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Mixel

Posted Tue Oct 20, 2020 6:10 am

Saw Intric8 post a thread like this, thought I would too!

I've made (greatly sped up) footage of my drawing process with commentary, a lot of talking about random nonsense.. Some of it Amiga/game related. In the first video I'm half asleep which .. isn't ideal, but oh well!

Demonology
PPaint 7.3c
PAL 32col
320x256
0Demonology18.png
Speeddraw: https://youtu.be/1tEIe93hz1c

- I start this one in EHB but then scale back to 32 when it turns out I've used exactly 32colours anyway. This was a lot of fun and I definitely learnt a lot more from this piece than any other pixel art I've done.


Visitors
PPaint 7.3c
PAL 64col EHB (46 used)
362x283 (lots of overscan)
VisitorsMixel.png
Speeddraw: https://youtu.be/4mNFdVisKKs

- Don't think this is technically finished. Will do more revisions later, most likely.

- This one is interesting to me as it seems like the colour balance as output from my A1200 is pretty different to what it looks like on other machines? You can barely see the darkest tones on this one when not using the Amiga itself. If I upload an IFF can someone display it on a CRT and tell me if the dark colours are even worth keeping? if they're only visible on my Amiga with it's OSSC - and weirdly my iPAD.. But not an actual amiga in most cases, then I really need to rethink the darkest colours in my EHB palette :? (I'm also using it to make game assets) They're.. kind of visible on my mac but only when viewed full screen?

Thanks for looking, congrats everyone who entered and everyone who won, too! Looking forward to next year's event!

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intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Tue Oct 20, 2020 8:52 am

If I upload an IFF can someone display it on a CRT and tell me if the dark colours are even worth keeping?
This is a critical point for me. My finished pieces absolutely should be viewed with a CRT, as that's how they were viewed and assembled during the creation process. Had I done the art on a modern display, I probably would have made different choices. When I see the IFFs unstretched on a modern display I cringe. They are but a hollow shell of what I remember painting.

Another twist is, at least in my case, I can't quite photograph the exact colors as seen on my Commodore monitor. There is a shift that occurs that is very difficult to readjust after the fact and get back to original.

Sharing the files, and viewing at home, is really the best way IMO. This was why last year I asked Doug for the original files - so I could view them on my own machine and not directly output outside of a CRT experience. It really changes everything.

Perfect example:
Go hunt down Avril Harrison's King Tut and view it as an unmodified IFF file. It's brilliant, no doubt. But then load it up on your Amiga using a CRT. It's a totally different level of the spectacular.

Anyway long story short this is why I photograph my pieces. The colors are slightly wrong, but the overall look is a lot more right. I've sent my IFF to AmigaLove member and friend Walldog per his request so he could view them on his hardware, too. =)

(And yes, I'd test yours for you in about a week when I return home. I actually really like the spider talon's in the "Demonology".)

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fxgogo
Twickenham , U.K.

Posted Tue Oct 20, 2020 5:18 pm

I agree. The medium matters. It is the same thinking of different types of paper and pens. They give different results.

We do have this problem of a dying supply of CRT’s though. I have been building a set of tools to replicate the CRT experience in After Effects. When is it ready for testing, I would love to get any of you interested to give it a spin.

Oh Mixel, enjoyed the video by the way. Makes the work more enjoyable to view.

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Mixel

Posted Sun Oct 25, 2020 4:12 pm

intric8 wrote:
Tue Oct 20, 2020 8:52 am
If I upload an IFF can someone display it on a CRT and tell me if the dark colours are even worth keeping?
This is a critical point for me. My finished pieces absolutely should be viewed with a CRT, as that's how they were viewed and assembled during the creation process. Had I done the art on a modern display, I probably would have made different choices. When I see the IFFs unstretched on a modern display I cringe. They are but a hollow shell of what I remember painting.
I doubt I'll ever have a CRT again but the scanlines on the OSSC are surprisingly ok. Weirdest thing about how I draw on the Amiga recently has been I draw a lot directly in the OBS preview window from my capture card, so stretching/deforming it is easy, and you can use OBS' de-flickering filters to take the edge off interlace too, which is very handy, as interlace is almost unusably painful still. (I wonder how many other people there are with 60fps capture cards plugged into Amigas, as it's a v niche way of tackling an the issue, i might make a video about it?)

I think CRTs would probably give me eye strain, I remember they used to bug me if they were on in my peripheral vision.. I really shouldn't want one again but I kind of.. do.. Oh no. :)
Sharing the files, and viewing at home, is really the best way IMO. This was why last year I asked Doug for the original files - so I could view them on my own machine and not directly output outside of a CRT experience. It really changes everything.
Did he put up iffs this time? They aren't in the gallery.. When it came to the voting I avoided looking in the hand drawn category as I knew i'd probably freak out. (really glad I didn't now that the show's happened!) was a really fun stream though.
Perfect example:
Go hunt down Avril Harrison's King Tut and view it as an unmodified IFF file. It's brilliant, no doubt. But then load it up on your Amiga using a CRT. It's a totally different level of the spectacular.
Last time I saw that image on a CRT was probably in the late 80s. :( Its a great image for sure.
Anyway long story short this is why I photograph my pieces. The colors are slightly wrong, but the overall look is a lot more right. I've sent my IFF to AmigaLove member and friend Walldog per his request so he could view them on his hardware, too. =)
I suppose for me and making sure the viewer gets an appreciation of what I was actually trying to do - the equivalent is watching my speed-draws, as even though compression does a number on it - at least you can see the darkest colours then..

I think part of it is the web in general has lots of bright stuff on it so if you put a largely dark image on a page the contrast makes the dark things vanish. Even with the PNG version you can see the really dark colours - IF - you view it totally full screen, which I guess you inherently are in PPaint/Dpaint on an Amiga! But it doesn't make for a very nice looking image outside of the Amiga? A bit odd and something I'll have to consider for other contests.
(And yes, I'd test yours for you in about a week when I return home. I actually really like the spider talon's in the "Demonology".)
Thankyou! :D here's a link to Visitors in IFF form: http://www.mixelmagic.com/mixelslab/VisitorsMixel.iff
and here's a link to Demonology! http://www.mixelmagic.com/mixelslab/Demonology.iff

fxgogo wrote: I agree. The medium matters. It is the same thinking of different types of paper and pens. They give different results.

We do have this problem of a dying supply of CRT’s though. I have been building a set of tools to replicate the CRT experience in After Effects. When is it ready for testing, I would love to get any of you interested to give it a spin.
That sounds awesome! I don't have/use Aftereffects so I might not be very useful for testing that though. :(

Hmm. Some emulators have quite nice CRT filters with a slightly bulbous screen, scanlines and pixel glow etc.. I wonder if I can get filters from RetroArch applied to UAE.. One reason I'd feel weird doing that is it'd mean I get more "era authentic" image out of an emulation than my actual amiga hardware, and that's.. Weird.
Oh Mixel, enjoyed the video by the way. Makes the work more enjoyable to view.
Thanks! I need to find a good length balance.. if I speed it up too much you can't see anything remotely like the brushstrokes and it stops being quite as nice? but it means the videos are nearly half and hour. I need to think of more interesting things to talk about, haha.

This is probably as good a time as any to mention my Amiga-friendly page.. http://www.mixelmagic.com - Collecting everything I do in Amiga-land in one place. Got my 4 colour desktop pics (adding a lot more soon) the crazy icon pack I'm working on, games, etc. Links/info to go with the serial graphics tablet video I did. It's very much a work in progress and baron looking, but I'm enjoying doing some old school HTML. Way more fun than modern web editing. :lol:

Edit: Ok this is REALLY weird.. but I loaded Visitors (as an iff) into GrafX2.. and the gamma seems exactly how I'd imagine it should be.. and how it appears on the Amiga (and iPad).. What is it about saving as PNG which crunches its brightness down so much I wonder?

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fxgogo
Twickenham , U.K.

Posted Tue Oct 27, 2020 5:01 pm

I will be doing the same thing in Blender. It actually might be more flexible in Blender. Re’ the shaders, I have been using some by guest.r over on EAB. And you are right, it does give a better experience than an Amiga on a flat panel.
https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=61776

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primitivefunction

Posted Wed Feb 24, 2021 4:32 pm

Fantastic work!

Regarding CRTs -

Not quite the same as the real thing, but here's one method you could try to 'simulate a CRT display' if you have Photoshop -

Amiga Graphics Archive - Do it yourself CRT effect:
https://amiga.lychesis.net/knowledge/Display.html

If you look at the main site headers, they were all done this way and they look great - had me fooled the first time I saw them.

I think in the Bitmap Brothers book they did a similar thing.





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