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Isn't it a bit too naturalistically sharp and neat than the outdoors should be? Of course, it's very nice, but I still think the style applies better to technological environments. Organic stuff could stand with a bit more noise and randomization.

Depends on what you're trying to do, stuh. Meticulously done pixel art will always be more detailed and sharp than any reduction sceme, so for the inside of a spaceship, good. For more organic environs, probably not.

aaaand the answer to that one is simple: animation

roger was meticulously animated hand-drawn frame by hand-drawn frame. so they could achieve smooth animations without spending an eternity,  roger is generally flat-shaded or cel-shaded. It's the same reason most cookie-cutter animation is like that, over painted backgrounds.

Still, that doesn't mean they couldn't draw him a bit better from what I see on that screen.

Also, I really do not suggest people sit down and start handpixelling 640x480 backgrounds, unless they have lots of time and patience, or an art team. Too much work.

Yes indeed, this is done in deluxe paint or some similar program. There's some automated dithering here and there, based on some gradiental patterns, and this just might be a trace of some concept image done on paper, but the real work is all pixel art indeed.

anything that isn't aligned on 90 degree angles in such perspective shots can have it's own two-point perspective, but the points must be on the same horizon level, and they must be placed in accordance to the object's shape. Here's a top down of that room:



You can use the places where the imaginary lines interject other solid objects in the scene, to test if your eyeballed computer screen is placed properly. This is all however, very nitpicky and nobody cares unless they've got emotional and psychological problems. In the same vein the top of the cabinet 'looks' too low. Needs to be more straight.


This background looks however, in my opinion, awesome.

There is no 100% pure gold!

Give some information about your game at least. Something more specific than 'intended to be the greatest adventure game of all time'. Also, mention what you're able to do for the project. If you're looking for people to code for you, do the art for you, do the music for you, then what do you intend to bring into it?

Not even a little Iron Maiden or prime Sabbath?

err, sorry.

Anyway, pete, I'll take one!

When I said "no dithering" I was referring to a specific setting on Photoshop which isn't really like classic dithering.  If you convert it to indexed color in photoshop and try turing the dithering option on and off you'll see what I mean.

If you think they colour-reduced with no dithering, and then added all the diffusion manually, I think I have to dissagree. Seeing how much the nuances of the art carry over to the indexed versions, a computer certainly had a part in this. I believe Sierra reduced with a homebrewed limited diffusion utility, and then cleaned up minimally afterwards. It's improbable that they posterize-reduced and then added the grain themselves, as I see it, as it would take too much time for too little benefit.

I agree that games on the whole are overpriced. I do not agree/understand when somebody says "this game was enjoyable to the point where I'd pay 10 bucks for it, but not 40, whereas this game was so enjoyable, I feel the 40 were justified." I am puzzled by how people are able to make this calculations and present them seriously.

Not having enough money to buy a game is a different issue, as is having money but not being willing to spend it on computer games. This as well, is completely understandable. But I don't get people who are obviously playing a lot of games, and rating them by how much money they'd pay for them.

Automatic dithering was used, as part of their colour reduction scemes, sierra might have had inhouse software built exactly to that intent, as LEC made debabelizer to do the same to the drawn then reduced backgrounds of games like MI2. Obviously, after reduction, a pixel artist would go in and fix blatant errors and jarring dither patterns.


EDIT:

and so we're clear:

They often don't have the look of being hand-drawn.  So I wonder, how do they mask that?  People aren't perfect and I won't accept the explanatino that they are "just good"...there must be some techniques about their design process that helps them to get a professional look besides just being "good" at pixel art.

Besides automatic dither patterns, all the rest is skill in pixel art. Sorry to break it to you, but most EGA and early VGA games were not based on scans. But because there's different sorts, here's a rundown:

Sierra AGI:  used inhouse tool, picedit. Vector-ish program, where you can use the basic 16 colour palette to great effect if you're patient. The advantage was, that picedit saved the room in vectors, not in bitmap, so you could have lots and lots of rooms compress down to small space.

Early Sierra SCI: see http://www.bripro.com/scistudio/tutorial/chapter6.html

Also vectored images, now with 1:1 pixel ratio. Again, automatic dithering if you needed it, but that's that. Otherwise all skill with pixels/drawing. Tracing images could have been the case, but I doubt a lot of this was going on. For more on tracing images, look at eric's first post.

Late Sierra SCI: Gabriel Knight era and forth: Scanned in backgrounds, reduced colours, touched up. This thread has this covered completely.

Early SCUMM: pixel art, ega, rock awesome.

Middle Period SCUMM: MI, Dott, etc: These were all made in Deluxe Paint, Ppaint or other clones. these are programs that operate closely to what photoshop can do, but with indexed palettes. This mean you get a semblance of automatic anti alias, several dither patterns, gradient paterns, noise, blurring etc etc. Just download a demo of pro motion by cosmigo software and see what this is all about

Late SCUMM: all based on scanned drawings, either pixelled over (Full Throttle) or colour-reduced like MI2. Again, this thread has this covered so far.

Looking at a game like QFG...I wonder, if perhaps someone has painted pictures IRL, then scanned them in and shrunk them down before converting to VGA?

QFG 1 and 2 were EGA, using the SCI interpreter. No scanned pictures were used, and pics were made starting from zero in an in-engine drawing program storing the information as vectors, like I said. QFG3 and 4 are yes, scanned pics, colour reduced and tweaked as dragonrose explained.

A lot of times I see shading that is done with alternating pixel patterns and stuff like that also.  I don't believe someone went through the tedium of placing all those alternate pixels....because they often appear to have been done in a way that looks computer generated.

Dithering is made simply by having a series of patterened brush edges like:
xoxo
oxox
xoxo

saved, of differing sizes. Nothing overly automatic about it. Colour reduction scemes are however, automatic, although you can adjust the amount of dithering, if it's ordered or not, etc, similarly to photoshop.

This makes me think that someone drew a cartoon, then colored it on the computer, then used some software to make an EGA rendition, which is capable of forming in-between colors by using pixel shading patterns.

As far as EGA goes, no.

What's stopping you from going to a software store and buying a copy?

Yes, PSP has copy protection, and thusly you'll need to buy from Jasc directly, or a licenced copy from your local software provider (there's a list on the jasc website last time I checked), if you want to be 100% legit. I am not familiar with ebay, but these copies probably are illegal.

I don't understand when people say 'this game is worth 20 bucks, not 50 as was it's original price'. How do you do these calculations? I either like a game and want to play it, or I don't. I'd pay the standard amount of money one pays for game software for it (which I agree currently is way too much, but that doesn't have to do with the quality of each idividual game), or I wouldn't. Just that this analogy between price and enjoyment derived from a game seems weird to me.

I guess the number of sources where you could get these games have nothing to do with the fact that Half-Life 2 was the most anticipated game of they year, whereas Baldur Gate is old and huge and everybody who's cared enough to play it has played it already.

Yes, alkis, if you want my opinion, when somebody criticizes your work, you should not fight back, at any case. Take the critique silently, ponder on it, consider which bits are factual, and disregard what you think doesn't stand. There's nothing to be gained by arguing if indeed that puzzle or this graphic are not in fact bad, because that impression has already been made to the person that brings it up, and discussing it until the end of time is not going to change that. I'm attending art school and the first thing I learnt there was to take critique without arguing the points people make, always say thank you for it, and also, sleep on it. If you argue every bit of critique you don't agree with, you risk coming off are very reactionary and defensive.

The rooms thing is still in the air 'cause dasjoe and me are discussing an alternate option which will be much more managable.

But you should plan expenses according to going and leaving from Athens plus 20 or so euros for the bus ride.

Piracy is software theft and although I might do it and you might do it, making up lame excuses about how it "isn't really. no, wait, it is. No it isn't exacty" doesn't change that. I agree the companies are being very reactionary and most of the measures they're taking (even more convulted copy protection, online validation) will not stop piracy, but does that mean anybody's "winning?"

I am not sure what you're asking. But don't get PSP8, as it is very bad. 9 is better, and 7 is way more stable than 8, without lacking in anything really significant.

My advice is, get the Gimp for free. It can do anything Paint Shop Pro does. If you are intent on going with something else than the industry standard (Photoshop), then why not the Gimp?

So I suppose you do, right?

Eric has made a few excellent games.