(Mockup) Labyrinth Zone

A place for your artistic side. Discuss techniques and tools for pixel art on the NES, GBC, or similar platforms.

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Macbee
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Re: (Mockup) Labyrinth Zone

Post by Macbee »

These 2-pixel wide patterns are also full of artifacts.
It's used on California Raisins and (IMHO) it's as unpleasant as regular, 1-pixel wide, dither patterns.
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tokumaru
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Re: (Mockup) Labyrinth Zone

Post by tokumaru »

Any kind of uniform dithering across large plain areas looks weird on the NES when output in NTSC. You always get some sort of pattern, and unless that pattern looks like a plausible texture for the surface in question, it won't look good. I usually try to limit the dithering in my NES pixel work to small and/or noisy areas, so that these phantom patterns aren't so obvious.
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Macbee
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Re: (Mockup) Labyrinth Zone

Post by Macbee »

tokumaru wrote:Any kind of uniform dithering across large plain areas looks weird on the NES when output in NTSC. You always get some sort of pattern, and unless that pattern looks like a plausible texture for the surface in question, it won't look good. I usually try to limit the dithering in my NES pixel work to small and/or noisy areas, so that these phantom patterns aren't so obvious.
I had problems with all sorts of patterns - except the ones made from horizontal lines.
They are artifact-free and according to another topic (viewtopic.php?f=21&t=11018) they even blend colors on PAL TVs - which is pretty cool.

I wish I had an Everdrive to test how tolerable these horizontal lines look on 60 Hz televisions...
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Drag
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Re: (Mockup) Labyrinth Zone

Post by Drag »

Scanline-dithering would be tolerable only if the two colors are similar enough to each other. Due to how YIQ/YUV works, choosing two colors from the same luminance row would yield tolerable results, but you have the problem of being unable to mix with gray, since the available grays are not the same luminance as the colors themselves, so desaturating a color would be harder.
tepples
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Re: (Mockup) Labyrinth Zone

Post by tepples »

On NTSC at least, $00 (dark gray) is very, very close in luminance to $11-$1C (medium colors), as is $10 (light gray) to $21-$2C (light colors).
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RushJet1
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Re: (Mockup) Labyrinth Zone

Post by RushJet1 »

Wouldn't it be possible to use color emphasis bits below a certain scanline for a water/transparency effect? Kinda wondered why more games didn't' use those, especially after MMC3 carts could change things based on scanline.
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Re: (Mockup) Labyrinth Zone

Post by thefox »

RushJet1 wrote:Wouldn't it be possible to use color emphasis bits below a certain scanline for a water/transparency effect? Kinda wondered why more games didn't' use those, especially after MMC3 carts could change things based on scanline.
Noah's Ark (E) did that.
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Re: (Mockup) Labyrinth Zone

Post by Drag »

[Huge spiel about about emphasis bits and clone incompatibility here]
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tokumaru
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Re: (Mockup) Labyrinth Zone

Post by tokumaru »

Do clones have problems with the color emphasis bits? I know that some of Nintendo's own PPUs do, but didn't know about the clones.

BTW, Noah's Ark sets the monochrome bit along with blue emphasis for the water. It looks bluer that way, but also brighter than you'd expect from water.
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Re: (Mockup) Labyrinth Zone

Post by tepples »

tokumaru wrote:Do clones have problems with the color emphasis bits?
Some clones switch the duty cycles for pulse waves, giving notes the wrong timbre. Some clones switch the phases for tint bits, giving screens the wrong tint.
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OneCrudeDude
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Re: (Mockup) Labyrinth Zone

Post by OneCrudeDude »

Is that the same reason why Felix the Cat is really dark when played on clone hardware? I always did find that game to look a bit odd for an NES game.
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Re: (Mockup) Labyrinth Zone

Post by thefox »

OneCrudeDude wrote:Is that the same reason why Felix the Cat is really dark when played on clone hardware? I always did find that game to look a bit odd for an NES game.
It looks "odd"/"dark" even on authentic NES hardware, because it turns on all of the tint bits which makes every color darker. Many other games did this also, e.g. Magician, James Bond Jr. and Jungle Book. Probably because its authors preferred the slightly darker palette.
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mikejmoffitt
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Re: (Mockup) Labyrinth Zone

Post by mikejmoffitt »

Wasn't there a list of games that made interesting use of the emphasis bits? They always seemed like an under utilized feature.

Edit: http://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/Colo ... asis_games

How boring, most of them use it to make the screen look shitty darker.
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Re: (Mockup) Labyrinth Zone

Post by Drag »

Darker and 100% unplayable on RGB PPUs. I'm surprised, it looks like everyone's cooled off from this debate. :P
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Re: (Mockup) Labyrinth Zone

Post by Bavi_H »

tokumaru wrote:Do clones have problems with the color emphasis bits?
tepples wrote:Some clones switch the phases for tint bits, giving screens the wrong tint.
OneCrudeDude wrote:Is that the same reason why Felix the Cat is really dark when played on clone hardware?
thefox wrote:It looks "odd"/"dark" even on authentic NES hardware, because it turns on all of the tint bits which makes every color darker.
When 1 or 2 of the tint bits are enabled, only some hues are darkened. This gives the screen a certain color tint depending on which bits are enabled. When the red tint bit is enabled, the Dendy incorrectly tints the screen green. This is the kind of problem tepples was referring to.

When all 3 tint bits are enabled, all colors are darkened. However, it appears some clone systems darken the colors more strongly than the original NES. And the darkening amount may vary from system to system? See the references below.

So it's not exactly the same as what tepples was referring to, but it's related: They're both caused by differences in the tint bits implemention between original and clone systems.

References from thread Incorrect tint on Dendy:
  • In the original post, Drag mentions Lion King uses the red tint bit, but in the Dendy Chronicles YouTube series, the host says Lion King has a green tint problem. Drag also says, "Apparently, [...] the amount of tinting depends on the console; for some it's barely noticable, on others it's extremely obnoxious."
  • ccovell: "Famiclone systems have long been known to have overly-strong colour emphasis behaviour compared to the regular NES/Fami PPU. This means games like Bubble Bobble (FDS), Felix the Cat, Magician, etc. are sometimes a bit unclear and harder to play on clones."
  • Shiru: "Felix the Cat suffered a lot on the Famiclones indeed, the brightness was much lower than in other games."
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