3 ms·

This is a cool novel technique for sure, but for some reason I’m just not aesthetically in love with it. The fact that the pattern is surface aligned just…doesn

by montag 2y ago

This is a cool novel technique for sure, but for some reason I’m just not aesthetically in love with it. The fact that the pattern is surface aligned just…doesn’t add anything over dithering in screen space. And I really loved the dithering in Return of Obra Dinn. Is it just me?

Veedrac 2y ago
The author of the technique has an explanation of why screen-alined dithering is hard in their FAQ. https://github.com/runevision/Dither3D/discussions/12 https://github.com/runevision/Dither3D/discussions/12 Particular, it's hard to deal with anisotropy, and naive approaches to fix this hurt either break the operation as a dither with uniform dot sizes, or struggle to avoid becoming regular at angles. I agree with the claim, though, that you lose quite a lot by having the dither pattern stuck to surfaces. There is a charm to it for sure, but a high quality screen space dither would be cool. And so I experimented with some ideas and came up with one. Forgive the jank, I'm learning as I go. https://www.shadertoy.com/view/WfBGzK https://www.shadertoy.com/view/WfBGzK Note that this is using a random dither versus a patterned one, which I think hurts the aesthetics a lot, but I am certain this is incidental to the concept. I think there are probably much smarter techniques, and I have an idea for a large rewrite already, but those are details, just take this as a proof of concept.
chpatrick 2y ago
I agree with you, it's technically very cool but Obra Dinn just looks better.
- turnsout 2y ago
  Thought the same thing when the original Surface-Stable dither link made the rounds. There's just something off about 1-bit dither with perspective applied, but constantly shifting scale on different parts of the model. Super interesting thought experiment (and this version is an impressive exercise in optimization), but the aesthetic of Obra Dinn is in another league.

by montag 2y ago

Veedrac 2y ago

The author of the technique has an explanation of why screen-alined dithering is hard in their FAQ. https://github.com/runevision/Dither3D/discussions/12 https://github.com/runevision/Dither3D/discussions/12 Particular, it's hard to deal with anisotropy, and naive approaches to fix this hurt either break the operation as a dither with uniform dot sizes, or struggle to avoid becoming regular at angles. I agree with the claim, though, that you lose quite a lot by having the dither pattern stuck to surfaces. There is a charm to it for sure, but a high quality screen space dither would be cool. And so I experimented with some ideas and came up with one. Forgive the jank, I'm learning as I go. https://www.shadertoy.com/view/WfBGzK https://www.shadertoy.com/view/WfBGzK Note that this is using a random dither versus a patterned one, which I think hurts the aesthetics a lot, but I am certain this is incidental to the concept. I think there are probably much smarter techniques, and I have an idea for a large rewrite already, but those are details, just take this as a proof of concept.

chpatrick 2y ago

I agree with you, it's technically very cool but Obra Dinn just looks better.

turnsout 2y ago
Thought the same thing when the original Surface-Stable dither link made the rounds. There's just something off about 1-bit dither with perspective applied, but constantly shifting scale on different parts of the model. Super interesting thought experiment (and this version is an impressive exercise in optimization), but the aesthetic of Obra Dinn is in another league.