.

[tritosine2k]

Saw this interesting take on kitsch
https://www.flicks.co.nz/features/t...interviews-the-co-director-of-loving-vincent/

Quoting most relevant part

What prevents it from being kitsch is the fact that we did so much genuine research over so many years and working with the museums and going into a lot of research detail.

We found out which order Vincent put the paints on the canvas, whether he mixed them on the canvas or whether he pre-mixed them. The Van Gogh Museum has all of this information about the paintings in their collection.

We read all the letters. Between me and Dorota, we read over 30 books on Vincent, including all the most important biographies, and all the eyewitness accounts of people who met him.

It’s a big responsibility to be interpreting the work of someone so famous, and really the only solution we had was to try and be respectful by properly doing our research and thinking it through

 

[Morenatsu.]

Hey guise you ever played that shmup Crimzon Clover?

That's some SHIT pixelization

 

[J1M]

Read through all of that CRT autism just to post this, since you folks seem like the type of people to appreciate one of the last working masters of this dead artform.

The pallette cycling as a form of animation is mind blowing.

 

[Viata]

dead art

 

[Rincewind]

dead art

It's not dead, it's resting.

 

[pickmeister]

While I enjoyed the amount of information my brain can’t comprehend for the most part, could some of you autists recommend a filter that is closest to old DOS VGA CRT image beside owning one?
Most of the existing ones imitate older Amigas, Arcade displays, or failing TV with bad signal to destroy my eyeballs like this cancer:

The new trend again is the crappier the better because hipsters.

 

[Rincewind]

could some of you autists recommend a filter that is closest to old DOS VGA CRT image beside owning one?
Most of the existing ones imitate older Amigas, Arcade displays, or failing TV with bad signal to destroy my eyeballs like this cancer:
The new trend again is the crappier the better because hipsters.

Forget about those filters, they're all shit. Pure integer scaling (2x, 3x, etc) is the best when you don't need to apply aspect ratio correction.

But in 320x200 VGA DOS games you *must* apply aspect ratio correction, as VGA monitors didn't have square pixels, but all modern monitors do. So your best bet is to use some sort of "sharp" filter/shader to minimise scaling artifacts (standard bilinear filtering is horrible for this, it makes everything blurry). Dosbox-Staging has this built-in and turned on by default when using the OpenGL renderer, not sure about others. I recommend using Dosbox-Staging for many other reasons too.

Here's an example of Space Quest 3 rescaled to 960x720 using the "sharp" filter. You can see a very small amount of vertical interpolation (see the zoomed in picture), but it's always kept to a max 1 pixel line with the "sharp" shader; it's a *lot* better than bilinear! By the way, ScummVM uses a very similar "sharp" filter when you turn on aspect ratio correction in conjunction with the 2x and 3x scaled modes (that's what I use all the time).

Alternatively, if this little amount of blurriness bothers you, and you don't care about achieving 100% correct aspect ratio, you can use the "pixel-perfect" renderers in Dosbox-Staging ("openglpp" and "texturepp"), which won't always be able perfectly match the desired aspect ratio, but they will aim for the closest perfectly integer-scaled match.

EDIT: The correct W/H aspect ratio for DOS games on modern displays having perfectly square pixels is 1.33 (e.g. 960/720). With pixel perfect-scaling enabled on a 1920x1080 screen, the resulting aspect ratio will be 1.28, which is close enough. Enlarged pixels will be 4 native pixels wide and 5 native pixels high: (320*4) / (200*5) = 1280 / 1000 = 1.28

NOTE: the browser also applies bilinear scaling on these images, so open them in a new tab, or download them to view them without additional scaling.

 

[J1M]

I love the artistry that went into those older games, with their limited color palettes and square grids. Even DS sprites had a real charm.

Pixel art for games is dead though. It is a harsh fact that there are too many aspect ratios, screen resolutions, dot pitches, color modes, laptop users, device types, and so on out there to make pixel art that will be received as having the charm of the old games.

The extreme price of animating pixel art above 15 fps is also a factor.

And it certainly doesn't help that there are so many pixel "art" indie games that ignore the sensibilities of sprite size, color limitations, and outlining objects that are training people to skip your pixel art game should you sink your soul into making one.

 

[pickmeister]

Forget about those filters, they're all shit. Pure integer scaling (2x, 3x, etc) is the best when you don't need to apply aspect ratio correction.

But in 320x200 VGA DOS games you *must* apply aspect ratio correction, as VGA monitors didn't have square pixels, but all modern monitors do. So your best bet is to use some sort of "sharp" filter/shader to minimise scaling artifacts (standard bilinear filtering is horrible for this, it makes everything blurry). Dosbox-Staging has this built-in and turned on by default when using the OpenGL renderer, not sure about others. I recommend using Dosbox-Staging for many other reasons too.

Here's an example of Space Quest 3 rescaled to 960x720 using the "sharp" filter. You can see a very small amount of vertical interpolation (see the zoomed in picture), but it's always kept to a max 1 pixel line with the "sharp" shader; it's a *lot* better than bilinear! By the way, ScummVM uses a very similar "sharp" filter when you turn on aspect ratio correction in conjunction with the 2x and 3x scaled modes (that's what I use all the time).

Alternatively, if this little amount of blurriness bothers you, and you don't care about achieving 100% correct aspect ratio, you can use the "pixel-perfect" renderers in Dosbox-Staging ("openglpp" and "texturepp"), which won't always be able perfectly match the desired aspect ratio, but they will aim for the closest perfectly integer-scaled match.

EDIT: The correct W/H aspect ratio for DOS games on modern displays having perfectly square pixels is 1.33 (e.g. 960/720). With pixel perfect-scaling enabled on a 1920x1080 screen, the resulting aspect ratio will be 1.28, which is close enough. Enlarged pixels will be 4 native pixels wide and 5 native pixels high: (320*4) / (200*5) = 1280 / 1000 = 1.28

NOTE: the browser also applies bilinear scaling on these images, so open them in a new tab, or download them to view them without additional scaling.

Tried a few of those CRT filters and all of them are abominable. With modern gaming, you get useless shit like vignette, chromatic aberration, lens flare, and motion blur, so someone had to come with something similarly horrible for the old games like shitty CRT shaders and make them tedious to set up. And the people behind Retroarch should be hanged. Great idea, total piece of shit software. I'll stick with DOS command line any day.

Dosbox-Staging is awesome, thanks! Amazing fork. Just tried the sharp shader with Darklands and it looks perfect! Now I just need to find a way how to also use it for some non-DOS games.

 

[Viata]

I think I use a default one on Retroarch(it sucks, but I never cared to learn how to remove it), but for everything else I don't use filters at all.

 

[Morenatsu.]

fake-composite filters on CRT monitor, that's where the real gaming's at

 

[Tel Velothi]

What's your opinion on low-poly/PS1 style graphics in new games done on purpose?

I think it has it's charm - and when made properly it's great. I think it's a nostalgia thing tho :/

 

[Norfleet]

Graphics, schmaphics. Forsooth! ASCII is where it's at.

It's pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

 

[pickmeister]

Like with anything. When it's done well, it's excellent. For example, unrelated to PS1, I love how Domina is made (gladiator school management sim) because it doesn't feel shoehorned for the sake of le uwupixelyfartsyhipsterypumpkinspicesoylatte graphics. It's functional and it does well what it's trying to do. Stoneshard is another great example. I love the style of both of these.
But way too many games are trying to use pixel graphics these days and the results are anywhere between 'meh' to 'omg another soifag trying to be retro'.

 

[Viata]

What's your opinion on low-poly/PS1 style graphics in new games done on purpose?

I think it has it's charm - and when made properly it's great. I think it's a nostalgia thing tho :/

I love it and yes it's pure nostalgia.

 

[pickmeister]

Didn't answer the question due to being a retard and not reading it thoroughly. Oh well, at least I stayed on the original topic.

 

[Rincewind]

Now I just need to find a way how to also use it for some non-DOS games.

This is my method for achieving similar (although not quite as good) results with WinUAE, in case you're into Amiga games.

 

[Morenatsu.]

is there a such thing as an actually good amiga game?

just kidding.



is there, though?

 

[Rincewind]

is there a such thing as an actually good amiga game?

just kidding.



is there, though?

I'm about 68.5% sure that you're trolling, but here you go, off the top of my head. These are either Amiga exclusives, or superior Amiga ports:

Another World
Amberstar
Ambermoon
BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception
Black Crypt
Cadaver
Chaos Engine
Crystal Dragon
Dungeon Master
Fate: Gates of Dawn
Flashback
Gobliiins series
King's Bounty
Legend of Faerghail
Hired Guns
Ishar I-III
It Came From the Desert
Midwinter
Might and Magic: Book Two - Gates to Another World
Obitus
Perihelion
Pinball Dreams
Pirates!
Pool of Radiance
Populous
Powermonger
Questron II
Speedball 2
Starflight
Warhead
Wings

 

[Morenatsu.]

I'm 68.5% trolling.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Three categories:

1. Amiga-original, ported to systems of lesser quality, i.e. Faery Tale Adventure, Lemmings, Beneath a Steel Sky, and dozens of other good-to-great games
2. Amiga-original and exclusive, i.e. Agony, Perihelion, and several other good-to-great games (quality games were usually, though not always, ported to other systems)
   
3. Ported to Amiga with improvements over original, i.e. The Bard's Tale, Pool of Radiance, Pirates!, and many others with, at the very least, better graphics and sound

 

[pickmeister]

This is my method for achieving similar (although not quite as good) results with WinUAE, in case you're into Amiga games.

Not really into Amiga games. Either it was before my time or I did play their DOS ports.
I'd like to try it out with some Win 9x games.

 

[Rincewind]

Good example of contemporary pixel art. They went to the trouble of creating proper limited-palette pixelgfx illustrations for this article about the original Elite. Prestigious!

The subtle parallax effect on the main image is a nice little touch too, and I love the simple but effective dithering technique the guy used (reminds me of Sierra EGA games).

https://readonlymemory.vg/the-unsolved-mysteries-elite/

This one is very cool too:

https://readonlymemory.vg/ascii-corporation/

 

[J1M]

When was the last AAA pixel-art game?

 

[Rincewind]

When was the last AAA pixel-art game?

Don't think you can easily pinpoint a single game, but it must have been some VGA DOS game before the FMV craze. But things get a bit blurry there; many of the 256 colour VGA games had digitised and manually retouched graphics, which is actually not pixel art, just low-res gfx. E.g. the backgrounds of Gabriel Knight and Monkey Island II look very much like scanned traditional paintings to me (and I remember some old German magazine article about MII that actually featured photos of the original paintings).

256 colours made such things possible; scans using only 32 colours generally just look like shit. Hence pretty much every Amiga original was hand-pixeled (well, at least pre-AGA), and lazy Amiga ports of DOS VGA games looked liked shit, e.g. Sierra, one of the worst offenders, who just did an automatic 256->32 conversion and called it a day.