Anti-Aliasing

Cleaning the lines.
I'm happy to report that everyone did exceptionally well on their homework and no one had the following issues. But since it's a part of pixel art, I'll be going over it anyway. Cleaning the lines means each line is of the same thickness (one pixel) and doesn't have any jagged edges. Anti-Alias, or AA, is used to make your pixel lines look smoother by using colors in between the line and the background the line is on. For instance, if you have a black line on a white background, your AA is going to be grey.

Remember not to over Alias! There is such a thing as too much AA, and that will blur your pixel art (both literally and figuratively) into the digital art medium. Use it selectively to soften the sharp edges of your work.

Banding

Banding in its most simple term is the idea of pixels lining up with one another, like hugging. When neighbor pixels end at the same x or y coordinate on the underlying grid, the grid immediately becomes more evident, the pixels are exposed, and the apparent resolution becomes less fine. AA banding is when segments of AA line up with the lines they're buffering.

Different Types of Banding

Insider information: I really struggled with this one over my pixel career and still AA band to this day. You see, because of the marvel that is the human brain, you're engineered to recognize shapes and faces. And banding allows the underlying grid each pixel piece is built on to be more readily apparent, and you're brain can't help but notice it. It will make your pieces look flat, 2-Dimensional, and will encourage bad pixel habits.
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Your homework this time is to add AA to your shape! Simple as that. Selectively add AA to your piece as you see necessary to smooth out your harsher lines. I will view all images and critique where necessary.

Extra Credit

If you want, you can add color to the background of your shape. But make sure to keep the lines black!​

Color Basics

(noun) - Color is the element of art that is produced when light, striking an object, is reflected back to the eye. In pixel art, just as every medium of art, one needs to understand and be familiar with the three elements that make up color.

• Saturation: One property of three when used to determine a certain color and measured as percentage value. From a perceptional point of view saturation influences the grade of purity or vividness of a color/image. A desaturated image is said to be dull, less colorful or washed out but can also make the impression of being softer.

• Hue: Pure color in terms of "green", "red" or "magenta". Hue also defines mixtures of two pure colors like "red-yellow" (~ "orange"), or "yellow-green" Hue is a more technical definition of our color perception which can be used to communicate color ideas.

• Contrast: a distinct difference between elements of a form or composition; either visually or in subject matter. In the example below, two types of contrast are shown. The image on the left represents visual contrast, which is achieved through the use of intense complementary colors. This may also be referred to as luminescence or brightness.

Color Ramps

In computer graphics, a color ramp (also called a color gradient or color progression) specifies a range of position-dependent colors, usually used to fill a region. Color ramps are an important element of pixel art because;
Cohesion: When you're using less colors, the same colors will reappear throughout the piece more frequently. Since the different areas of the work share the same colors, the palette ties the piece together, unifying the work.
And Control: The smaller the palette, the easier it is to manage. You may, and probably will, want to change adjust a color later on. If you've got 200 colors, it's going to take you a lot longer to make the adjustments, because by changing one color you've thrown off its relationship with the colors neighboring it on its color ramps, and adjusting them means changing the relationships between those colors and their neighbors! You can see how this quickly adds up to a lot of work. With a smaller palette, the effect of changing a single color is more substantial, and there are less micro-relationships to worry about.
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This is a color ramp. As is common, the ramp travels fro dark to light. Normally, you'd have a ramp for each color. It's a common mistake to not include enough contrast. Things look very flat without contrast, and you can give your subject more contrast by making the differences between the dark colors and the light colors larger.



The ramp on the left is not good because the saturation is not strong enough, the hue shifting not complimentary, and the contrast weak. The ramp on the right, on the other hand, has a unifying underlying color, and uses the above three elements to creative a cohesive ramp.
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Making a ramp

So lets say you want to color something purple. The first step is to search for a shade that won't hurt the viewer's eyes. So nothing too vibrant, too striking, or too bright. Stay away from neons. Common sense will be the best tool in your arsenal in this case. For instance,
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The color in the middle is the most visible, appropriately saturated, and easy to look at. The last two are too saturated, and the first too are too pale. They would not be good examples. Once you have an appropriate color, you can begin adding lighter and darker versions of it. A common mistake is a lack of contrast, so make sure your palette isn't flat.


Now we're looking at a palette! But, it's pretty boring. In a palette, you want your lighter colors to have more saturation than your darker colors, so lets play with that.


Lastly, the other element to add to any solid palette is Hue Shifting.

Hue-shifting refers to having a transition of hues in a color ramp. A color ramp without hue-shifting is known as a straight ramp. In straight ramps, only the luminescence changes, while in hue-shifted ramps both hue and contrast will (usually) change.




The first color ramp is a straight green ramp. The second image is a green ramp with hue-shifting applied. When using hue shifting, bend your highlights toward a certain color (yellow, in the example above), and move the darker colors toward a second color (I chose blue in the above example). Hue-shifting is used because straight ramps are usually boring and don't reflect the variety of hues we see in reality, and hue shifting can add subtle color contrast within a ramp.

It seems like a very basic color makeup, but it is not so simple. It takes a deft eye to create an appealing color palette, and can take a long time to narrow down the perfect one. Luckily, there are sites out there to help you build a color ramp

https://www.pixelfor.me/crc/F0000032
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