Messages

[The pros :]

GraphEST DepthDither 2.0

Hey Babar, I've just tested your suggestion. This is exactly on-topic and could be great...
The pros :
- it's still a quicker solution to apply this filter to a layer, than having to create a whole new image every time and change its color mode to "indexed".
- there is a dispersion setting not only for the "diffusion" dithering, like in the "indexed color" photoshop window, but also for the "noise" and "pattern" ditherings.

The cons :
- The dithering algorithms aren't very good and make the result look quite dirty... Big issue!

All in all it can come handy depending on the needs. Thanks!

[http://www.ximagic.com/]

I would argue that the correct term for this is not "posterization" (which does not involve dithering) but "color quantization" or "palette reduction". Those search terms should have got you some better results.

That's exactly my point : Photoshop uses its own, hyped-up terms. So when you look for something in Photoshop users forums, you can't search "color quantization" because that's a generic concept, and it's discussed abstractly in most forums. You need to search the only remotely-related filter : "posterizing". But then you only find billions of basic tutorials for that filter. So you're stuck in Google limbo. You can never guess that the dithering options don't exist as a filter, but only as a by-product of color mode.

I found these since my previous post : http://www.ximagic.com/

Denoise is great to take an actual 256-colors background (e.g. Lucasarts background), and remove the excess noise that was added by the old-school dithering they applied to their scanned bacgrounds. I just tried it on a Monkey Island 2 bg, now it looks gorgeous!

Then, ColorDither is nice to go the reverse way, and add some dithering back, but not too much: you can fake 8-bit games but keep the comfort and beauty of 32-bits games.

[I just found out the most amazing thing of my life.]

I just found out the most amazing thing of my life.
On a side note :
- I also discovered that I was a fool.
- I re-discovered that Photoshop-users (a.k.a mostly Mac users) are a nightmare when it comes to tutorials, because they never use the proper terms in forums, hence pixel artists can never Google answers.

For a very very long time I was searching in Photoshop how to do that "ordered" dithered gradient thing I was talking about in my first post. I searched everything in google, combining keywords in every possible way: dithered gradient, photoshop posterizing plugins, photoshop advanced posterizing, halftones posterizing, pixel-artists gradients, etc... I never found anything.

I was crying out loud because there are no advanced options in the "posterize" filter dialog box. I was also gutted because the poserize filter is really bad.

Behold something that everybody probably already knew, except me :

The advanced dithering options are not in the "posterize" filter... but instead in the "indexed colors" dialog box.
If you want a nice dithered gradient, with dithering patterns (checkerboard, whatnot) then just go Image-->Mode-->Indexed color.



The most interesting option is the "dither" dropbox.
You should try yourself between the 3 available options :
- diffusion (this one even allows you to select the level: 0% to 100%)
- pattern
- noise



The only issue is that you cannot just add a layer containing the corrective filter (like you'd do with Posterize) and play with its settings afterwards. You must change your image mode, copy the result, and go back to your RGB mode.

[What you're doing so far :]

ok rickious i know you said you're happy, but the solution to your issue is just around the corner, and it stresses me that you don't understand what selmiak says, and believe it's complicated.

What you're doing so far :
- in DAZ, you render your sprite on a black background.

What you should do :
- In DAZ, render your sprite on a transparent background.
Alternative solution :
- in DAZ, render your sprite to any multi-layered format (E.g. photoshop, or TGA). Then open the result image with any paitning program (e.g. photoshop), delete the background layer, and save it again as .PNG


If you succeeded and rendered your sprite on a transparent background, then here is how to make sure it happened properly : just open in it any painting program, and change the background color. Then your sprite should still look antialiased and smooth.

I bet you that if you do the same thing with your faulty sprite (the one that has dirty black outlines) and open it in your painting program, then changing the background color will show the black outline.

[jaggies]

yes, have a look at dactylopus' suggested article (direct link : http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11299 )

Specifically, here are the two errors you've made the most (go to the section with the same name in the article):
- jaggies
- sel-out

more specifically, you have a lot of pixel-clusters.

The Dalai Lama has better insults than you!

Karmat me, bro!

----
you have ugly shoes but you can change them, unlike your face!

After seeing the first screenshot in the thread, I was about to post "I sense bad-taste 3D" (even though it wasn't obvious)
...And then I saw the screenshot posted by Grundislav, and it became crystal-clear: this 3D is AWFUL!

[gradients]

Arj0n, here is my advice specifically about dithering for gradients.

1) choose if you want to create a gradient with some random dithering or some "organized" dithering.


- What I call random dithering is the second picture
- What I call "organized" dithering is the first picture.

When it comes to pixel art, depending on the situation, you might want a "pretty", organized dithering, or a random dithering might be enough.

2) If you want organized dithering

Old pixel-art tools allowed you to create them. Now it's not so easy in Photoshop or other advanced drawing tools. What I usually do is stealing them in Google images. You can find all shapes and sizes of dithered gradients.
For example this one will come handy to draw a circular gradient with several colors :


If you can't find what you need in Google Images, then draw it yourself I'm pretty sure that it's what the guy did here:

He chose to use 6 levels of gradient, but you might want to use more, or less. But as you can see, the pixels are perfectly organized.


3) If random dithering is enough.

Here is a quick trick to create one, in any recent drawing tool.
1. Create a smooth gradient the way you like.

2. Use a "noise" filter and add a lot of monochromatic noise ("monochromatic" means that the noise will only randomize the intensity of each pixel, not change its color! Other wise your gradient will look like a clow's jacket )

As you can see it's rougher, but still not suited for pixel-art, as you have thousands of colors.
3. Use a "posterize" filter (it's the filter that reduces the number of colors)


There you go! Now just adjust the brightness and contrast, and finally apply the tint you like (red, green, blue, whatever).

========================
As an educative resource:
Here is an exhaustive approach to dithering algorithms. It's not the same goal as monkey's tutorial. This is more to understand what is dithering, and how there are so many types of dithering. http://caca.zoy.org/study/part3.html

I don't care if it's not a final version. That last picture looks fantastic!

Thanks!

Having the supernatural stuff show up at Indy's college is a great new twist, but aren't evil skeletons a little cliche?

Not sure if joking.


Announcement: Matt Frith is willing to help us. He is an amazing pixel-artist. I can't wait to see what he'll do!!!

amazing picture!

It's like a low-tech "The Cave"

Interesting graphic style. Let's hope the puzzles and writing will follow!
PS: since you use 3D, you might want to consider using more interesting camera angles?

Current progress :
- backgrounds : 25%
- scripting: 15%
- music: 50%
- animation : 10% :-/

To celebrate the end of the crisis, and as a special attention to Armageddon, here is a glimpse of a new background!

[actual news]

Hi everyone!

What we're posting here are actual news about the progress of the game
But we're absolutely keeping in mind that double-posting is forbidden on the forums. However, since we post news no more than once a week, it's hard to find a good compromise between double-posting and editing an old post, which would make no sense. Thanks for letting us know that we're too pushy. We already took good notice of Darth's reminders last time.

@Armageddon: It's not about marketing: it's about recruiting. The game is a freeware, so it has nothing to do with sales. We're not "hyping up", we're stimulating fans, to make them participate. You can't recruit for a game that's virtually invisible. I sincerely believe that giving a small piece of news once every few weeks is not "in your face". Keep in mind that the "Fountian of Youth" project has started 10 years ago and is still not finished (so much so that they decided to release it in chapters (!) ).

@Darth: We'll update the first post, no problem.
It contains 2 functional backgrounds (additionally to the 6 other backgrounds and the few more backgrounds in the thread itself) But I understand that it's a bit ambiguous since we deliberately labelled them "obsolete".

@everybody else : here is news about the project:
- lately we've released our Mirrors module
- today we share our Travel Map module, thanks to the help of Scavenger and our little scripting challenge from last month : http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=49021.0



As always, I'll conclude with: WE NEED HELP

[WHAT DOES IT DO]

Hi everyone!

Still as part of our development effort for Indiana Jones and the Seven Cities of Gold, we're releasing this module based on Scavenger's prototype.
We had to change a few things to make it more flexible and to work around the alpha channel bugs in GUI backgrounds (which should be fixed in AGS 3.3+, hopefully).

WHAT DOES IT DO
Remember in the Indiana Jones movies? Every time he travels, there's a close-up on a (scrolling) map, and a red line showing where he's travelling. Optionally, his vehicle is shown on top of the scene, with transparency.
This module does exactly that! Try out the demo to check for yourself.

[imgzoom]http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/5827/07f9.png[/imgzoom]



HOW DOES IT WORK?
Read the manual included with the module.
In a nutshell: create a room (with the map as the background), add one object and 2 dedicated gui's (to fit the module's inner architecture) and call the few functions to initialize stuff (see the manual).

Then, just queue up some waypoints and the red line will travel there. In the room , manually draw some regions, and when the red line goes over that region, then the corresponding vehicle overlay is shown (e.g. a plane when Indy travels over the sea).
Off you go.

DOWNLOAD
Version 1.0 Here : https://www.dropbox.com/s/4v72d2o6hnl2zd5/Map_noDynamicSprites%201.0.zip

I cannot test the symptoms you described -- since I entirely switched to a system using no transparency, and instead two different Gui's (I then use the transparency property of the Gui).
I know you're working on that and if you recall I posted a warm THANK YOU in the relevant thread Keep up with the excellent work!

PS: I guess it's because I then display the DynamicSprite as he background image of a GUI? Damned.

[What should I change]

Hi everyone,

I consistently fail to remember/understand what exact scenario will cause the "alpha channel" bug to pop-up.
Therefore I need to ask you:

- I have a 32-bit game
- I use AGS 3.2.1 (current stable release)
- I imported some PNGs files with a pink background. AGS asked "do you want to use the alpha channel?" I said no (but the issue is the same when I try with "yes").
- In repeatedly_execute_always, I use a DynamicSprite : I get its DrawingSurface, I clear it, then paste the imported sprite into it like this: mySurface.DrawImage (0, 0, graphicID, customTransparency);

And Iget the bug: whenever customTransparency is not exactly 0, the non-transparent parts of the sprite appear pink instead of having their own color and being partly transparent.

What should I change to make it work? Halp mee plez.