new background - beach shore

[ThunderStorm]

I like this background a lot - good job!

I always wondered - how do you create the dithered look that all the classic adventure games have? Monkey Island, Simon the Sorcerer, Indiana Jones etc.
For a while, I thought this was created in the last step, when it was reduced to 8-Bit color, but I think they are created with a palette right from the start. But then - pixel-pushing until it looks right isn't the way to go either, is it?

I'd be very happy about some hints on how to do this.
Thanks in advance!

[MrColossal]

thunderstorm, do you have Photoshop, i can't remember

if you do try messing around with setting either the layer to Dissolve or the brush to Dissolve [can do this in PS 7, dunno about others]

i managed to crap this out pretty quick after figuring devising a Plan Of Action ©



or if you have photoshop 7 [don't know about earlier version, i know it isn't in 5.5] try choosing the 1 pixel brush and setting it to scatter

i was able to poop this out but i don't think it looks as refined as the first rock... maybe cause i worked a little faster

[Ben]

Ooh.. That looks pretty. I wouldn't call it dithered, but I suppose you wouldn't want a dither pattern on a rough surface like a rock. I actually think the second one looks better. The transition between light and dark is just more smooth..

ThunderStorm: You could always try Deluxe Paint. That makes things like palette editing and gradients a lot easier. You can't really get away from pixel-pushing, though, if you want the kind of detail games like MI and Simon had.. Simon especially.

[ThunderStorm]

Thanks a lot eric, I'll go and see if there's a similar function in GIMP (which I use). The style of your example pic is just what I wanted to achieve.

Ben: I might actually try Deluxe Paint again. Abut pixel-pushing - this is surely the case for characters in low-res and for certain parts of the background, but I can't believe they pushed 36800 pixels for each background (assuming a size of 320x115). Or did they?  

[Scummbuddy]

Well, Monkey Island 2 were oil painted on large canvases, and then scanned in, I'm not sure how they scanned in something so large. And then, how did they take the scan and make them pixely, just by reduction?

[Ben]

No, i'm sure they didn't pixel-push the entire background. But they probably did for some of the smaller details. Dpaint and similar programs have a lot of nice tools, but they're not perfect. I'm sure they had to zoom in and do a bit of touch-up work before they were done. I've tried to get that look with some of my backgrounds, and the automated stuff like gradients and anti-alias are really helpful, but they can't do everything.

[OneThinkingGal and ._.]

Great background. Love the way the trees are framing it.

[Sim]

I drew the original on paper (sketch), then outlined the rocks, plants and trees
and some other detailing with a black marker.  I scanned it in and went to work with the colours, experimenting until I was happy with the basic pallette.  To smooth it over I used the airbrush tool in paint shop pro, lowering the hardness and opacity to get a nice blending effect, and performed quick dashes across the areas that needed it.