Double-Pixel style

[Mathias]

Double-pixel style - Pixel art designed for and displayed at an arbitrary 2x scale, and often larger.

Just wondering here . . .

I've been doing a lot of double pixel lately and I wonder if one should augement the way he does things, since the graphics in question are to be displayed double-sized. Concerned with optimal end-results, technically and visually, I wonder about minimizing blur by using minimal AA, etc. Dithering seems extra difficult to pull off in double style.


Here's an example of double stlye sprites I'm doing. 2x, as intended on right, 1x on left, just for comparison.



There are obvious pros and cons to both. With 1x, your detail level is virtually endless, whereas 2x stlyle imposes tighter limits. But with 2x you get to do half the work and still fill up that much screen real-estate with graphics. 2x imples old school, etc.

It seems like a more minimal sort of cell-shaded style suits 2x style better.

[Tourist]

To answer your question with a question, when you say the art will be displayed at 2x, is that a technical limitation?

A 1x sprite displayed at 320x240 is larger than a 2x sprite displayed at 800x600 (on the same screen).   If you take the same sprite and just scale it to a higher resolution, the result is the same as a visually lower resolution.

What if you combine the two?  Start with the 1x sprite, double it to display size, and then go back in and touch up any blocky edges or AA at a 1-pixel resolution?   It still looks old school  and fills up more of the screen, but gets finer details where they benefit the most.

Just a thought,
Tourist

[Mathias]

dear lord boy, what are you talking about? hehe

I simply mean double pixel style, where each pixel is expaned to be twice the size. There can be no literal 1 pixel detail, or it's no longer double style. This is kinda confusing I realize . . .

Uhhmm think of Cave Story, you could call it double style, it's a low-res game but runs full screen. Eacy literal pixel is expanded to at least twice the size.

[ndchristie]

res change is not a style, it's presentation.  there's little else to say.  1x on a handheld is considerably smaller than 1x on most computers, while 2x on an old computer might be similar to 3 or 4 x on a more modern one.  the only point of 2x'ing an entire piece is if you plan to be displayed on a screen that's a fixed res, width and height and know that you would rather appear to have a lower resolution.

[Mathias]

I'm afraid this discussion cant be shut down that easily. I wish it could - maybe then things would be simpler and I could worry less about technicality and more about creativity. Of course display settings are beyond the control of the designer, except in special cirumstances. But I'm focusing on PC games here, so resolutions now vary greatly. Back in the C64/ Amiga days it wasn't nearly the issue it is now. And displays are only gaining diversity.

I suppose you could delve deeper into this subject than I intended, which like you allude to is rather moot, when all I'm really trying to target discussion on is pixel art created for display beyond 1x, with the average display considered. I consder par for the course to be a 1280x1024 res LCD, these days.



Basically it's this - I'm making a game. It will run in 2x windowed mode (will not do full screen). Every visual pixel in the game will be twice the size of any pixel outside the game's window, meaning the user's wallpaper, icons, other programs, everything's resolution will be twice as high as the imagery in the game.

Now, I ask again - with this obvious reduction in resolution, are we as designers wise to augment the way we pixel? Less AA, less if any dither, etc? What do you think? I find that certain techniques are exposed and don't look quite right when blown up and the single pixel is "exposed", in relation to surrounding 1x pixels in the display, especially.

[Scribblette]

Mmm, I can see what you're getting at.

Small-res games get blown up to fit a big screen. The bigger the blow up - especially on older fuzzy LCD screens - the more you notice technique which isn't perfect. If you're doing it simply at 2x and they can't see it in full screen, if anything you actually may not have to worry as much about technique being perfect lest it be noticed!

I like the idea, though, although it goes against your intent, of doing things 2x size and then doing small retouches on the 1x level to create a style that can actually be considered a specific style.

[Conzeit]

uhhh.....well....yes, clearly doubleres does show a lot more clearly each of your pixel placements; however this does not make it and never will make it a style...simply, because there's not only ONE way to render things on doubleres....each artist has different goals in his art and one aproach would never be good for all...regardless of the res used.

This question you face, is not at all rare for us pixelers...I think it is one of the first...after all if you dont zoom in you might asw well look at vector or photoshop art. The general stance here I believe is to pixel both for the highest resolution and for the lowest, we all like to show our art in atleast 2X.... if you dont see images of stuff in both 1x and 2x here it is because we have the implemented zoom feature (click to zoom shift click to zoom out) but you are obviously supposed to zoom into pixelart before commenting on them.

Is it wise to tailor your art to fit it's final presentation? (2x in this case) I dont know why you would even ask that! of course it is, dont be afraid to use your own perception to decide what techniques fit each amount of magnification.

Now if you're only trying to foster discussion...I'm glad to oblige. First of all...I have always thought that ideally we should not speak about a pixel piece's ideal presentation as 2x 3x 4x or any amount of magnification...I have always thought DPI (dots per inch...or hopefully DP..centimeter :p) would be far far more fitting...since it'd be indicative of how much emphasis we want each individual pixel to have. Obviously this is not the case because on a display finding out the pixel per inch ratio is far harder than magnification amount or resolution.

Wether we should or should not dither, AA and whatnot...and in what amount when we are at a low DPI...is a question of how much we want the viewer to know what we are doing, how much fourth wall breaking we want to do. Personally I think pixelart is a very in-your face fourth wall breaking medium and I quite like that about it. So yeah if I felt it were a correct way of rendering something I would definitively dither and I would go as far away from predefined patterns as I could, since I AM basically yelling and pointing for the user to check out this sweet dither I'm doing.  AA I would use as sparingly as posible unless I felt I could use the AA in animation.  Not only is AA less effective on doubleres I just dont value it for anything other than subtle animation (pretty much how I value all pixleart is connected to animation).

[ndchristie]

the best solution i think is to generally allow the user to choose 1,2,3, and 4x.  most programs meant for small-res-to-big-screen (gameboy emulators, for one) have this.  some browser-pixel games have scripts set such that the bounding-box of the game is marked as a percentage of the webpage, and then the game within that box chooses the closest clean-scaling res (leaving any extra as gutter).

doing everything 4x (or even just 2x) is mean to people who use tiny laptops and will begin to affect your user base in the same way that any decision to alter a game's size would.

Conceit is on-point with his dpi idea, although i don't know if something like that would ever be implemented.

as for style points...if your artwork doesn't hold up when the pixels become more visible, it's probably not pixel art (or maybe it is,  but it's just sloppy etc).  Look at bitmap bros.  plenty of aa and dithering and i can blow it up to 4x without even feeling it's breaking down.  i feel i actually have a greater interest when i see all the parts, it's like looking at an old car where all the parts are there and you know what they do...there is a retro feeling, but maybe we'll start calling it "vintage" instead once people realize it's still perfectly functional and attractive .

[Atnas]

wat



Matthias, you've got the right idea. For something intended for 2x, the AA would probably need to be weaker. As size increases, so does its potency. As you've said, flat colors should be more often used. Basically, you'd do well to take a lot of contrast out of your palette. A lot of beginners will work at 700% zoom and their work comes out severely lacking in contrast, because what they saw up close is not what is seen at normal res.

I was doing something meant for 2x (maybe 4x) a while ago and I had nothing but flat shades and simple volumes because any dithering or AA would just completely get in the way of conveying the more important parts of the game. A reason for not using dithering is bringing up the "the goal of pixel art is to achieve a lower resolution than what you have to work with" which is what AA, and colormixing/dithering is for - Achieving more with less. At 2x, dithering and AA become obvious, so you either need to eradicate them or implement them more subtly.

it is a style, just as much as heavyditherAA1x is, but nodithminAA2x

[Beoran]

As a programmer I'd like to add that there are many algorithms that are made for scaling pixel art. That's how , say, SNES emulators do it. Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_art_scaling_algorithms .

That's why I think you shouldn't worry to much about style, just pretend that no scaling takes place. Then, choose the scaling algorythm that looks best to you, or even better, give your users the choice of scaling algorithms to use, like, normal x2, x2 Sal, hq2x, etc. Bonus points for implementing scanlines at 25% 50% and 100% brightness for that old-skool 'TV' feel.

[ndchristie]

wat [...] nodithminAA2x

It is enough just to say I completely disagree or do i have to substantiate?

I used to work a lot with stuff that looked fine at 1x but broke down into crazy colormesses when you zoomed in.  This is not because my color choices were outlandish, although I have reigned those in a bit, but because the pieces were not worked well at a pixel-level.  It's true that a lot of things that look great at 1x break down when zoomed.  Case in point - all other raster images.  However, the reason I think that the discussion of changing styles is off-base is that any piece which looks great with all the pixels showing will still look great at 1x unless you're on a CRT monitor (and who uses those nowadays?).  Generally, planning for 1x (or otherwise tiny images) means one thing : you can be more lazy.  Planning for greater zooms, on the other hand, means that you can show a piece anywhere.

what they saw up close is not what is seen at normal res.

taking this directly - if a piece has issues because it is trying to show too much in a tiny space, that's a completely different problem.  images aren't more clear at 2x because of contrast, etc. - they are more clear because they are say, 2 inches wide instead of 1.  If you had 2 inches of 1x pixels, you'd find them working just as well (although for more work) than 2 inches of 2x.

[Atnas]

It is enough just to say I completely disagree or do i have to substantiate?

It's never enough. :3

I think that the reason to tone down AA on a 2x scale comes from the exact reasoning behind AA in the first place. AA is supposed to act as a sort of half pixel, and it accomplishes this through an intermediate tone which blends two tones. Alright, so if the half pixel was doubled in size it would theoretically be the size of a whole pixel, correct? from there, I would reason that, in order to once again hide the AA pixel and better smooth the intended shades, the AA pixel should be reduced to a state of even less opacity, or less contrast.

images aren't more clear at 2x because of contrast, etc. - they are more clear because they are say, 2 inches wide instead of 1.

Yes, exactly. The size makes up for the contrast. Bigger groups of pixels are more dominant than smaller ones. Common sense will tell you that. I really never would have even thought this was important to think over, let alone say out loud, if I hadn't seen this topic.

Taking Sokota's heads...


He even admitted to working at a higher res which enabled his contrast to drop, while what he was seeing during their creation was in fact pretty concise. At 1x I can't make out one group of pixels from the next. At 2x I can. At an even higher res, I can very clearly see it.

However, the reason I think that the discussion of changing styles is off-base is that any piece which looks great with all the pixels showing will still look great at 1x unless you're on a CRT monitor (and who uses those nowadays?).

Sure, pixel art at any zoom looks great if it's made well. That goes without saying, the closer you get to a painting the more you can admire the strokes. But that's beside the point, as Mathias' pixels are meant for 2x, and 2x only. And there are certain things which work at 1x which don't work at 2x because the building element is different. The AA, which used to take up a sub pixel area now takes up twice as much room, and should be adjusted accordingly. The dithering, which relied on a mesh of tones now looks noisy in comparison.

I believe that less potent AA and a decrease in contrast (because it is made up for by the increase in pixel size) is a style. It's a style used towards the end of tailoring 2x2 pixel building blocks for viewing while making the most out of the pixels. In other words, it's compensating for the increase in size with a decrease in other aspects of the art.

[Mathias]

. . . Is it wise to tailor your art to fit it's final presentation? (2x in this case) I dont know why you would even ask that! of course it is, dont be afraid to use your own perception to decide what techniques fit each amount of magnification.

Now if you're only trying to foster discussion...I'm glad to oblige. First of all...I have always thought that ideally we should not speak about a pixel piece's ideal presentation as 2x 3x 4x or any amount of magnification...I have always thought DPI (dots per inch...or hopefully DP..centimeter :p) would be far far more fitting...since it'd be indicative of how much emphasis we want each individual pixel to have. Obviously this is not the case because on a display finding out the pixel per inch ratio is far harder than magnification amount or resolution.

Hehe, thanks for the spirited response. Uhm, well yeah I guess I was intending to spark at least some discussion on the matter, I wanted to know the general feeling on this matter - always enlightening to consult the talent here. Don't worry, I'm a believer in doing what you feel; I'm not at all looking for approval or confirmation before I do something that would effect my pixelin' but the posts here in this thread have been enlightening.

While pixelling for my 2x project I think I've been subconsciously accounting for the doube-sized look - I always have a duplicate window zoomed to 2x, in my right monitor, as I work at normal 1x in my left, effectively allowing me to preview how things are coming along in real-time at the same presentational settings my players will see.

But now I can take what I've picked up here and apply it for my own betterment. Conceit, Scribblette, ndchristie and Atnas - thanks for taking the time, this is a productive debate.


--Finally, do not all of our favorite pixellers have their own "style"? They do. What constitutes them having their own style? Their own unique methodology - so, while creating the necessary pixels for my project my methodology will include optimizing for 2x. Call that a "style" if you like, it does alter the way I do things and will (or should) pervade every pixel, defining my methods while working.

[Dusty]

I don't really consider optimizing part of style. Creating work optimized for 2x resolution is something more of a restriction than a style. When you work with low-contrast handhelds, you have to create your work with that in mind all the time. Same with working with small resolutions -- you have to optimize your graphics so your character sprite doesn't take up half the screen. These are the sort of things you always have to take into consideration when working in a limited manner, and while these things may have a huge outcome on how your work looks, I don't think anything stylistic results from it.

[LODYblokady]

I wonder if there are any games with 1x2 style pixels, I really like that style.

[ndchristie]

I wonder if there are any games with 1x2 style pixels, I really like that style.

There are many, the restrictions that people use in wide-pixel art are the result of technical limitations of the c64.

[Mathias]

I don't really consider optimizing part of style. Creating work optimized for 2x resolution is something more of a restriction than a style. When you work with low-contrast handhelds, you have to create your work with that in mind all the time. Same with working with small resolutions -- you have to optimize your graphics so your character sprite doesn't take up half the screen. These are the sort of things you always have to take into consideration when working in a limited manner, and while these things may have a huge outcome on how your work looks, I don't think anything stylistic results from it.

Good reasoning. But there are many styles that have resulted from display/hardware restrictions. In the realm of digital art, Pixel Art itself is an example, is it not? And it's possible we all define style a little differently . . .

From dictionary.com, I like this explanation: " a particular, distinctive, or characteristic mode or form of construction or execution in any art or work. "


All I know is that I'm going to make a conscious effort to create 2x pixel art in a manner best suited for enlarged (2x or whatever the zoom level may be) display.

[Dusty]

Good reasoning. But there are many styles that have resulted from display/hardware restrictions. In the realm of digital art, Pixel Art itself is an example, is it not? And it's possible we all define style a little differently . . .

I never really considered pixel-art a style, though.

All I know is that I'm going to make a conscious effort to create 2x pixel art in a manner best suited for enlarged (2x or whatever the zoom level may be) display.

Sounds to me like you'll simply be compensating and adjusting to restrictions/setting. Do you consider working with a 4-color palette a style or a restriction? Sure, styles can evolve from restrictions, but I do not think they are one in the same.

[tocky]

deliberately working under restriction, when you don't have to, is a stylistic decision. also, does it matter whether a thing is a style or not?

[Dusty]

does it matter whether a thing is a style or not?

Not really, but I never saw the problem with having a healthy discussion on the topic.

[tocky]

I mean that "is this or is this not a style?" is not a thing you can discuss neatly, because style is not one of those things that lends itself easily to definition. What is style for Mathias is not style to you, but I bet you could argue with him about it for a while and not get anywhere. If you think that that is a healthy discussion, though, have it.

[Dusty]

I mean that "is this or is this not a style?" is not a thing you can discuss neatly, because style is not one of those things that lends itself easily to definition. What is style for Mathias is not style to you, but I bet you could argue with him about it for a while and not get anywhere. If you think that that is a healthy discussion, though, have it.

Not always. The point of a discussion is not always about 'winning'. Sometimes it's nice to hear others views on subjects and compare notes, so to say.

[Mathias]

When working with limited palettes, the artist's decisions are governed by the restrictions, he has to stay within them. You're right, that alone doesn't mean he's creating pixels according to a certain style, he's just adhering to a set of rules. Style comes from a consistent methodology applied regardless of restrictions.
There are several guys whose art I can identify as belonging to them simply by recognizing certain traits present. We call this their personal style. There seems to be two types of style - personal style: defined by an individual's natural disposition to use certain methods consistently in what they do. And then global style: styles probably proliferated by certain artists or groups of artists, practiced by numerous people, all intending to emulate that global style, think of the "cave story style".

Then I guess it would make more sense to call pixel art a genre, not a style. Yet the difference does feel ambiguous even still. Afterall, music has styles and it has genres. And genres have sub-genres. Just ask Helm to list all the metal genres. How did they come about? In the case of metal, certain musicians began to diverge from a defined genre, playing and structuring songs differently, it evolves, and eventually a new genre, or sub-genre, is born. Is it a style or genre, though? When Pantera debuted, they nearly single-handedly made power metal a major metal music type because they did it so well. I like to think that with the changing of the times, they gradually evolved from glam metal (yes, they were glam at first) into power metal. Now, just how does one define when they clicked over into the next genre, once their music changed enough  -OR-  did their personal style just take on new characteristics, all the while remaining their style?

I guess it's fair to say I am optimizing these images for 2x, but what if I continue to apply the same "optimizing" techniques to everything I do thereafter, that would become my personal "style". So, reasons for the methods are a factor. Dang it's late . . . going to bed

[ndchristie]

Generally accepted definition of the term 'style' for the sake of criticism and art-historical essays in post-1980 America, as taught by ever professor I've had at 6 universities and as used by every essay I've ever read:

Media, format, method of presentation - these are not styles but simply physical qualities.  Style has more to do with the process and vision of the piece regardless of how the media enhances or inhibits that (assuming that it is not preventative).

For instance, a pixel piece created by the placement of a full spectrum of points or dots which at a distance converge as an image but close dissemble into noise of (at least) 3 opposing hues, conceived from the outset to do so and covering the whole of the image is still in the pointillist style.  To be strict about it, it's perhaps not in the style of Georges Seurat in the sense that his process involved paint and chalk, but you could argue still.  Size has never been indicative of a style, nor even has output - a photocopied into black and white conte sketch of an orangutan using Rembrandt's mark-making techniques and process is still in the style of Rembrandt.

when having a discussion it's not very useful to pull the "everyone has their own definition" like a special Mr. Roger's snowflake argument.  Why?  Because it means that everything that anyone says becomes isolated, non-integrated and mostly just undermined by the fact that nobody else needs to even acknowledge it's relevance.  If you're going to have a proper discussion, use definitions that most parties understand and accept as common so that you can actually listen rather than dismiss.  "I think it's a style because I call style something different" is not offering anything nearly so much as making a platform within an established point of debate.  I'm not saying that every discussion has be to useful, and I agree that there's no winners (nor need there be), but really, if you're just going to say "this is how only I feel in my bubble on my island," how is that engaging in discourse?

[Helm]

Personally I feel that even pixel art meant to be viewed at a higher zoom ration than 1x zoom on a big monitor should be designed with the vantage of both 5x zoom or more and 1x zoom holistic look. Alternating between the two, trying to get the art to both behave as a collection of pixel clusters and as something much more together than that. I do not see the reason to remove dithering from a piece meant to be viewed at 2 or 4x zoom nor do I think less/more contrast should be used, nor should the aa methodology change. Pixel art works as it does because the artistic process includes both the telescopic viewpoint and the more up-close as vital aspects. Pixel art will always look 'together' when made like this, and its aesthetic will shine, even if it's no longer faking a higher resolution out of a pretty high one, but just a highish resolution out of a pretty low one. Faking resolution is not the *only* concern of pixel art. Beautiful placement of clusters in a way that belies an inner consistency is another. When I zoom in at a piece to look at its AA up close, I am effectively destroying its capacity for faking a higher resolution, right? Well then why do I gain pleasure from zooming in? Because I get to analyse how things work in context to make the piece hold together as it does. Do not underestimate this fetishism, heh