m_kiewitz wrote:The dithering was actually introduced, because the artists / Roberta Williams wanted to be able to use more colors. It was a workaround to get almost VGA quality without VGA hardware.
You're missing my point. Dithered pixels hide harsh transitions of colour when using at least one of the same colours. In undithered mode the colours are completely different. They don't blend. This can (and is in Sierra games) utilised in artistic ways in ways that undithered mode can't possibly recreate without some kind of blurring effect or soft transition into the next colour, which would be impossible to implement seeing as not every colour is meant to have a smooth transition into the one next to it.
So you are assuming that your opinion matters more than the one from users that really like it. Note: You already had and have the option. You are just trying religiously to get it disabled on default.
And you're trying religiously to keep it enabled by default. See how easy it is to turn that back on somebody? Don't go down that road. I'm not demanding my own personal way. I just think that a game should be represented in its original form with all optional aesthetic enhancements disabled until the user wants to enable them. That's the safest route to not tick anybody off with. Even the people who disagree with my distaste of undithered mode agree with that.
Actually it should get decided, if ScummVM as a whole should have enhancements enabled on default. Not having enhancements would disable not only undithering, but also font adjustment, no ScummVM save/restore, no mouse cursor in AGI and so on.
That's not the same thing, as has been stated multiple times. I'm not getting into it again.
Again: there is an option. ScummVM is also open-source. You are free to fork it and do your own MusicallyInspired port.
Actually, I have done that and when I expressed my intention to do such a thing I had quite a positive response from those who were interested in my port just so that dithering was the default setting. This was before I realised about the fix you can add to the scummvm.ini file, but the reaction alone should tell you something.
No one is forcing anyone to use anything. Actually you try to force your taste/opinion upon everyone else.
I'm not forcing my opinion on everyone else. Everyone else agrees with me except for you and a couple other devs. You, on the other hand, are forcing everybody ever who uses ScummVM to play these games in a way that they never were before by default.
Also we wasted lots of time and we were also not paid a dime for it. Oh yeah, that's a big screw you from us, right.
What are you doing right now by talking to me this way if not saying "Screw you." I've not done anything to deserve that kind of attitude. You just disagree with me and somehow deduce that I deserved to be attacked for that.
The backgrounds are actually almost 256 colors. We do not invent those colors. The colors are there.
I think you're assuming too much here. Technically the colours are there. Artistically they most definitely aren't there. An artist doesn't think technically, they think artistically. Especially where visual art is concerned.
Sierra had a hardware limitation and wanted to use more colors. They managed to do this by using dithering. If there were VGA adapters back then, they would have shown the full colors.
I don't see how that matters at all seeing as the original artists created those images with no more than 16 colours to begin with. IT DOESN'T MATTER how many more colours you can interpret from it. They're not the same colours. Like I stated before, the dithered colours are all made up of the same colours. This causes the colours to blend in together in a way that completely flat colours (bigger palette or not) just can't replicate. No matter how you look at it they're all completely different colours and you can clearly see the divisions of lines between each colour in undithered mode. In dithered mode this is hidden. Yes, it improves the somewhat jarring (to some people) appearance of checkered colours but you're just trading in one aesthetic problem for another. And seeing as the backgrounds were made with visually 16 colours to begin with, I say we go with the way it was optimized best with the palette the artists had at the time by default.
Anyway again: if you don't like it, just disable it. It's easy. It's now even a gui option.
Yes, for the seventeenth time I see that. That's great. Hurrah. But that doesn't excuse the argument of whether or not ScummVM should be enabling such features by default. And don't throw the save restore or AGI mouse cursour argument into this again because it's not near the same level of altering artistic expression as completely changing the perceived palette selection. It's the same thing as playing an old game in 32-bit colour mode instead of 8-bit colour. It's just not going to look the same. Some can argue that it's better, some will argue that the colours are actually deeper and more dynamic in 8-bit mode. Easy solution? Keep the original as default so people can play as they remember it from the get go and add the colour enhancement as an optional toggle if they want to spice things up. Having it the other way around just ruffles too many feathers as is happening here.
And if -devel comes up with disabling EVERY enhancement, then it will also be gone. But we won't do here enhancement and there enhancement, but not this enhancement because MusicallyInspired personally didn't like it.
Stop pinning me like that. I'm not the only one who feels this way. I just have more to say on the subject. Don't be so rude.
So you drew those backgrounds?
What about the backgrounds I
have drawn? What about the backgrounds of other SCI fangames?
Otherwise you don't know what the artists actually did and thought. The artists definitely wanted to use MORE COLORS. In fact Roberta Williams even wanted more colors on Apple II and Ken Williams went for it. The hardware just wasn't capable of doing so. Dithering was a workaround, not a stylistic tool.
Again, how does that matter? It's not the point at all. Yes they all wanted more colours. That doesn't mean that automatically giving those colours to the games is going to make them look the way they always wanted. It just doesn't work that way. Regardless of why they created dithered colours the way they did, it has been used to hide some harsh jagged lines. Those lines on that tree in that KQ1 picture or the lines on the grass in QFG1 don't lie. They look like an amateurish mess undithered while dithered they look more natural.
I would really happily talk to some Sierra artists about it. If they (or one of the game creators) said, they didn't like it, I would immediately remove it and probably even throw the undithering code away.
Talking to the original artists doesn't make a shred of difference to the point I'm trying to make. You can visually SEE in those examples I've posted how dithering worked to their advantage in hiding harsh and abrasive lines. And again, what about the artists of fangames? How come their artistic expressions don't matter?
There was and is an option. It's now even a GUI option.
Playing the "no, you" game again? The same reasons you use for that line of thinking are also perfectly valid for my line of thinking. We're just going to talk in circles about it if this keeps up.
In the version that I own on floppies, there is no soundblaster driver. Only ADL.DRV, which is Adlib. Which doesn't support samples.
I already got Codename: Iceman, which came out much later. It also doesn't include any soundblaster driver.
Then why are the samples even in the game resources? And why does it work with the correct sound blaster driver? In DOS? It shouldn't work if it wasn't meant to be that way, but it does. Your argument holds no ground here. The dithered pixels on the graphics, however, weren't meant to be viewed in near 256 colours because that's not how they were created. They may have WANTED to have them in more colours, but the fact is that they weren't and they weren't created with that in mind.
Impressive.
So you want this and that and everything, but on the other side you just told me that ScummVM would screw sierra fans and muck with their nostalgia, although there was and is an option for switching.
Seriously? You're pinning me for being greedy about asking for an Adlib/Sound Blaster sfx option? And no, there wasn't and isn't an option for switching between Adlib and Sound Blaster sounds. I've tried everything and nothing works. If there's some other console command that was failed to be documented than that's another story. But I've asked before and people have given me suggestions and none of them have worked. ScummVM always favours the digital sound effects and there's no way to enable Adlib sound effects. It would just be nice as an option. There's an option for everything else for other games.
I guess we muck with their nostalgia, because we didn't implement every possible option and feature into the interpreter on first release free of charge.
I'm not blaming you for not having every feature available at launch. That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying you enabled a feature that wasn't in the original game. It's not an alternate way of doing things like the save/restore feature or the mouse in AGI games (which you can just move to the bottom of the screen and ignore), it's changing the
entire graphics of the game. And you enabled it by default. It's not representative of what the artists originally wanted. If they actually had that palette they'd have created those graphics with other methods. Are you even an artist? Do you understand this concept?
You remind me of OS/2 users. Instead of being happy, that they get something really nice for free, they complain and complain. And then wonder, when everyone leaves them.
If you would stop labeling me as being demanding and unreasonable and start listening to what I'm saying you'd know that that's not my stance at all.
So?
The DOS interpreter had no mouse support. If ScummVM is supposed to be preserving nostalgia, then in fact there should be no mouse cursor on default in DOS AGI games. But I see, you just use the nostalgia argument, when it helps. You will happily ignore nostalgia at the moment, when you personally like the enhancement.
Actually, I don't use the mouse at all in AGI. But all I have to do to simulate DOS is move the mouse off the screen and ignore it and bam I have the authentic experience (except for the fact that the 16 colours used in AGI now are not the authentic EGA 16 colours but that's another matter entirely). There's no point in having a toggle for such a simple solution. You can't compare the two. The undithering mode is not what the original games looked like. Adding a mouse on a screen is not the same as changing the graphics themselves.
And my arguments are based on preserving the authentic gaming experiences for all games for players. If they like a feature then they can enable it. It's no different for me. If I ever like a feature then I'll enable it if I wish. I'm not on a crusade to remove all enhancing features from ScummVM, I'd just like to see the authentic gaming experiences preserved by default for everybody because that's the safest route to take. Anyone who wants add-ons and enhancements should have to enable them if they want not the other way around. It's just common sense.
I didn't write one line of code for SCUMM. I don't know what you are talking about.
My mistake. I don't know what developers have been working on with regards to ScummVM. All I know is that they worked on ScummVM in some capacity. I apologise for my generalisation.
It's easy. We are a team of developers. We actually discussed, before enabling undithered on default. So it would seem logical, that we would also discuss the issue, before disabling it. That's called teamwork.
That's great, I'm just saying it might be a good idea to include the fans in this discussion as well since they're the ones ultimately who are going to be affected the most by it.
Or do you propose, that we just change it and as soon as someone else complains, we change it back? Or maybe just react on your opinion alone?
Again with the labeling. If someone else has a problem with the way the
original game was designed then they can enable an enhancement. It shouldn't be the other way around. The point is that these games should be represented in all their glory as much as possible. Any enhancements or subjective effects should be the ones that are optionally enabled/disabled. Not the other way around. How much simpler do I have to make it?
Because I worked lots of time on the whole code for free.
Maybe you shouldn't do it for free anymore if you can't take criticism? Or if you just can't take the fact that people just don't like your undither feature?
I don't want it to get disabled because 2 people whined.
It's not just 2 people it's basically everyone. Almost everybody who posted in this thread doesn't think it should be default.
Disabled on default means that most users won't see it at all and I personally love the undithered graphics. They look almost like VGA-graphics now. I can't really play any 16-color SCI game anymore without it.
So you're so proud of your option that you force everyone to see it whether they like it or not? Whatever happened to "it's right there in the options GUI if you want to change it"? It's a subjective enhancement and should never have been implemented as a default from the very beginning for that sole reason alone. It's not about complaining, it's about the games being represented as they had been. Enhancements should always be secondary. I'm not just arguing for my own opinion at this point, even if I hated dithered mode I'd still be fighting for this point.
You're obviously taking this rather personally since you worked so hard on it and I apologise for that. Cognratulations, it's a nifty feature and does a decent job at what its meant to do. But just because you like it doesn't mean everyone else has to and it doesn't mean it looks best for the game. It's SUBJECTIVE. And whenever there is subjectivity things should always resort to the original by default to maintain the original expression.
Anyone, that dislikes it, WILL notice that its an enhancement. Then he will just look for a way to disable it and tada, everone would be happy.
So you're whole problem is that you want everyone to see the great work you did? Aren't you being rather full of yourself here?
Anyway, what did you do for SCI support? Did you write one line of code?
I created fangames that your code is supposed to support.
The same way as speaking for sierra artists without ever having talked to them?
Did you? More importantly, are you an artist? Do you understand the importance of preserving the medium of which a piece of art was prepared for? Of course you do, you're a programmer. If somebody went in an mucked up your undithering code because they didn't like the way it was presented and programmed it in a way that altered the display of backgrounds in a way you didn't like you'd be just as upset. You are upset. People are asking for it to be taken off default because they don't like it and you're acting like a child about it. Only in this case it's not warranted because your work alters another's work in your own subjective way.
You already have the choice to use it or not since the official release.
Should be the other way around for reasons everyone has mentioned. Including a reason you mentioned yourself, most people won't know how to disable it.
As both an artist and a hardcore Sierra fan, I have to adamantly state that I agree with MusicallyInspired in full.
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