Possible Pacman title screen poll

[Zach]

If you look at the original Pac-Man marquee though, the dot in the center of the "P" should be much smaller.

Yeah, supercat's design is super-clever, but it doesn't compare so well to the marquee.

 

Dennis, I was able to reproduce Nathan's design, including shifting the shadow by 1 pixel. If you're interested in more unsolicited work, I'll send you the code.

[chad5200]

Don't forget the dash!

 

It's "PAC-MAN"

 

(Not "PACMAN")

[Zach]

Don't forget the dash!

 

It's "PAC-MAN"

 

(Not "PACMAN")

No problem, just expand one of these designs with the 56-pixel technique.

[+Nathan Strum]

Don't forget the dash!

 

It's "PAC-MAN"

 

I'd thought of that at the time I was making my version, but didn't have enough pixels to make it look right.

 

And anyway, it's actually "PAC-MAN®".

[DEBRO]

Hi there,

 

Thank you everyone that responded to this. A lot of good suggestions came out of this tread.

Here's a 52 pixel wide version I came up with:

I love this look Nathan. It looks more like the marquee.

Also, I never liked the Space-Invader look of the ghosts in the Atari 800 version of Pac-Man, so I hope Debro doesn't reproduce that. IMHO, all the visual character of the ghosts is in their big googly eyes.

I like your ghost sprites. I don't see how you can do the ghost vertical animations this way

Yikes! You are going for the title screen too? It's gonna rock, kids :yes:

Kurt, I'm trying to make you proud

Dennis, I was able to reproduce Nathan's design, including shifting the shadow by 1 pixel. If you're interested in more unsolicited work, I'll send you the code.

PM sent.

Don't forget the dash!

 

It's "PAC-MAN"

Not this game...

[ZylonBane]

I like your ghost sprites. I don't see how you can do the ghost vertical animations this way

Thanks. The Pac-Man ghosts are a really interesting problem in low-res pixel art. Aside from the general shape, the eyes are their only feature, making it all the more important to reproduce them accurately. They're very large relative to their bodies, and not only do the pupils (or irises, whatever) look in the direction of movement, the eyeballs shift in the direction of movement as well. The pupils aren't centered on the eyes either -- when looking left and right they're actually a bit below center.

 

Going to 8 pixels wide would be hard enough, but going to mono-colored makes things even tougher. Now you have the problem that the pupils and the body are the same color, causing them to visually merge together into an indistinct blob. At higher resolutions you'd be able to work around this problem by simply drawing a black outline around the eyes, but 8 bits doesn't provide enough resolution for that. Some outlining is almost mandatory though, since in three of the four possible facings the ghost's eyes touch the edges of their bodies. Not a problem for the arcade version since the eyes are white, but with only two colors the eyes are black, which would leave gaping holes carved in the ghost's sides.

 

Note that the eyes are mostly a problem when the ghosts are looking up and down. When looking left/right you only need two pixels for each eye since the pupil is offset in the eyeball, but when looking up/down the pupil must be centered, requiring three pixels per eye, crosseyed ghosts, or ghosts that look diagonally.

 

Anyway, yadda yadda yadda, I thought it'd be fun to put together a graphic showing how various 2600 games have tackled the problem. Note how the 5200 version dispensed with the eyeballs, while the Ebivision version got rid of the pupils! At the bottom is my own solution, with one-and-a-half variations on the up/down ghosts and three variations on the sideways-looking ghosts. I admit to being partial to the one on the far right, as it manages to render a distinct pupil (on one eye anyway).

Edited March 16, 2006 by ZylonBane

[DEBRO]

Anyway, yadda yadda yadda, I thought it'd be fun to put together a graphic showing how various 2600 games have tackled the problem. Note how the 5200 version dispensed with the eyeballs, while the Ebivision version got rid of the pupils! At the bottom is my own solution, with one-and-a-half variations on the up/down ghosts and three variations on the sideways-looking ghosts. I admit to being partial to the one on the far right, as it manages to render a distinct pupil (on one eye anyway).

This is really good and interesting. After seeing your first mock-up I sent a request to Nathan Strum for better ghost sprites. I got his PM today and a number of them look like your rendition too. I'll be plugging them in to give a look see. Thanks for these, I like the one on the far right too

[sandmountainslim]

I must have missed something earlier, Is Debro working on a new Pac Man? Will it be 8k? Please fill this clueless fellow in.

[+Nathan Strum]

Your clue.

[yuppicide]

The lips look like a dolphin's mouth.

 

It does look as if Pac-Man has had collagen lip implants.