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Post by Gilder on Sept 14, 2012 17:52:31 GMT -5
I am not that big of a fan of the blurring with the JPEGs, but the PNG pics look really awkward too me. My vote is with the JPEG version.
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Post by roushimsx on Sept 14, 2012 18:53:37 GMT -5
Resize and keep as PNG. PNG and JPG are not the same. JPG is 24bit color and uses lossly compression. PNG can be lossless and not have any silly blurring from compressing to JPG. For 256color (and less) games, PNG shots can be any resolution and be a fuckton smaller than JPGs less than half the size. You should never be using JPG for anything pre-"32 bit era". Non-corrected aspect ratios look awful. I used to and I totally regret it. here's a shot from Ys I+II. Check out those horrible artifacts. Looks like shit. There's not a single accurate color in there. Well maybe one or two. Almost 167,000 colors in that damn mess. check out this shot from Ys IV. Actually switched FRAPS to grab in PNG and the result is a flawless screencap. Pure, clean, untainted image. 67 perfectly replicated colors. tl;dr - PNG =/= JPG. PNG should always be used for older systems. Always. If not for the accuracy, then for the much smaller file sizes and better quality.
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Post by Sketcz-1000 on Sept 15, 2012 1:19:11 GMT -5
I like to put images exactly like the emulator produces them, as that is their true resolution. Goemon wants a word with you. I don't think anyone should ever use screenshots like the above, because it's unviewable to me. Actually, Derboo's page is well worth reading: www.hardcoregaming101.net/history/history5.htmAs for Knight Arms and blurriness is the resized images, you need them anti-aliased, since shrinking them to a 320 width you lose pixels in places, and you end up with extremely wonky artefacting. Anti-aliasing blends two or three pixels, so it's not quite as noticeable. For the 1x1 shots obviously it was resized crisply. I find it interesting we have such disparate views. It's a lot like the GB palette debate.
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Post by ReyVGM on Sept 15, 2012 10:20:19 GMT -5
Hey, if that's the resolution, then that's the resolution. I don't like to mess with them.
Now, the method currently being used of having a resized-image/thumbnail and the correct-res image as a hyperlink sounds fine to me.
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Post by Weasel on Sept 15, 2012 13:32:28 GMT -5
I'd much prefer to have a correct-looking (not technically correct) aspect ratio than pixel-perfect accuracy, ergo my vote is in for the thumbnails as sized in the JPG version.
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Post by apachacha on Sept 15, 2012 16:31:52 GMT -5
Been waiting for months for this to go up and all everybody talks about is file resolution :/
Also I demand the article to have a screencap of Rocket Tits doing exactly what earned her that name. Yeah, her official name is actualy something like that, Nick found out but I totaly forgot.
An animated GIF would be realy nice to have too ;D
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Post by nickz on Sept 15, 2012 17:42:05 GMT -5
It's true. The Gyusyabu link says that the robot girl's actual name is Rocket Tits. She's a boss near the end of the game that attacks mostly be opening up her chest and shooting hundreds of missiles. I think all the bosses have silly names, but the only other one I remember is Black Hill, the first boss.
A lot of the enemy designs are pretty cool. They kind of remind me of R-Type's blend of mutant skin and machine, but with less giant alien genitals.
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Post by Trickless on Sept 15, 2012 20:11:03 GMT -5
I'm pretty sure that's just funny text to accompany the screen cap, not the official name of the boss. Unless they show the name in the game?
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Post by nickz on Sept 16, 2012 18:42:05 GMT -5
Boss names don't appear in the game. I looked at the site again. It probably is just silly text to accompany the screencap.
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Post by Dracula on a bike on Sept 17, 2012 18:51:49 GMT -5
In this case, I prefer the 3:2 version of the screenshots. (Strictly speaking, though, these thumbnails are actually 32:21 rather than 3:2.) However, I think the best option for making the thumbnails here would be to scale the full-size images to a 4:3 resolution such as 256x192 or 320x240. Also, I think it's better to use PNGs for the thumbnails, even in cases like this where "the pixels get blurred together", because there are still some noticeable JPEG artifacts in the thumbnails here. For example: This boss's hair is supposed to be all the same color, but the JPEG compression ( not the scaling-down) caused there to be a few spots where the color is darker than in the surrounding area. In general, I think that whether to scale emulator screenshots to the correct aspect ratio (usually 4:3) or not depends on how close to the correct aspect ratio the "native resolution" is to start with. In particular, I prefer for CPS2 screenshots to be scaled to 4:3, whereas SNES or TurboGrafx-16 screenshots can be left in their native resolution.
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Post by Sketcz-1000 on Sept 18, 2012 2:43:18 GMT -5
I take your point about the JPG thumbnails. In future I will make all thumbnails PNG. Also, the 32x21 ratio you point out was my mistake. I have since corrected this by making a new page with freshly resized screens: www.hardcoregaming101.net/knightarms/knightarmsPNGRESIZE.htmThe new resolution is 320x213, which is pretty close to 3x2. Derboo also suggested a 320x240 resolution for thumbnails, but I don't understand this. The original screens are: 768x512 This a precise 3x2 ratio. If you shrink it to 256x192 the ratio becomes 3 x 2.66 Shrink it to 320x240 and the ratio becomes 2.4 x 2.133 In both these cases, you've shifted away from the ratio of the original screens, and if you do this, then you might as well just go with 256 x 256. What I'm saying is, what is the benefit of 4x3 over 3x2, when the original screens were 3x2 to begin with and look pretty good like that? To my eyes, anything other than 3x2 looks wonky. I honestly don't mind how they end up with this article though - I leave the decision for the final article up to DA, apachacha and Nickz. I just wanted to offer the choice, given the situation.
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Post by derboo on Sept 18, 2012 3:10:51 GMT -5
Derboo also suggest a 320x240 resolution for thumbnails, but I don't understand this. The original screens are: 768x512 This a precise 3x2 ratio. If you shrink it to 256x192 the ratio becomes 3 x 2.66 Shrink it to 320x240 and the ratio becomes 2.4 x 2.133 In both these cases, you've shifted away from the ratio of the original screens, and if you do this, then you might as well just go with 256 x 256, because that too is different to the 3x2 ratio. What I'm saying is, if you're not going to maintain the 3x2 ratio, what's the point? The reason for this: 768x512 is an entirely arbitrary (well, there is technical reasoning, see below) value chosen by the emulator author, whereas the X68000 used 4:3 monitors just like any other computer before widescreen. Apparently the emulator author acknowledged that 256x256 would result in a much too squished image in a resolution with square pixels, but didn't want to mess up the lines (you can only properly scale pixel art in multiples of the original resolution, so the only valid values in this case are 256, 512, 768, 1024, 1280, 1536, 1792, and so on), so he invented a crutch to display in a 3:2 ratio. If he had been consistent with the idea, he would have chosen 1024x768, cause that is the lowest you can have to preserve both the real aspect ratio and the lines/columns with square pixels. Probably the programmer felt that 1024x768 was too much to ask as a minimum resolution for users of the emulator, though. The reason 3:2 looks "right" to you is probably because that's what you've seen first.
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Post by Sketcz-1000 on Sept 18, 2012 3:30:03 GMT -5
That's a fascinating and logical answer. I feel as if I've been tricked into believing the wrong thing all this time. Here's another page, in 4x3: www.hardcoregaming101.net/knightarms/knightarmsPNG4x3.htmI leave it to you gentleman to reach a consensus. I shall be in the billiards room.
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Post by starscream on Sept 18, 2012 8:33:10 GMT -5
The reason for this: 768x512 is an entirely arbitrary (well, there is technical reasoning, see below) value chosen by the emulator author, whereas the X68000 used 4:3 monitors just like any other computer before widescreen. . Though it should be noted here that 4:3 monitor doesn't necessarily imply the same aspect ratio.
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Post by Sketcz-1000 on Sept 18, 2012 8:39:08 GMT -5
Was the X68000 monitor anything like old Windows CRT monitors, where you could twizzle a knob and alter the vertical and horizontal sizes?
Ahh, the murky depths of classic video games.
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