Hello all,
 
  Hope everyone had a cool thanksgiving break (and for those of you non-US
  readers a uhm...good weekend. :)  I went home, and lo and behold when I
  returned there was a shiny copy of DemoNews sitting in my mailbox.  Sadly,
  this shiny copy of DemoNews didn't contain an article from me.  This is
  because I was away.  Oh well.  I'm back now so let's get on with it.
 
  You're probably expecting me to talk about Photoshop right?  You're probably
  expecting me to go right into technical detail on what it does and how to use
  it, right?  I mean...that's what I've been saying I was going to do, right?
 
  Well...uh...the problem with that is that there's a new version of Photoshop
  out in the stores.  Being a poor college student, I simply don't have enough
  money to afford it (donations are accepted however. :)  At any rate, I'll be
  able to check out Photoshop 4.0 when I get home in a few weeks, and can use
  the one that my cousin has already purchased.  (It must be nice to have
  money. :)  So until that time I think I'll write about something else
  entirely.
 
  What I want to write about today actually hearkens back to a few articles ago
  when I was talking about dpaint.  The past few weeks of my life have given me
  the opportunity to work with that program more than I have in the rest of my
  life combined.  I'll not go into great detail, lest I be accused of
  mercilessly plugging my group, but let me say that Immortal Coil is in the
  process of creating an RPG.  This RPG will run in 320x240x256, which is a
  more or less standard vesa mode.  Since it is not a 3D game, however, it must
  be hand drawn.  Every...single...pixel.
 
  Working with 256 colors is a difficult thing, as I have found much to my
  dismay, especially when palette limitations are imposed that make it
  generally a bad idea to use more than sixteen or so colors for an object. My
  respect goes out to those of you who do 256 color pixel work on a daily
  basis.  It's not always a lot of fun, but I must say it's damn rewarding to
  sit back and look at a piece that you _know_ looks good despite the
  limitations imposed upon you.
 
  So that's more or less what the rest of this article is about.  I'm going to
  speak (or write I suppose I should say) a bit on the subject of generating
  recognizable pictures under heavy restrictions such as the ones the I must
  impose on myself in order to make graphics that our coders can actually use.
  Just a few tips that I've come up with that I thought might interest you.
 
  *Don't outline your sprites in black*  For those of you who don't know the
  term "sprites", I'm simply using it to denote a character, a rock, or
  whatever other graphic it may be that you'll be animating (ah animating...
  I'll probably talk about that next week. :)  At any rate, this is a big
  no-no.  Sure, it looks great on a white background.  Nice and crisp.  Now put
  it against a grass tile (tiles are similar to sprites but are perfectly
  square).  Doesn't look at all natural, does it?  This is easily solved. Shade
  your characters so that the colors _imply_ the outline.
 
  One way to do this, and a way I definitely advocate, is to take a good amount
  of time setting up your palette before doing any actual work. My group spent
  a week and a half just passing around a palette between us, giving it little
  tweaks until we had the exact colors we wanted.  Now that we have these
  colors, it is much easier to see how best to shade a character.  All of our
  colors are in straight lines, running from near-black to near-white, with the
  truest form of the color in the center of the gradient.
 
  We have sixteen colors in sixteen shades, giving us a total of (you guessed
  it), 256 colors.  With the method of laying out the colors explained above,
  it is relatively easy to find the colors you want in order to shade your
  character correctly.  This leads us into the next tip:
 
  *Solid lines of color usually don't work*  This is a basic truth.  Your eyes
  betray you on this one though.  We interpret much of what we see as solid
  lines of color, despite the fact that upon closer inspection what we are
  actually seeing is hundreds, possibly thousands of colors interacting with
  each other.  Shadowing, printing, monitor displays, whatever it is you're
  looking at, I can assure you you're probably not seeing a solid line of
  color.
 
  "So okay...I'm not seeing a solid line of color...your point is?"  Wait. I'm
  getting to that.  Let's assume you're drawing something relatively
  simplistic.  A 16x16 tile for example, trying to imply grass.  The first
  thing you try really doesn't look much like grass does it?  It's quite likely
  that instead it looks very stiff, like a bunch of light green lines running
  on a darker green background.  This was what my first attempt looked like
  anyway.  Some of you more experienced pixel-ers may giggle at that, but keep
  in mind that I haven't done any serious 256 color work in about a year.
 
  Whoah...this article's getting long.  In my next installment, I'll give
  finish up explaining how to get a better grass-tile (which will in turn
  explain how to shade better, in general).  After that, I'll give a few more
  tips, and move on to some basics on animation.
 
  256 color work can often seem like a chore, but the real key is not to think
  of it that way.  Instead, think of it as a challenge...a test.  You have put
  yourself up against some pretty severe limitations.  Now it's time for you to
  create what you want to create _anyway_.  You can do it.  I have faith.  Go
  experiment!  Here's a hint.  The spraypaint can with a little tweaking can do
  wonders for a grass tile.  More next time!
 
  Until Then
 
 

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