Pixel Art Details

Title:	Flowers! (2007 + minor 2008 edit)
Pixel Artist:	neota (Level 8 Shodan :: 9009 points)
Posted:	8/26/2008 17:56
Statistics:	21 comments 14 faves 0 avatars
Leading up to Christmas of 2007, I made the various tiles for this, a present for my mother (who likes cacti and plants in general, and has lots of them). She liked it considerably. Most of these are based on real flowers, some drawn directly from reference pictures. I has just created my 'FG/BG Perceptual 50% mix' macro for GIMP+Gpixmint at that point, and I used it to do most of the color picking and help with the antialiasing . I seemed to favor waterlilies -- there are three here. The typical number of colors for a tile is 27. No color optimization was done (hence 719 colors!). Each tile was on a separate layer, so I can identify most of the things I drew here : By row: 1. zygo cactus hibiscus caper? dandelion (discarded, and NPA) iced passionfruit 2. blackface waterlily irisish fireflower seedshaped 3. gold orb winegartia (this is the yellow cactus flower) nasturtium butterfly 4. geranium moss redflower (based off a coral tree flower?) hippiastrum 5. strange machine (this is the flower in the bottom left corner) spiky euphorbia (this is the one with the purple 'berries') (removed in the revision -- indexpainting) lily (this is the sideways one. Yeah, it was originally drawn vertical, and brought in to fill the gap left by removing the 2 indexpainted items.) earlymix lavender (removed in revision, indexpainting) jade dragon The quirky space fillers have no contextual relation to the picture. Each tile is 64x48 or 48x64, except for the ones that are 16x16 :) I'll repeat -- there are 719 colors. the PJ colors field doesn't accept this so I'm putting it here. Original version at http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v449/neota/alphazero/2008-copy-of-present-for-pixeljoint.png -- you'll find the euphorbia and lavender in there, however not the dandelion. EDIT: Resubmitted with indexpainted parts removed -- correspondingly revised blurb. EDIT2: Organized naming by rows

Discussion

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Delfos (Level 5 Killer Klown) @ 9/11/2008 07:35

Wow! I love the second flower, and the last three are amazing.

Good work!

neota (Level 8 Shodan) @ 9/10/2008 16:54

Thanks lollige :) I just rewrote the list of flowers so that you can see which are exactly which :)

Hapiel (Level 11 Bonsai) @ 9/10/2008 12:58

Wow great stuff Neota!

neota (Level 8 Shodan) @ 9/9/2008 16:55

Thank YOU, Jalonso. If I have any doubts over whether a prospective submission will be approved, I will consult with you before submitting :)

jalonso (Level 11 Godfather) @ 9/9/2008 13:13

Thank you for submitting an edited version to the gallery.
Any question you may have in the future you are always welcome to PM me :)

neota (Level 8 Shodan) @ 9/6/2008 18:15

Dogmeat. I have already done so, in fact before your reply was posted. Thanks.

Pixelblink: Any character flaws a person has is independent of what else they are doing and what other virtues they have. I believe that is a pretty obvious and easily accepted assertion. Obviously you do work hard at moderating here. I thought I spelled it out before : I respect -that-;
just not your attitude towards factuality in speech and writing.

I didn't mean to imply that you, personally, rejected the piece because, even secondarily, the colorcount was too high. Rather I meant to say that what you wrote, accounting for your position as a mod, gave that impression IMO. And I do believe that, as a mod, unless you are willing to explain these things at length and repeatedly, you need to be very careful to avoid those kind of misunderstandings, because they don't just effect the piece in question but also future pieces by other people.
Hey, I could be wrong. You could have been representing things accurately, as well as *doing* the right thing (I acknowledge that you were *doing* the right thing). You, after all, as a mod, know more about moderating than I.

I'll probably not find out whether that is the case or not soon, though; because, I don't trust the way you portray things. If you want to take that as a personal affront, you can. I don't intend to insult you, but to give an accurate account. Whether I succeeded in giving one or not, it's fine and good for you to be outraged. I just don't intend to *take on* your outrage.

I would just like to say this is great : "our "rules" change/differ according to each submission."

pixelblink (Level 9 Federal Agent) @ 9/5/2008 10:59

Excuse me? How dare you even talk like that about me in that way? Talking about character flaws, you should listen to yourself before you judge one who is trying to keep this site together. PixelJoint does not require to have every single rule written out like an official book of law and our "rules" change/differ according to each submission. Every piece is judged and ruled upon by ALL moderators and discussed in a private forum before approaching the piece in question. Think about this and choose your next words carefully.

neota (Level 8 Shodan) @ 9/4/2008 23:26

If I was calling for PB's resignation, I'd post it in a more public place and say it outright.

What I am saying: I respect the decision of the admins here because they seem to do a good job, and I do NOT respect him because he, after handing down the decision reasonably in his official role as a moderator here, then proceeded to misrepresent the rules in that official capacity.. I don't respect that kind of behaviour, and it's true I no longer take him seriously as a mod, and I DO think it reflects a character flaw in him.

Because of this, I felt justified in saying the rules need adjustment, both so users can know where they stand, and so moderators can point out the actual rule or shut up.

Anyway, I want to be clear that I didn't intend to make any kind of threat -- that post was intended to be purely informative for anyone who came across this submission, since so far the posts I made here had been misunderstood. What I posted was my plan at the time i wrote that post. In retrospect, that would be giving his behaviour too much priority -- so now my plan is just to ignore him and continue to submit whatever I personally understand to be within the scope of Pixel Joint.

If I understand you correctly, then if I remove the indexpainted material from this submission and re-submit it, it has a good chance of being accepted. I'll go and do that, then. Probably need to draw another flower to fill the gap.

cure (Level 11 Pixellite) @ 9/4/2008 07:58

You're seriously calling for PB to change his attitude or resign, and if not, you're gone? No offense, but I'll keep the hard-working moderator. This "make him stop being grumpy to me or I won't play anymore" attitude is a little juvenile. You're getting far too worked up over something technical. Don't take it as a personal insult; it isn't. It just doesn't fit here. This isn't an argument, we have our rules, whether we have to spell out each and every one or not. And the moderators work as a team to decide what is and isn't appropriate for the site we run. We like your work, we enjoy your gallery, but we have our parameters, and we don't conform to the rules of the individual, if so we'd have to go through this drawn-out explanation/bickering process on a daily basis.

I'm sorry if it seems we're being harsh, but you have to understand our perspective as well. As far as the color thing goes, so long as no "dirty tools" were used, it shouldn't be a problem. Especially since an over-abundance of colors rarely helps pixel art anyway. That rule is in place as a safeguard against NPA, not as a restriction on your creativity or style.

neota (Level 8 Shodan) @ 9/3/2008 08:26

Anyone who's interested:

1. If you want to see the relevant image anyway , look at this link:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v449/neota/alphazero/2008-copy-of-present-for-pixeljoint.png

2. I don't plan to remove my work from this site. All my existing work shall remain here for certain. My disagreement is entirely with PixelBlink, and the listing of all those different works that 'violated' the submission rules in some trivial way that really isn't a violation, was basically :

a) expressing anger over the inconsistency ( I want to acknowledge that it is unreasonable to expect PixelBlink specifically to account for my previous submissions, rather it's reasonable to expect the people who together finalize approvals to take into account my previous submissions, as Jalonso did.)

b) ridiculing the kind of solipsistic reading of the rules that is required to produce a statement such as "There is NO way 728 colours is at all acceptable for a piece to be submitted at PJ". Maybe there is no way; if that's the case, I certainly am not privy to the knowledge that leads one to believe there is no way, that information is not available in any obvious way on PixelJoint, and as such, it's unjust and unwise to treat me as if I did have that knowledge.

Whether I continue to upload my pixel art here will depend on exactly how the colors issue gets resolved.
If nothing changes in the rules (and PixelBlink remains a moderator, with no sign of improvement in his character), I will no longer submit my works here
If the rules change to a clear statement of 'no more than 256 colors', I will continue to submit whatever of my pieces are <=256 colors.
If the rules change to 'usually no more than 256 colors, when this applies is a matter of judgement' then I will be replacing the offending tiles and resubmitting this, and also any others I think this website is appropriate for.

If I continue submitting you can be sure I will continue my policy of disclosing the exact methods used in making my pictures so that anyone interested can find out and so that this information can be used to render accurate judgement on them.
If it is necessary, this will also include such information as 'I use a filter to pick my colors -- as regularly as I use the pencil tool to draw'.

neota (Level 8 Shodan) @ 9/3/2008 07:35

Ensellitis: I'm saying *mine* was approved (I listed *loads* of my *own* accepted submissions) and it is inconsistent to reject this submission on the basis of indexpainting where an earlier one where I carefully explained my (identical) method was accepted .
Actually read what I said if you plan to critique it. I encourage you not to respond, especially if it's going to be as ill thought out as the post you just made. You basically shot yourself in the foot.

PixelBlink: Thank you for actually reading with care.
Just to be clear, I'm not complaining over the fact this was rejected on the basis of indexpainting -- Just the basically arbitrary 'such a color count is not acceptable' following that. I don't believe the judgement (indexpainting -> No) was too harsh, just that it was immediately followed by BS (that basically amounted to you making up a rule on the spot, unsupported by any available documentation on site policy). Since I've encountered this kind of 'well I'm just right, it should be obvious' behaviour from you before, I regarded that as something I must challenge, and I was angered.

The simple fact is that all this stuff isn't explained. As far as I can see, it's reasonable to assume that an aggregate of variant works can have more colors than a single work, especially as we are encouraged to aggregate variant works by the submission rules.

Indexpainting is not clear either. I regard careful indexpainting as pixeling and careless indexpainting as not pixeling -- in just the same way that pixely oekaki is not pixel art.
On this subject, I hope you and I share the understanding that that isn't necessarily clear

These subjects are controversial, you know surely people don't agree on the exact definition of pixel art. And, well, I think we can agree that a sticky on the messageboard or a discussion in a chatroom, no matter how well known, are going to reach the person who's submitting their work right now. If you want to say 'you crossed the line', you need to say where the line is. Simple as that:
I believe I didn't cross the line, you (and maybe other mods) believe I did.
Possibly that is a no win situation. I believe though that you can always be clearer, no matter how clear you already have been.

For example: Currently, the colors field says '2-256 and transparency counts as a color' and is also marked as optional.
That does not send a clear message; If you want to limit submissions to <=256 colors, it's really necessary to say so in the rules (or else require the 'colors' field to be filled in, so that you are not being ambiguous). It's not a matter of people trying to find loopholes, it's a matter that people think differently and even if you communicate really clearly you may not get them to understand. But, if you have it written there, you can point to it instead of blustering.

Ensellitis (Level 11 Sensei) @ 9/2/2008 22:47

"As I said, they are all done completely by hand except in those two tiles"

end of argument.

as for saying "someone else's was approved..." grow up. i typically hear that from 12 year olds here. pixel art is approved on a case by case basis.

either way, i am with pb on this. i am not going to get into some pointless argument with someone who cant get a simple and yet (should be) obvious decision.

and fyi, i will not respond to anything regaurding this, i am only here to back up pb on his decision on this

pixelblink (Level 9 Federal Agent) @ 9/2/2008 21:03

I can't believe I even have to explain or argue any of this. So, I won't. If you feel that PJ is being too harsh on you then I suppose I can't stop you from not participating on this site anymore. You are more than welcome to remove your work from this site and move elsewhere. The choice is yours, really. I am quite tired with seeing members trying to find loop holes or take the easy way out of something so simplistic and well defined.

neota (Level 8 Shodan) @ 9/1/2008 19:56

Regarding 728-color count as unacceptable is misleading. If you look at
any individual tile, it's like 24..32 colors typically (I checked before
submitting it, hence the 27-color quote). So.. they would all but two be
acceptable as individual submissions, but in total the color count is an
issue? I find that both implausible and disingenuous.

728 colors comes just from the fact that no color optimization has been
done between tiles. As I said, they are all done completely by hand
except in those two tiles. The darkening/lightening involved is also
strictly controlled when I do it, I know exactly how many colors I'm
going to end up with by the colors I calculate to put in. I manually
choose colors in this method-- *after* I've shaded. You can see, what I
do is exactly the same sort of thing as shown in my method animation

http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/32351.htm

which was accepted some time ago.

I tried removing the indexpainted tiles, which dropped the colorcount to 676 -- ie. average of 24 colors for each of the indexpainted tiles. The largest color usage by far is on the non-indexpainted tile between them -- 54!
I'm willing to upload a version with those tiles removed. providing absurd treatment of color count does not happen again.

Also, let's be clear: I did not use the method you describe on the two
tiles in question; I used virtually the reverse, where I started out
with only a flat color, used modes to shade that, and cleaned up with
common pixel-art methods. I can understand you rejecting it on that
basis, just don't misrepresent it. (again, the exact method and
behaviour is described accurately in the text of my method animation) Do
you perhaps also take issue with me using a plugin of my own design to
interpolate between two colors and attain a good AA color?

Lastly, I read the submission rules again, carefully, and concluded that
this piece is not in fact in violation of the rules. So, if you are
representing the general consensus, then the rules need to be updated.
I'll paste the only related rule below:
"6. Any art you post should be PIXEL ART! Pixel art implies that each
pixel is placed by hand (no filters, paintbrushes, gradient fills,
etc)."

Actually...
'Wuff' is in violation of the rules, since I used 'gradient-map'
filter to produce the alternate colorset, and my own custom filters to
adjust colors on the first colorset.
'Anubis' is also in violation of the rules, since I used clone tool to dither the
wall colors.
'Nauseating-headache bunee' is in violation, I used a filter to generate the LAB 3*3*3 square palette that it uses,
and 'Captain' and 'candle' are in violation for the same reason.
'Unknown' is in violation for using clone tool to produce the dithering for the foggy effect on the trees.
'Fighter' is in violation for using gradient-map filter to colorize as well as using indexize to adjust the eye logo-thingy. (it even says so on the image!)
'Bubble' is in violation for using a recoloring filter of my own design (and possibly for my vector resizing filter which is used
to produce one of the side by side compared versions.) Hungry is in violation because I used a large paintbrush to selectively recolor
the edges to stand out less (more moonlighty), and it was made using a large brush and only refined with a 1pix brush.
'Bunny Rabbot' is in violation for gradient-map filter (twas drawn completely in greyscale) and using a 3x3 brush. 'Perseus' is in violation for indexization on the floor rocks and gradientmapping,
'Akuma logo' is in v>*** Message truncated (4000 chars max) ***

pixelblink (Level 9 Federal Agent) @ 8/31/2008 21:24

Quoting you:
"I used darkening and lightening drawing mode..."
That's all I need to hear to not allow this. PJ standards for creating pixel art dos not allow the usage of these 'dirty' tools. Basically, pixel art should be able to be drawn by manually choosing colours and placing them 1 pixel at a time... NOT by doing all of that and then using 'dirty' tools to create highlights and shades. There is NO way 728 colours is at all acceptable for a piece to be submitted at PJ.

I hope you understand and use this information before submitting anything else in the future here.

neota (Level 8 Shodan) @ 8/29/2008 19:46

Thanks for your effort and consideration, Jalonso.
Yes, I've used indexpainting and even filters before,and I only submit the pieces in which this is either not used, or very strictly controlled -- ie. just a time saver, with no effect on picture quality.

Yesterday I was playing a DOS game 'Realms of Chaos' which has obviously indexpainted graphics, with the characteristics:
* excessive softening, esp. around edges
* meaningless shininess
* clumsy shading showing intermittant/lacking understanding of the real structure of what is being shaded.

Despite that, it has a real sense of atmosphere and graphical coherence -- the smooth shading produced by indexpainting often seems to invoke this feeling.
That's probably why things like 'Afraid of Light' can arrive in the top rated, even though it's visually just a non-sequiteur, more like an arrangement of interesting effects than a picture.

OTOH, there are very good, precise indexpaints (eg. some of Henk Nieborg's stuff :)
I think it's just in the same class as the difference between pillow shading and well-defined shading -- using your tools meaningfully, not gratuitously.

jalonso (Level 11 Godfather) @ 8/27/2008 22:19

I understand your points. I will have all the other Mods review this, ok.

I know your gallery and you and this has never come up before in any way with you.
Please understand that my concern was only about others members getting the wrong idea to what is cool in Pixeljoint and what is not. Hopefully they too will express their opinions.

Bear with us :)

neota (Level 8 Shodan) @ 8/27/2008 03:30

Well I don't plan to redraw the euphorbia or the lavender (which are the 'indexpainted' tiles) in any case.
Dunno whether indexpainted is completely accurate (Since I used GIMP which supposedly doesn't have any indexpainting features).

For the record:
* I used darkening and lightening drawing modes with pencil tool to establish the basis for the euphorbia and make it all neat, then adjusted the colors and made some minor tweaks.
* I used darkening and lightening drawing modes with pencil tool/1pix brush to do most of the lavender (cause it's easy to make it look messy/spindly), then adjusted the colors and touched up fairly extensively.
* None of the smoothness is due to indexpainting, ironically; All the AA is hand-done, sometimes with slightly excessive amounts of colors
* Oh, actually I may have used the same techniques on the filler areas (some of the pipes -- I think I did on the shiny blue corner pipe).

Indirectly related -- I think in point 6 of the submission rules, 'paintbrush' needs to be clarified; I'm pretty sure 'paintbrush tool' is what is meant, rather than 'painting with anything more than a single pixel'. Otherwise people would violate this when they pick up a star from their picture and paint it in several different places.

jalonso (Level 11 Godfather) @ 8/26/2008 20:41

To be fair to others because you freely admit to some index painting this will be sent back.

AdamF (Level 11 CEO) @ 8/26/2008 18:15

I like how each of them has it's own style! Nice job!

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