Yesterdays aesthetic wasn't thick chunky pixels with outputs exactly matching the indexed palettes with wide color range. Sure, resolution was low and color choice was limited... but so similarly limited was the way we transmitted and displayed things. These dithered polygon shadings turned into new colors, the blocky details into new smooth shapes, and the colors overall more muted than just popping the RGB value onto a modern screen would suggest.<p>That's not to say this aesthetic is "bad" (I'm actually quite fond of it and similar styles too) but just that it's absolutely nothing like the emulated Star Fox screenshots being used as the target suggest. If yesterday's pixels is the goal then this is missing the main part of what made those pixels look the way they did.<p>For those who haven't seen games like this on the typical technology of the era: this is a photo of LCD output using a similar path as taken here, a photo the same with a CRT emulation shader, and a photo of an actual CRT (don't take this one CRT to be gospel of what every CRT output from all of time looked like) <a href="https://i.imgur.com/lo8ytRq.jpeg" rel="nofollow">https://i.imgur.com/lo8ytRq.jpeg</a>
Yesterday’s pixels look quite different on today’s screens than they looked on CRTs of the time. In particular, “pixel-perfect lines and points” weren’t a perfectly sharp grid, but mixed up and re-defined by the CRT’s shadow mask and scanlines, making them look more organic and less pixelated.<p>Look at this for example (CRT left, “perfect” pixels right): <a href="https://cdn.xcancel.com/pic/orig/media%2FFQI0t9PacAALT14.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://cdn.xcancel.com/pic/orig/media%2FFQI0t9PacAALT14.jpg</a><p>Many more examples here: <a href="https://xcancel.com/CRTpixels" rel="nofollow">https://xcancel.com/CRTpixels</a>
The final result looks great, but I found it even more convincing limiting it to about 15 FPS: <a href="https://jsfiddle.net/9mksgbe6/1/" rel="nofollow">https://jsfiddle.net/9mksgbe6/1/</a>
I like the trick of rendering in a small resolution and then scaling it back up without anti-aliasing and stuff. I wonder if there's any way to do chunky pixel static websites like that just using CSS in the same way?
Ex-Zodiac is another Star Fox inspired game that was released on Steam with big chunky pixels.
It comes with the option to disable the pixel filter to simply play with a clean low poly aesthetic.
I find the big pixels to be extremely tiring after only a few minutes, so I find this option to be a game-changer (pun intended).<p>Typing this I remembered "A short Hike" similarly had the option to disable it and I also preferred it disabled. It wasn't as important as it is slower paced though.
Just want to thank you for using actual low resolution rendering, and not pixelated-looking objects on a high-res surface. This looks great!<p>The way smooth parallax and sometimes different pixel sizes (!) show up in “retro” games is a huge pet peeve of mine.
Very cool style! I wonder if one could further reduce some of the constraints (i.e. # colors on palette), maintain the pixelated style, but improve overall aesthetics.
I don't understand the love for <i>thick pixels</i>. The effect clearly reflects the resource constraints of the platform. Is there anything here beyond nostalgia?