Originally posted by Astro forever@Oct 31 2005, 10:35 AM
Okay, let's see what kind of explanation you'll find for these, obviously taken from [b]Goliath's Head:
Astro's shirt is changing color:


[/b]
I was once interested in making my own computer game, so I bought & read a few books on the subject. I remember reading about the human perception of color. There was something about perceiving two separate colors as one different color when the image was very small.
Note the medium red band on the hero's shirt & the medium to light blue one below it (top photo). Now, examine the one band in the bottom picture. It (to me) has neither of the hues of the first picture. The red band in the top pic is about the same width as the band in the bottom pic, yet the figure is clearly more distant than in the top pic. Although I think a combination of the 2 hues (top) would result in a more purple color, the bottom picture's band is noticably darker red than the top one. I believe the animators' did just what I said.
I remember playing DOOM, & when approaching a dark wall, it seemed to be alive, in that the pixels were changing colors slightly. Rather than this being from a monster, it was simply the rendering of the hues that were beyond the 256 colors in the current pallet. That is, DOOM used only 256 colors, but by combining various hues in closely grouped pixels, could simulate other colors not in the pallet because of the eye's perception of these was as one solid patch of color. Does this make sense?
