Images generated by RastaConverter

[GravityWorm]

On 9/21/2023 at 9:39 AM, GravityWorm said:

XEX files:

GravityWormBS_01.xex 22.05 kB · 18 downloads GravityWormBS_02.xex 22.04 kB · 11 downloads GravityWormBS_03.xex 22.11 kB · 12 downloads

Is it possible to make one file (executable animation) from these 3 files?
 

[GravityWorm]

On 9/22/2023 at 12:26 AM, pseudografx said:

For some reason, RastaConverter runs at above average priority which affects response of some systems rather substantially. When I start a conversion, I always set the RastaConverter thread's priority to lowest via Task Manager. It has no effect on the conversion speed but system's response is not affected any more.

Good idea.

[+MrFish]

23 hours ago, MrFish said:

I have a hand-edited version that I'm going to run through RastaConverter soon too. I changed some of the colors from the image above and added some dithering here and there that I thought it could use.

 

Here's my edited version.

 

I let it get down to 0.58 normal distance. It would go further, but it's close enough for now (maybe let it run down further later).

 

You can compare with the previous versions. The major changes/additions are pretty easy to detect.

 

PAL

 

NTSC

 

mrfish, hamfrog2, pal.xex

 

mrfish, hamfrog2, ntsc.xex

 

[_The Doctor__]

The results seem to work best using NTSC and then batch files to PAL. It seems to keep a higher color count that way. Is that because PAL has less color to begin with and it loses some more during conversion where as NTSC has more and the batch process has a better source to start system conversion with?

Edited October 9, 2023 by _The Doctor__

[Sheddy]

On 10/8/2023 at 9:52 AM, MrFish said:

Nope... if you go into the generator folder of RastaSlide, you'll find PAL->NTSC and NTSC->PAL batch files that will remap colors. Only downside is that everything can't be mapped, due to the way in which RastaConverter reuses some color information. For the most part, it does a good enough job. I won't point out any missed colors in my conversions.

 

You may have found the only picture where it has done a reasonable job!

 

I ripped it out of the latest version in disgust. It makes sense that "easier" pictures have a better chance of a good result, so perhaps I should put it back in.

 

The colour mapping was very basic. But with minimal work it could be made a bit smarter and prioritize the most visible  colour differences between PAL and NTSC. What do you guys think those are though?

I'm thinking maybe very dark or very bright colours might not be very noticable different between PAL and NTSC?

Hmm, except skin tones will stand out in a face.

What about the red greens and blues. between the systems. Which of those are most noticeably different?

 

Also, It may surprise @Beeblebrox to hear, but I am actually trying to implement his request for making slides with text at the bottom of pictures in a usable/compatible manner. Hopefully will have something to share in the not too distant future.

 

🫥

[Beeblebrox]

42 minutes ago, Sheddy said:

 

Also, It may surprise @Beeblebrox to hear, but I am actually trying to implement his request for making slides with text at the bottom of pictures in a usable/compatible manner. Hopefully will have something to share in the not too distant future

Fantastic!!! Thanks so much. 

 

Have a look at what Fox kindly did as a one off for one of my bladerunner slides where he added text. 

 

To have it as an option for your slideshow tools would be amazing.

 

Will it be possible to implement all of those text functions I'd suggested, or just one? 😉

 

 

 

Edited October 11, 2023 by Beeblebrox

[Sheddy]

On 10/9/2023 at 4:58 PM, _The Doctor__ said:

The results seem to work best using NTSC and then batch files to PAL. It seems to keep a higher color count that way. Is that because PAL has less color to begin with and it loses some more during conversion where as NTSC has more and the batch process has a better source to start system conversion with?

Should be fairly random chances on colour mapping success. Interesting if that holds true is all cases.

[+MrFish]

11 hours ago, Sheddy said:

You may have found the only picture where it has done a reasonable job!

Nope. I used it for all the pictures that were created by @pseudografx [edit: and by all the C64 artists] for the IK/RastaConverter project; and I'm pretty sure @nobody (HomeSoft) used it for all the ones he worked on also; because I was the one who instructed him on how I was doing my conversions -- so he would be able to do the rest of the screens that he wanted himself (I got burned out doing them after a while).

 

11 hours ago, Sheddy said:

I ripped it out of the latest version in disgust. It makes sense that "easier" pictures have a better chance of a good result, so perhaps I should put it back in.

Yes, I noticed its omission in the latest RastaSlide files; please put it back in. And, yes, it tends to stumble some on the more complex images that take longer for RasterConverter to process. It really depends, because missing a few colors that are not so prominent or colors that can stand up fine enough using PAL values doesn't render the conversion a failure. The image really needs to be examined to see what worked and what didn't -- of course minding the list of missed values that the batch file spits outs. The other thing is that you can never expect exact/perfect conversions of colors from PAL to NTSC or vice versa anyway; it just doesn't happen; and I'm speaking even for games and such where the complete conversion is done by hand.

 

11 hours ago, Sheddy said:

The colour mapping was very basic. But with minimal work it could be made a bit smarter and prioritize the most visible  colour differences between PAL and NTSC. What do you guys think those are though?

I'm thinking maybe very dark or very bright colours might not be very noticable different between PAL and NTSC?

Hmm, except skin tones will stand out in a face.

What about the red greens and blues. between the systems. Which of those are most noticeably different?

TBH, I think your mappings are fine. I examined all your conversion values. You're basically using what is considered the standard and simple method; and it's exactly what I always use when creating PAL colors for all the stuff I work on in NTSC (my primary starting point for anything). Sure, better values might exist for a given image; but that's something that has to happen with human intervention, I would say; and I think it's really beyond reasonable to do that for images typically having so many colors to deal with.

 

Something else you may not have considered is that your remapping batch files could also be useful for changing colors on a given image. I already played around with this some and it works simply enough. I just set up a file with the tables adjusted as needed, so that it just keeps all values the same except for the ones I want to change. Some unnecessary work going on there (setting a value to the value already used); but it's finished so quick that it doesn't matter.

 

[Sheddy]

1 hour ago, Beeblebrox said:

Fantastic!!! Thanks so much. 

 

Have a look at what Fox kindly did as a one off for one of my bladerunner slides where he added text. 

 

To have it as an option for your slideshow tools would be amazing.

 

Will it be possible to implement all of those text functions I'd suggested, or just one? 😉

 

 

 

Yep, started out using Fox example, thanks. will PM you at some point. Won't be getting a GUI any time soon though as there's a lot of learning involved on my side for that to be possible 

[+MrFish]

9 hours ago, MrFish said:

The other thing is that you can never expect exact/perfect conversions of colors from PAL to NTSC or vice versa anyway; it just doesn't happen; and I'm speaking even for games and such where the complete conversion is done by hand.

I'll add here, that almost no NTSC colors have perfect matches in the PAL palette. There's always something different no matter what you choose. Speaking of luminance, almost invariably, PAL colors are lighter; and if you choose a darker value, it's too dark. In regards to hue, the hue will always lean to one side or the other of the palette from what's trying to be matched. For instance, if it's some blue in question, it will either be tinted too much towards green or be tinted too much towards purple. I'm speaking of high precision here, though, in the case of some hues. Practically speaking things come out reasonable enough.

 

As mentioned, in a given image, it might look better to choose some other shade or hue than what would normally be auto-mapped. For instance, taking the NTSC frog image into consideration, the blues, greens, and browns look well-enough converted; but the human skin color (of the hand the frog is sitting on) seems to lean a little to the side of orange compared to PAL -- which means it's going towards brown rather than red in the palette. So, we can change that by selecting the hue next to it (for all those luminances) that's going towards red instead [note: I used the method I mentioned above, altering your batch file values to do the conversion (NTSC -> NTSC)]; but what happens is, it's now a bit too red/pink compared with the PAL hue used. However, this may be more preferable to the eyes of the one doing the conversion, and to others. Personally, in this case, I see it as nearly a tossup. I don't really prefer one to the other; but if I had to choose, I'd go with the auto-converted (orange) values (because I find it less harsh). Therefore, the auto-converted values are just fine. In some other cases, maybe not so. It really depends on the subject matter and personal preference.

 

NTSC image choices

    

 

Original PAL image

 

[+MrFish]

I suppose another thing that could be done in cases like this, where there is overlapping of a given hue in several luminances by way of dithering, would be to mix usage between the two available nearest hues. So, for instance at one luminance the value used would be the more orange hue, and at another luminance the value used would be the more red hue. This might allow enough blending for the eye to perceive something in between the two hues (at least in areas where enough dithering occurs). I might test this out on the image to see how well it works.

 

[+Atari8man2004]

On 10/9/2023 at 4:34 AM, MrFish said:

 

Here's my edited version.

 

I let it get down to 0.58 normal distance. It would go further, but it's close enough for now (maybe let it run down further later).

 

You can compare with the previous versions. The major changes/additions are pretty easy to detect.

 

PAL

 

NTSC

 

mrfish, hamfrog2, pal.xex 22 kB · 7 downloads

 

mrfish, hamfrog2, ntsc.xex 19.07 kB · 8 downloads

 

Wow impressive very nice.  Did you maskout the backround ?

 

[+MrFish]

1 hour ago, Atari8man2004 said:

Did you maskout the backround ?

No, I didn't.

[+MrFish]

8 hours ago, MrFish said:

I suppose another thing that could be done in cases like this, where there is overlapping of a given hue in several luminances by way of dithering, would be to mix usage between the two available nearest hues. So, for instance at one luminance the value used would be the more orange hue, and at another luminance the value used would be the more red hue. This might allow enough blending for the eye to perceive something in between the two hues (at least in areas where enough dithering occurs). I might test this out on the image to see how well it works.

So, here's the image using the technique described in the quote. I changed the hue for the highest luminance value of the skin only. As expected/predicted it's most effective where the two different hues used for the skin overlap each other in dithers. So, it works best in the area of skin on the upper-left, and less so in areas where the colors are rendered separately -- underneath the frog's body (orange) and on the central pad of the human finger (pink). Most of the frog's toes don't have enough dither to show much effect either.

 

 

[+MrFish]

Here are binaries for the new NTSC images.

 

mrfish, hamfrog2, ntsc (red skin).xex

 

mrfish, hamfrog2, ntsc (orange-red skin).xex

 

[miker]

Pssstt... As Halloween is nearby, maybe try coverting this one. 

 

Original Amiga pic by Colin Thomson.

 

 

Edited October 12, 2023 by miker

[Beeblebrox]

1 hour ago, miker said:

Pssstt... As Halloween is nearby, maybe try coverting this one. 

 

Original Amiga pic by Colin Thomson.

 

 

it's a good soure image for a conversion so will try it this weekend.

 

@MrFish  wanna try your hand at conversion?

[+Stephen]

4 hours ago, Beeblebrox said:

it's a good soure image for a conversion so will try it this weekend.

 

@MrFish  wanna try your hand at conversion?

I'll give it a shot too.

 

Going to call this one done.  This is using PAL palette.  Screenshot is from Altirra

Stephen_GiantPumpkin.xex

[+Atari8man2004]

Owl - In time for Halloween

Atari8man_Owl.xex

[Beeblebrox]

5 hours ago, Atari8man2004 said:

Owl - In time for Halloween

Atari8man_Owl.xex 22.11 kB · 5 downloads

nice. good use of dithering:)

[+Atari8man2004]

Golden Chalice

Atari8man_Golden Chalice.xex

[+Atari8man2004]

Medusa !    My new mission in life is to convert everything! 

Atari8man_Medusa.xex

[GravityWorm]

I suspect it would look better on a CRT.
A simulation using GNU/linuxs default paint program:

[GravityWorm]

Medusa is a impressive peace of art, but... I suspect it would look better on a CRT.
A simulation of a CRT using GNU/linuxs default paint program:

[GravityWorm]

1 hour ago, Atari8man2004 said:

Golden Chalice

Atari8man_Golden Chalice.xex 22.06 kB · 0 downloads

People in 1979: "WTF? Is that a photo???"