Return of the Obra Dinn: spherical mapped dithering for a 1bpp 1st-person game (2017)
41 points by fanf
41 points by fanf
The original version doesn't bother my eyes at all and feels more genuine somehow. Might be because because I grew up with early 3d games like Driller and Total Eclipse that used very basic dithering. But I enjoyed the write-up nevertheless.
The original version wasn't offensive to my eyes either, and I think you're onto something with games. For me, I think its some combination of exposure to CRT TV static, pre-rendered 3D games (like Myst), and highly dithered pre-rendered CGI cut scenes on mid-90's PC games on (especially at 640x480 resolutions).
All of that said, I do appreciate the Sphere mapping and I'm glad it was there for a game based around investigating an environment for clues and deeply observing its details. (The original dithering would have been literally more noise to signal!)
I loved the art style and had a lot of fun playing this game when I discovered it during the pandemic. I had no idea so much thought went into the dithering effect, very cool!
It feels a little weird to put 100 hours into something that won't be noticed by its absence. Exactly no one will think, "man this dithering is stable as shit. total magic going on here."
Maybe it's because I know a smidge about graphics, but I did have this thought when playing the game! Very cool to see how it was done.