Zombeaver's Platform Clear Logos

[DOS76]

Keep'em coming! You seem to be really enjoying yourself.

[alexis524]

Zombeaver, that MGS PSX logo is nuts!!! very smooth. thanks for the different shader options to choose from.

[DOS76]

[Zombeaver]

DOS76 said Keep'em coming! You seem to be really enjoying yourself.

I am actually haha

alexis524 said Zombeaver, that MGS PSX logo is nuts!!! very smooth.

Thanks! That one actually took quite a bit more time than the others; it was a bit more complicated than most of them. I think it turned out pretty well

alexis524 said thanks for the different shader options to choose from.

Yeah, the more options the better in my book. Unfortunately, for the time being you're best off just using the normal versions of these because you won't be able to see the finer details in Big Box yet. Some Zelda goodness: Normal: Scanline: Scanline (150% Scale):

[Jason Carr]

Zombeaver said So I made a quick stop by the house to check these out in Big Box. As I feared from the get go, none of the scanlines are visible in Big Box, even at 150% scale. It seems like there's some serious downsampling and/or filtering going on for clear logos. I did a little digging in the options menu to see if I could find anything that would help, and noticed that in the "General" section there's a setting for "Coverflow Image Quality" which, by default, is set to "High (Slow)" but has a step above that - "Highest (Slowest)". As I kindof anticipated, however, this doesn't seem to have any impact on the quality of the clear logos. @Jason any chance of getting a similar option for clear logos? Pretty pretty please? If you want me to submit a Bitbucket ticket for that, I can. I know, I know... picky/OCD/anal/what-have-you... I won't deny it.

These all look incredible, @Zombeaver! The problem with the scanlines in Big Box isn't because the image quality is reduced; it's just that they're a lot smaller in Big Box. Since the scanlines are so close together, there's no room in the image for the scanlines once the size is reduced. Unfortunately scanlines get hairy really quick when you reduce the size of an image and there's not really anything we can do about that. You could try spacing them out a bit more, but then it would look silly at the large size.

[Zombeaver]

Jason Carr said The problem with the scanlines in Big Box isn't because the image quality is reduced; it's just that they're a lot smaller in Big Box.

@Jason that doesn't coincide with what I'm seeing (below).

Jason Carr said Since the scanlines are so close together, there's no room in the image for the scanlines once the size is reduced. Unfortunately scanlines get hairy really quick when you reduce the size of an image and there's not really anything we can do about that. You could try spacing them out a bit more, but then it would look silly at the large size.

I understand that, that's what prompted the alternate 150% scanline scale in the first place. The problem I have with accepting this is that I can take one of these images and just straight up resize/zoom (no resampling whatsoever) and it looks clearer than what I'm seeing output by Big Box. Here's an example: The bottom is how it looks in Big Box. The top is the exact same image, no resampling, just zooming back to 32% size. There is a very clear disrepancy there. Is there some particular reason why a higher image quality option couldn't be added as a toggle like for the cover flow images?

[Zombeaver]

A bit of creepiness for the PS2: Normal: Scanline: Scanline (150% Scale):

[Jason Carr]

I see. It's probably not image quality so much as the method used in reduction. If you look in Photoshop, for example, during image reduction you have options to make the image sharper (like the above image) or more blurred (like the below image). So, hmm. We're using the highest quality image reductions possible in .NET, as-is. I'm not sure if there's a way to adjust how sharp the image is without re-writing the image rendering process. I'll take a look.

[Zombeaver]

Jason Carr said It's probably not image quality so much as the method used in reduction.

That's certainly a possibility, yes. I've tested running it through a number of different resampling algorithms and they all came out fine though - Lanczos, B-Spline, Mitchell, Bell, Triangle, and Hermite all look fine when resampled to 32%. I'm going to try actually saving resampled (small) images and seeing how they look in Big Box, that way I can take as much workload off of it as I can. EDIT: Yep, I definitely think there's something a bit off with the image quality in Big Box. Same image order as before, but this time the top image is at 100% size (resampled beforehand). The bottom is how that same image appears in Big Box EDIT 2: I guess the next step would be to determine the exact resolution that it's changing it to in Big Box so that it's not resampling it all all. 32% of my original size is close but it's not pixel-perfect; Big Box is actually outputting something a little smaller than that. EDIT 3: The image as seen in Big Box appears to be exactly 400 pixels wide. I resampled my image down to 400 pixels wide and tried again. It doesn't appear to have made a difference. I'm really trying here

[Zombeaver]

"Dammit, you're not the only hero!" Normal: Scanline: Scanline (150% Scale):

[Jason Carr]

Thanks @Zombeaver, I'll take a look at what size I'm rendering the images at and stuff.

[Jason Carr]

Alright, currently it caches the images at a max width of 400 or max height of 165. So the actual size of the images depends on the aspect ratio, but it never gets bigger than 400x165. This is easy to adjust if it will help to make a significant difference. Edit: It does seem like this is a bit small because on-screen it's displayed at roughly 480 pixels wide on my 1920x1200 monitor. I'll try upping the width to 500x206. Not sure if that's gonna make that much of a difference, but worth a shot. It'll be in the next beta I put out. :)

[Zombeaver]

Awesome! Thanks @Jason! I could see that potentially making a difference. Thanks for putting up with my neuroses haha.

[Zombeaver]

Chances are nobody will end up using this other than me, but here it is. I have a custom platform setup for post-DOS PC games from the mid 90's to early 00's called "Classic PC" because for some reason I have issues grouping Thief, Gothic II, and The Longest Journey with say Crysis. Normal: Scanline: Scanline (150% Scale):

[Zombeaver]

Alone in the Dark wasn't my first choice but I had trouble finding acceptable images for the others I was looking for. I think it turned out pretty well in the end though. Normal: Scanline: Scanline (150% Scale):

[Zombeaver]

Apparently I'm in a survival horror mood... Alone in the Dark is often credited for being the first incarnation of what is known today as survival horror but truthfully it can be traced back even earlier to the 1989 title Project Firestart. Isolation, limited ammunition (that went with a weak weapon; for legitimately logical story reasons), graphic violence, backstory that's conveyed through journals... it's all there. It was way ahead of its time (and three years ahead of Alone in the Dark no less). Normal: Scanline: Scanline (150% Scale): EDIT: And here's an alternate set with a different text glow. I think I prefer this one actually. Normal: Scanline: Scanline (150% Scale):

[Zombeaver]

What the hell is a rocket lawn-chair? Normal: Scanline: Scanline (150% Scale):

[Lordmonkus]

Dude for DOS it has to be Doom :)

[Zombeaver]

lordmonkus said Dude for DOS it has to be Doom :)

There's always room for alternate versions of these! My plan is to get through everything that I need for my collection and then start doing requests and alternate versions of the ones I've already done. Quake was actually one of my first choices but I couldn't find anything that would really work I'm finishing up N64 now.

[Lordmonkus]

Quake is a good choice but it was kind of right on that switch over from Dos to Windows where Doom is the iconic Dos game. If not Doom then Wolfenstein or Monkey Island. No matter what you use though your artwork looks great :)