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MacPaint Art from the Mid-80s Still Looks Great Today

blog.decryption.net.au

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Re: MacPaint Art from the Mid-80s Still Looks Great Today

#161

Post by giantrobot »

mr_toad wrote: post #155
reconnecting wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm jealous of your memory capabilities, and I certainly remember that at some point it was nearly impossible to make website looks in similar way in Netscape and IE. At the end, there was something like acceptable variation in page view for different browsers.

The rendering differences were at least as much IE’s fault as Netscapes. It took several versions before IE was (mostly) standards compliant.

You're not wrong. IE seemed very much designed around the Embrace, Extend, Extinguish concept. It made it incredibly difficult to write cross-browser CSS.

Re: MacPaint Art from the Mid-80s Still Looks Great Today

#163

Post by tombert »

anthk wrote: post #136
tombert wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's part of the reason that a lot of indie games have converged around pixel art. Obviously a large part of it is likely due to the fact that a lot of the creators grew up with the NES or SNES and just like that aesthetic, but I think you get a lot of "implied detail" when using pixel art, which is great when you're working on a limited budget. This isn't to knock it, to be clear. I love good pixel art.

YOu both are missing something. TV fuzzy rendering blended pixels together and FFVI under the SNES (and Chrono Trigger) could look astoundingly great with amazing colours and sprite art.

Sure, but I was referring to how modern indie games, that have no worries plans to run on an old CRT TV, will still use pixel art.

Re: MacPaint Art from the Mid-80s Still Looks Great Today

#164

Post by WoodenChair »

If you want to make MacPaint drawings that incorporate your modern photos then I make a program for that. Retro Dither on the Mac App Store dithers and exports photos to MacPaint (wrapped in MacBinary for transport):

https://oaksnow.com/retrodither/

There’s also a chapter in my new book explaining how to write the same program in Python including Atkinson dithering, the MacPaint file format and MacBinary. You can get the code for free and do the conversions yourself without Retro Dither here:

https://github.com/davecom/ComputerScienceFromScratch

The book is here:

https://nostarch.com/computer-science-from-scratch

Re: MacPaint Art from the Mid-80s Still Looks Great Today

#166

Post by drewlesueur »

timoth3y wrote: post #52
seabombs wrote: post #21

There's a term I read about a long time ago, I think it was "aesthetic completeness" or something like that. It was used in the context of video games whose art direction was fully realized in the game, i.e. increases in graphics hardware or capabilities wouldn't add anything to the game in an artistic sense. The original Homeworld games were held up as examples. Anyway, this reminded me of that. Making these picture…

The same holds true for everything from cave paintings to Roman frescos. It's part of human expression. The tools of that expression shape it. For example, Bach's music was shaped by the fact that the harpsichord had no sustain. The piano changed that, but "upscaling" Bach's work to take advantage of this new technology would destroy them. You use the new technology to play them as they were written for the old. The…

This reminds me of how the pixel version of Chicago font looks great but the vector version doesn't.

https://x.com/susankare/status/1599662756252483585?s=46

Re: MacPaint Art from the Mid-80s Still Looks Great Today

#167

Post by reconnecting »

giantrobot wrote: post #156
reconnecting wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm jealous of your memory capabilities, and I certainly remember that at some point it was nearly impossible to make website looks in similar way in Netscape and IE. At the end, there was something like acceptable variation in page view for different browsers.

> I'm jealous of your memory capabilities, Thanks. Learning web development back then left some deep scars and lasting lessons. I can no longer imagine all the other stuff I haven't retained because I remember stupid browser quirks from nearly three decades ago. Getting many designs working consistently between IE and Netscape was impossible. The 640px wide left-aligned table layout was popular for years because it w…

When back to this time the web was mostly a pain, especially for developers, there was also some magic.

Take for example VRML, particularly VRML 2.0. I don't remember the software name, but there was a chat system within a virtual world, perhaps running in a browser (1).

1. https://csdl-images.ieeecomputer.org/mags/cg/1999/02/figures...

Re: MacPaint Art from the Mid-80s Still Looks Great Today

#169

Post by reconnecting »

lukan wrote: post #77
reconnecting wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing what people achieved with the resources of the '80s, creating fairly enjoyable visuals using extremely limited technology. Another example from the early '90s is MARS.COM (1) by Tim Clarke (1993). Just 6 kilobytes and 30+ fps on a 12MHZ 286 (2). 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zSjpIyMt0k 2. https://github.com/matrix-toolbox/MARS.COM/blob/main/MARS.AS...

It is definitely amazing what they pioneered and achieved with the given limits. But that doesn't mean I would enjoy a pixelated image now more than a high resolution image of the same motive.

Taking this parallel further, perhaps oil paintings are not as sharp as digital photos of the same subject.
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