#4: "Overrated" Pixel Art Fixation
Printed From: Pixel Joint
Category: Pixel Art
Forum Name: Collaborations/Challenges
Forum Discription: Submit pixel art project ideas/templates or contribute to an existing pixel art collaboration.
URL: https://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=2907
Printed Date: 06 September 2025 at 8:32pm
Topic: #4: "Overrated" Pixel Art Fixation
Posted By: sedgemonkey
Subject: #4: "Overrated" Pixel Art Fixation
Date Posted: 30 August 2006 at 9:03am
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You can thank jalonso for the poll idea. |
Replies:
Posted By: Ensellitis
Date Posted: 30 August 2006 at 10:27am
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hmmm, i am gonna have to go with aa. since imo, alot of the lure of pixel art is the "blockyness" of it
------------- There's a pubic hair on my keyboard. What the f**k?? I "mow the lawn" so it's not mine. Gross. |
Posted By: tomster 785
Date Posted: 30 August 2006 at 10:41am
| I voted black outlining, cuz although it can work sometimes, selout is better, or maybe even no outline |
Posted By: pixelblink
Date Posted: 30 August 2006 at 10:54am
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I voted for Dithering... alot of people take too much stock into using this when sometimes you don't need it at all. A cartoony piece can be ruined using dithering whereas a realistic piece (depending on the texture) can utilize it to its fullest effect. Remember, it's all about context.
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Posted By: Tremulant
Date Posted: 30 August 2006 at 11:01am
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I picked dithering, too, even though I use it a lot. Seems to me like a number of people feel that cramming as much dithering as possible into a piece (whether or not it's really necessarry), or simply adding dithering to a pic will inevitably result in good pixel art. It's quality not quantity, dammit!
 Edit: Hehe, realized I basically just acted as PB's angry echo. Oops!
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Posted By: dm404
Date Posted: 30 August 2006 at 11:21am
| Sorry for my lack of knowledge into this, but what exactly is Selective Outlining? |
Posted By: Larwick
Date Posted: 30 August 2006 at 12:29pm
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Man, this is quite a hard decision now i think about it. I definetely rule out animation, palette, colour restriction, transparency, selout ... and probably canvas size and also AA cus i love AA in the right situations. I must agree dithering does get used alot of the time when it really isn't needed, so i'm swaying on picking that or black outlining. I think black outlining is mostly used for purposefully cartoonish styles, and it could always work fairly well if it is combined with good AA or selout. I'm gunna go with dithering then, becuase of all those silly times it's been used. I do really like the different dithering styles some people use though, as well as pieces when it's really smooth yet still viewable. So yeah, if you can't be assed to read that. I pick dithering. -------------  http://larw-ck.deviantart.com">
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Posted By: Ensellitis
Date Posted: 30 August 2006 at 12:38pm
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Originally posted by Larwick Man, this is quite a hard decision now i think about it. I definetely rule out animation, palette, colour restriction, transparency, selout ... blah blah blah imma go drink some tea!!i agree with those ones being hard to consider overrated, because they are the basis of fun pixels... however, the rest it is a hard decision to make... ------------- There's a pubic hair on my keyboard. What the f**k?? I "mow the lawn" so it's not mine. Gross. |
Posted By: pixelblink
Date Posted: 30 August 2006 at 12:44pm
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Originally posted by Ensellitis Originally posted by Larwick Man, imma go drink some tea!!i hard fun pixels... make... hulk smash ------------- |
Posted By: Dejital
Date Posted: 30 August 2006 at 1:12pm
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Where's the "Picture of a Dragon" option? No, but really, dithering is way overrated. It can be very helpful in occassions where you need texture and such, but when people use dithering to replace a color to minimize the pallette, it can have very ugly consequences. I prefer the "smooth" look of solid shading. -------------  |
Posted By: maloART
Date Posted: 30 August 2006 at 1:20pm
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Originally posted by Dejital Where's the "Picture of a Dragon" option? No, but really, dithering is way overrated. It can be very helpful in occassions where you need texture and such, but when people use dithering to replace a color to minimize the pallette, it can have very ugly consequences. I prefer the "smooth" look of solid shading. LOL ! And mario-like stuff too ! There are a lot of good pixel arts that are just unoriginal, ... But I think it's mainly due to the fact that 95% of the PJ members are about 15-20 years old boys. I also voted dithering ... people think that because of dithering they produce pixel art ... |
Posted By: Blick
Date Posted: 30 August 2006 at 2:26pm
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Dithering for sure.
------------- http://punaji.com/"> 
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Posted By: Ensellitis
Date Posted: 30 August 2006 at 3:17pm
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Originally posted by PixelBlink, who made Ensellitis say: fun pixels... make... hulk smash talking about taking what i said outta context, THAT is an overrated pixel  ------------- There's a pubic hair on my keyboard. What the f**k?? I "mow the lawn" so it's not mine. Gross. |
Posted By: pixelblink
Date Posted: 30 August 2006 at 5:18pm
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Originally posted by Ensellitis Originally posted by PixelBlink, who made Ensellitis say: fun pixels... make... hulk smash i love pixel whoa... I love you too dude ------------- |
Posted By: Dejital
Date Posted: 30 August 2006 at 5:23pm
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Originally posted by pixelblink Originally posted by Ensellitis Originally posted by PixelBlink, who made Ensellitis say: fun pixels... make... hulk smash i love pixel I love dudes Hah, well... nah.. I killed it.  ------------- |
Posted By: Beaker
Date Posted: 30 August 2006 at 5:26pm
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Dithering. At times I feel like it's become the lens flare filter of pixel art. It has its uses, but a lot times it's added just because it can be. |
Posted By: Monsoon2D
Date Posted: 30 August 2006 at 8:08pm
| I agree that dithering is over-rated and over-used. Honestly, I have more respect for well anti-aliased pieces. I just wish people would stop using dithering on small sprites with few colors. Knock it off. |
Posted By: Saboteur
Date Posted: 30 August 2006 at 8:23pm
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Holy sh*t, I was looking for the very fine print that said "NPA CG Backgrounds", but I couldn't find it. You see, I saw Jalonso's name and naturally assumed it would be there :)
I went for colour restriction. I find that I'm afraid to use colours because I feel like people will tell me I'm using too many. ------------- "I was minding my own business and walking across a pebbled path, and a Duck started giving me the business." |
Posted By: Setzer
Date Posted: 30 August 2006 at 8:37pm
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selout.
------------- http://sj-gfx.com"> 
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Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 30 August 2006 at 11:03pm
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@Degital, thx for the hearty laugh
@Sab, Hybrid pixelart (CG BGs), like Oekaki, have their place (your site, your project, etc.) It sets a bad precedent on a site dedicated to pixelart alone. The fact that this very poll is here proves the waters are muddy enough as it is. I'm the AA vote. If you need it your lineart sucks. Pixelly pixels ftw. ------------- |
Posted By: Toby
Date Posted: 31 August 2006 at 5:01am
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Originally posted by jalonso
I'm the AA vote. If you need it your lineart sucks. Pixelly pixels ftw. In with you man. I do use AA myself sometimes, in small pieces it's hard to avoid and is sometimes pretty necessary to make small details look good (like in Wee-characters for instance). But most unexperienced pixel artists just tend to use it to blur their jaggy outlines, or just don't understand that CG-like AA isn't needed. Dithering is also pretty overrated, but I do kinda like the texture dithering adds to a piece so it isn't on the top of my list. :) Pixel art in its essence, I think, is in seeing the pixels. But as someone already pointed out, it's all about context, all of these are absolutely acceptable techniques when used properly. |
Posted By: Skull
Date Posted: 31 August 2006 at 5:42am
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I'd go with AA. I mean, if used correctly, it could drastically improve a piece, but one of the turn ons of pixel art is its blocky style, and then if incorrectly used.. it's enough to make you cry.
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Posted By: Faktablad
Date Posted: 31 August 2006 at 1:50pm
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Oh most definitely dithering. People use it when they don't need to, they don't seem to understand that it's only needed at certain times. Dithergasmic is cool, but when used badly it's like ditherrhea. |
Posted By: Larwick
Date Posted: 31 August 2006 at 2:22pm
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Originally posted by Faktablad
Dithergasmic is cool, but when used badly it's like ditherrhea. Lol, brilliant.  ------------- http://larw-ck.deviantart.com">
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Posted By: Ensellitis
Date Posted: 31 August 2006 at 2:29pm
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omg, we need some kind of dictionary of pixel art slang, ditherrhea would definately be in it ------------- There's a pubic hair on my keyboard. What the f**k?? I "mow the lawn" so it's not mine. Gross. |
Posted By: Pixelfish
Date Posted: 31 August 2006 at 7:51pm
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Where's isometry?
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Posted By: Ensellitis
Date Posted: 31 August 2006 at 7:52pm
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iso is a style of pixel art, these are techniques
------------- There's a pubic hair on my keyboard. What the f**k?? I "mow the lawn" so it's not mine. Gross. |
Posted By: kaltsu
Date Posted: 01 September 2006 at 3:34am
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Thanks Jalonso. Very good idea for a poll. Mmmmmm have to consider this one carefully. (lol @ ditherrhea) -------------  Not now honey, I have a deadline.
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Posted By: pmprog
Date Posted: 01 September 2006 at 4:35am
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Originally posted by Ensellitis
hmmm, i am gonna have to go with aa. since imo, alot of the lure of pixel art is the "blockyness" of it I'm with you on this one...
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Posted By: Indigo
Date Posted: 01 September 2006 at 6:44pm
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I'm the AA vote. If you need it your lineart sucks.
Pixelly pixels ftw. I couldn't dissagree with you more. after-all AA isn't any different than shading. AA is just tight, small-scale, shading. Maybe OUTER AA is overrated, but AA itself is just as useful as shading. i vote dither. Dither has it's place, and is quite lovely, but alot of times overrated ------------- |
Posted By: Pixelfish
Date Posted: 02 September 2006 at 12:31am
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AA isn't overrated. It's what defies pixelart boundaries. A truly worked piece of pixelart shouldn't look limited and incomplete, and you can definitely do that, even in limited color. I don't think people should try to make their work look basic so that it can be more 'retro pixelart' style. I think old Amiga games and Neo-geo games show us that well, though. Really, though, things like dithering and AA... well, pretty much everything on the list, (questionably sel-out) are necessary skills and limitations needed for training people should practice or learn before considering their pixelart education over. -------------
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Posted By: neota
Date Posted: 02 September 2006 at 2:20am
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I definitely think dithering is the villain. Even when it's used well, it's still just airbrushing -- and I mean that literally. My fastest way to dither is to airbrush then colorreduce the area to 2 fixed colors (I also invented a method that works for any continuous range of colors, and blur tool works pretty well to smooth the not-yet-dithering out if needed). Then there's just a little cleanup to do. If you could do that and get any substantial time gain from it, you may be overusing dithering. Mind you, I have contributed a 'custom dithering patterns' patch to GIMP, which is included in the development version, so you can expect that I'll use dithering (mostly custom,stylistic) rather a lot. I used it yesterday working on my Fairlight picture as a texture hinting method (which is where I feel it belongs) Perfect AA is usually fine. By perfect, I mean mathematically correct and having the controlpoints and endpoints of the curves being approximated aligned to pixel corners. Amiga Demoscene art often demonstrates this best. The opposite,also effective, is the Wu method (google 'wu antialiased line draw') -- it is based on aligning pixel pairs that total to 100% opacity. Is there anyone who overemphasizes selout? I haven't come across anyone. I often don't see much USE in color restriction; in those cases it is overrated. It should be an essential part of the artwork just as every other part. Animation is a tricky business and is the most UNDERrated -- even accounting for the fact it usually is considered quite cool. Canvas size as in 'big is impressive' or 'restricted to small fixed size is impressive'? I like moderate things. Moderate in the proper meaning: carefully considered, rather than big, small, medium or whatever -- the size of the image should be suited to it's content. The immoderate is overrated. Transparency is underrated. I like alpha transparency, but it's rarely used any well. Black outlining (or indeed any discrete color outlining with constant line width) I consider as evidence of unfinishedness. Palette is unimpressive, if it is using a difficult or odd palette that is meant. I am impressed by the aptness of a palette. moderation, as I said. ------------- absolutely. |
Posted By: Setzer
Date Posted: 03 September 2006 at 11:39am
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A note about color restriction: If you take a look at early pics, you'll see that most people aren't looking at it the same way as we do today: "16 colors a pallete? thats tough" they would see it as "I have a whole 16 colors to use, per pallete, I'm going to use each and every value I can to get the most for it." ------------- http://sj-gfx.com">
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Posted By: PixelSnader
Date Posted: 03 September 2006 at 12:52pm
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i think one of the most overrated things is to have a black outline, which then is AAed into a nonexistant background.
what i think is overrated is technique. if your technique is perfect but lacks all sense of style you are not too impressive, however if your style and technieuw are both fairly well, you will excell much more. ------------- ▄▄█ ▄▄█ ▄█▄ ▄█▄ |
Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 03 September 2006 at 7:32pm
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Well put snader. Sadly, the idea/concept/style is all too often underrated.
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Posted By: Feron
Date Posted: 18 September 2006 at 12:01am
Black outline. The amount of n000bs who draw black outlines and fill in with MS Paint pallette.... 
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Posted By: ulbandi
Date Posted: 18 September 2006 at 6:28pm
| I don't like AA much, myself. I like seeing pixels in pixel art, and I've seen so much badly AAed stuff that it's kind of turned me off to the idea. |
Posted By: acrylicana
Date Posted: 19 September 2006 at 1:20pm
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Originally posted by Ensellitis hmmm, i am gonna have to go with aa. since imo, alot of the lure of pixel art is the "blockyness" of it I agree wholeheartedly. I enjoy aa, but I also enjoy the definition of outlines. It depends on the artwork, I guess. I noticed a lot of people also went for dithering in this poll. I agree, it is overrated. It's as beautiful as the next aspect of pixel art, but it's not the be-all end all of it. I understand the usefullness when you've got restrictive color, but when you don't, it's fun to explore the spectrum. :D |
Posted By: Megadedhed
Date Posted: 15 October 2006 at 6:02am
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Dithering. On another forum I go to, everyone (except the expirienced pixelers) sy "you have to dither your pixel!" when in fact dithering can ruin a pixel. |
Posted By: Larwick
Date Posted: 15 October 2006 at 7:22am
Damn right. Lately i've seen far too many ditherrhea cases - every time it makes a little panda cry.  ------------- http://larw-ck.deviantart.com">
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Posted By: Saiklor
Date Posted: 01 November 2006 at 7:39pm
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I'll unlurk long enough to whine that canvas size restrictions are ridiculous and do NOT allow for more detail, mathematically they don't. They allow for less effort to be put into things and for people who use those damn tiny canvases they allow for a complete ignorance of composition and structure. back to lurking. ------------- www.semesteratsea.com |
Posted By: hoanginlove81
Date Posted: 08 November 2006 at 1:38am
| thanks |
Posted By: ceddo
Date Posted: 10 November 2006 at 2:06pm
| I hesitated between dithering and color restriction, because nowadays, computers are light speed. Who cares if an image has 8 colors or 59? It makes no difference anymore, our computers can manage any pixel art whatsoever. |
Posted By: neota
Date Posted: 10 November 2006 at 3:38pm
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ceddo: It is an aesthetic and practical difference (unified 16color palette looks more integrated; using less colors means reduced time needed for animation.). And most of the platforms that pixel art is used commercially on have some technical restriction (eg. 15 colors plus transparency)
------------- absolutely. |
Posted By: Videl
Date Posted: 24 November 2006 at 12:04am
| I said dithering because people just can't get enough of it. If you don't dither enough then your definately not good enough. Too much can ruin the piece quite easily. |
Posted By: Monkey 'o Doom
Date Posted: 14 December 2006 at 5:05pm
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This topic isn't focusing on what should or shouldn't be used, but what is or isn't overrated by viewers.
Also, you have no room to talk about avatars. Yours is a jpg. ------------- http://pixelmonkey.ensellitis.com"> 
RPG is numberwang. |
Posted By: PixelSnader
Date Posted: 14 December 2006 at 5:44pm
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analising? sounds painful.
and AA is softening the edges, making them less blocky.
unless ofcourse you mean BLUR, which is BAD ------------- ▄▄█ ▄▄█ ▄█▄ ▄█▄ |
Posted By: Larwick
Date Posted: 16 December 2006 at 8:45am
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Lol pwnage. ------------- http://larw-ck.deviantart.com">
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Posted By: gameguider
Date Posted: 22 December 2006 at 7:22am
Dithering gets my vote.
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Posted By: OMGFossil
Date Posted: 07 January 2007 at 3:05pm
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pillow shading it might not be something to consider in this but there are a LOT of noobs who worship anyone who uses this style of pixel art ------------- no siggy |
Posted By: NMEwithin
Date Posted: 08 January 2007 at 12:29pm
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I gotta say color restriction. Unless it's specifically stated in
a challenge or contest rules I honestly do not get it.... Unless it was his original intent....why would an artist limit himself to a smaller pallette? |
Posted By: pixelblink
Date Posted: 08 January 2007 at 12:45pm
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color restrictions help an artist utilize the most of their pallette. Think of it as if you were a real painter using acrylic paints but you only had red, yellow, and black. You obviously couldn't make a green colour with those but you could concoct something that would make most of the limitations you have. You tend to learn alot about the placement of your colours as well as highlighting and shading using colour. I find it very helpful and rewarding ------------- |
Posted By: NMEwithin
Date Posted: 08 January 2007 at 12:54pm
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Makes alot of sense...I agree with your points. I guess it's the sometime obsessive fixation with limited pallette that sort of bugs me....If someone creates a piece and decides to use 64 colors even though they probably could have achieved the same result with 16....who cares? It's the finished product that counts IMO |
Posted By: Vertigo-Zero
Date Posted: 13 January 2007 at 11:52am
I also voted AA... In pixel art you should be able to see the pixels, right?  Anyway outer AA is mostly overated, as some people said earlier, Inner AA can be usefull in small canvas pixel-art. Not that I didnt do that on big images when I started...  |