ive tried out dithering but all i managed to get was sumfin that looked like a "home-made" spray paint tool from paint

 

 

 

does anyone know how to make it not look like that or is that what dithering looks like?

 

 

 

im especially lookin forward to jopie's answer ^^

It's usually a good idea to start with placing different shades next to each other without dithering, and once you're done with that you can start dithering the edges to make the transitions between the shades look smoother.

 

 

 

Like this:

 

 

 

oooooooooo

 

oooooooooo

 

oooooooooo

 

oooooooooo

 

oooooooooo

 

 

 

And then this:

 

 

 

oooooooooo

 

Etc.

 

 

 

It's usually best to use the above pattern for dithering (like you did with the letters, good job) instead of randomly placing pixels.

 

 

 

 

Quote from my post on Julius' topic, was too lazy to write it again. :uhh:

 

 

 

Bottom line, randomly placing pixels usually gives a messy result. It can be used to texture things, but if you want to pixel a smooth-looking surface, it's probably not the right technique. There are many different patterns for dithering, that you can probably find in some of the pixels guides in the resources sticky.

so dithering is a way to add texture

Yes, and a way to make transitions between different shades look smoother.

 

 

 

here's a section from an old wip of mine with a dithered sky. copy the pic and zoom in on paint to see it a bit better. You can see how using different patterns you can turn three shades into five.

Yeah dithering is all about saving colors as well. You can easily use two different colors to get the look of a third (from far away).

Quote from a pixel master:

 

 

 

oh thx, its hard to explain in words but its just making the most of your palette to make the transition between two shades less 'sudden'.. Take this

 

squiggle for example, its just black on white, which looks a bit rough, by adding a grey half way in between the black and white and placing them where

 

you think it would make it look smoother does it fact help it become smoother.. And to increases the smootheness even more why not add lighter grey

 

and doing the same to the previous shade? added some other colours etc.. the shades you add to AA can just be the ones you used to shade with,

 

all you're doing is travelling through from dark to light / one colour through to another...

 

 

 

 

 

 

dithering is similar but adds the illustion of smoothness without the addition of more colours by patterning pixels, basically interlacing two colours/shades.. different patterns can give textured effects, just experiment to see what works for what you're dithering..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

lol.. but really these aren't essential in pixel art, they're just methods of smoothening where you feel needs smoothening, some people do it everywhere even where its totally not needed.. Don't be one of them.

 

 

 

Haven't seen Terley post in a while :?