I think I figured out what was bugging me. It was, partially, the detail on the Manticore. I can accept the brighter, starker lighting. I looked at the "Enterprise" comparison and I noticed something else, though. It is indeed sharper than the "before" ship, but it seems someone went overboard with the sharpen filter. On many of the edges it has the "too-bright line next to too-dark line" problem with sharpen filters. This adds unneeded business and just looks bad to me, let alone unrealistic.

What I'd suggest is what I do currently. My 3D program, Infini-D, has a fuzzy, poor anitaliaser, so what I used to do was render 2x the final size and scale down using a program called Smoothie (Photoshop ought to work just as well). Now I've found I can render 4x the size without antialiasing and get even better results, with less rendering time than 2x w/antialiasing.

That's my 2˘...kill the sharpen filter even if it means a slightly blurrier sprite.

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Originally posted by Weepul 884:
**I think I figured out what was bugging me. It was, partially, the detail on the Manticore. I can accept the brighter, starker lighting. I looked at the "Enterprise" comparison and I noticed something else, though. It is indeed sharper than the "before" ship, but it seems someone went overboard with the sharpen filter. On many of the edges it has the "too-bright line next to too-dark line" problem with sharpen filters. This adds unneeded business and just looks bad to me, let alone unrealistic.
**

I don't agree that the problem has anything to do with the sharpness; the same process was applied to all of the other sprites, which look stunning. The problem is that the textures on the Manticore are a bit too busy/detailed. No worries, it's an easy change (which we are making) to tone the Manticore down a bit.

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Andrew Welch / el Presidente / Ambrosia Software, Inc.

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Originally posted by andrew:
**I don't agree that the problem has anything to do with the sharpness; the same process was applied to all of the other sprites, which look stunning. The problem is that the textures on the Manticore are a bit too busy/detailed. No worries, it's an easy change (which we are making) to tone the Manticore down a bit.

**

BTW, doesn't it seem a bit too evenly lit to anyone? Seriously... an object in space, if lit only naturally, has harsh, contrasty shadows... the new Manticore looks a lil' blown-out. Of course I understand that this might've been done for viewability, as a dark sprite on a dark field has the tendency to "disappear", but it looks a little blown-out to me.

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My signature is short and unobtrusive. I don't have a long sig to overcompansate for "ego" problems.

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Originally posted by andrew:
I don't agree that the problem has anything to do with the sharpness; the same process was applied to all of the other sprites, which look stunning. The problem is that the textures on the Manticore are a bit too busy/detailed. No worries, it's an easy change (which we are making) to tone the Manticore down a bit.

I'm sure you know about what I am trying to show you...but I'm not sure if you know what I'm talking about. Anyway.

What I'm saying is that the application of a sharpening filter can add extra "business" around existing details. Without the filter, the Manticore may be fine, it may not. That aside, use of the sharpen filter can produce an unwanted effect around lines, which looks unrealistic and just plain bad. I've taken the liberty of preparing an example image.
(url="http://"http://www.jps.net/btaenzer/madness.jpg")http://www.jps.net/b...zer/madness.jpg(/url)

1 is a standard, antialiased line, like you might see on a straight-from-program render, and an enlarged version of it. As I found out, Photoshop automatically applies a little sharpening to when you enlarge an image with Bicubic filtering, so to keep the comparison fair, I did everything the same.

2 is 1 with the "Sharpen More" filter applied - overkill, but it shows the effect most clearly. In the enlarged version it is easy to see the unwanted, ugly effect; there is a bright line next to a dark line when before it was smooth. That's how the sharpen filter works - it increases contrast at the junction between two areas.

Though it can partially restore blurry images and works nicely on high-resolution images for print, on-screen it simply clutters and distracts from what it is applied to with little benefit. On rendered images it creates strange lines and shadows around edges that are far from realistic and not in the least attractive.

3 and 4 are taken directly from the Enterprise ship displayed on the EV3 screenshots page. In 3 the effect is distinctly visible and noticeable. The major problem areas are circled in red. In 4, the sides of the front "prongs" overlap, but the sharpen filter almost makes it look otherwise by making a black outline around the frontmost prong. Needless to say this isn't good. (so why'd I say it? um...)

Aside from simply looking bad, it could increase the "business" of a ship with details because it takes edges and essentially adds 2 more areas: the lighter and darker lines around the original edge. With a high-detail ship, adding 2 more visible features per detail could quickly make the ship a jumble of light and dark.

Just out of curiosity, I'd like to see the Manticore pre-sharpening. Who knows - the sharpening may turn out to actually help. I'm keeping an open mind, but what I've said is what I know now.

I hope you'll take what I've said into account and try the graphics without sharpening to see what it's like. If you've already compared and liked this better, perhaps a poll would be good - there's nothing like the opinions of the target audience to improve a product in the eyes of those to whom it matters a lot.

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Thanks for your suggestion, but we do know what we are doing (in fact, the process we are doing is similar to what you describe).

The problem is that the textures on the Manticore are a bit too busy/detailed. No worries, it's an easy change (which we are making) to tone the Manticore down a bit.

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Andrew Welch / el Presidente / Ambrosia Software, Inc.

Quote

Originally posted by andrew:
**Thanks for your suggestion, but we do know what we are doing (in fact, the process we are doing is similar to what you describe).

The problem is that the textures on the Manticore are a bit too busy/detailed. No worries, it's an easy change (which we are making) to tone the Manticore down a bit.

**

don't you people sleep!?
where i am it's still early afternoon but.....

PS. How come my 'info' only says 131 posts????
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