offline crab2selout.png

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Re: A question about 'Selout'

Reply #27 on: February 02, 2009, 10:54:03 pm
http://pixel-zone.rpgdx.net/shtml/tut-selout.shtml
 :'(


Oh wow. Super flashback. That's the tutorial+website that really made pixel art click in my head. I think I found pixelation(old blue) from there. That had to be almost 6 years ago. As bad as maybe these tuts are, they really made the pixel art world seem more approachable.

Don't feel too bad, blumunkee. It may seem bad in retrospect, but it was really inspiring to me at the time.

Offline Jad

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Re: A question about 'Selout'

Reply #28 on: February 02, 2009, 10:58:09 pm
Ptoing: Oh, there was a tutorial. ): Well, then that was what CEMENTED it into the minds of the people. Happy I didn't read it.

Well, now that I went ahead and read it: Actually the tube with the broken outline has an outline that lesser conflicts with the shape of the inside than the full outline. Since then brain loves to abstract things, at first glance (FOR ME) it looks as it has more explicitly defined form. After tuning in it just looks very broken.

Well, with smoothly animated things the outline warps and merges so much that the first-glance-effect stays much longer and thus looks much better than it does on stuff that is completely still.

If it's on a blurry CRT screen then it's easily dismissable.

And that's what I think! : D

Jad: the opinion factory super deluxe right at ya
' _ '

Offline blumunkee

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Re: A question about 'Selout'

Reply #29 on: February 02, 2009, 11:08:09 pm
Atnas, you really hit the nail on the head. It was very much about instant gratification and less so a detailed analysis of fundamentals.

To my own credit, the original version of the tutorial was originally posted on the old Pixelation, which had dark blue and black backgrounds. So it didn't look quite THAT horrible.

Also note that the tutorial never was really finished. It started as v0.5 and I intended to flesh out the details for a more complete v1.0. I don't remember Helm or Ptoing being around at the time to serve as voices of doubt.

Oh, and the tube... What a horribly random object for an example.
« Last Edit: February 02, 2009, 11:10:46 pm by blumunkee »