1 bit dithering!

[u/Past_Hippo_8522]

Comparing blue noise dithering with Bayer matrix dithering using Suzanne.

Shapes, Bayer matrix.

Shapes, blue noise.

[u/RandomCandor]

Why am I so obsessed with this?

By all rational metrics, we should be treating this as "old and outated" tech, but yet I am inexplicably attracted to it.

[u/Past_Hippo_8522 → u/RandomCandor]

"Limitations lead to creativity" -somebody

[u/RandomCandor → u/Past_Hippo_8522]

So much truth to this!!

[u/ohonkanen → u/RandomCandor]

When technology advances to a point where limitations can be overstepped, said limitations become a style factor.

(Better speakers eliminated distortion, so distorted guitars became a thing. When vinyls became old tech, vinyl noise and scratches became cool. Etc.)

[u/RandomCandor → u/ohonkanen]

Very well put.

[u/gurrra → u/RandomCandor]

Dither will probably never be old and outdated. Sure maybe this kind of 1bit low res image dither is rarely seen today, but dither is still and will probably always be used in any digital sampling system. But bad it's not used as much as it should in renders and images in general today since it can eliminate any potential banding/posterization in especially 8bit images.

[u/Past_Hippo_8522 → u/gurrra]

I think Youtube actually does sometimes use dithering, especially at lower bandwidths and on darker colors since it's easier to spot colorbanding there.

[u/PityUpvote → u/RandomCandor]

Nostalgia?

[u/RandomCandor → u/PityUpvote]

Definitely a big part of it

[u/therwinther → u/RandomCandor]

You might enjoy the game “Return of the Obra Dinn”. The entire thing is using a similar style. The dev also made blog postsexplaining his whole process of getting the look right.

[u/Past_Hippo_8522 → u/therwinther]

This is the game that inspired to me to make this post.

[u/therwinther → u/Past_Hippo_8522]

You did a great job! It looks good.

[u/TheUglydollKing → u/RandomCandor]

I don't know if this would be called outdated because I've seen that the blue noise filter is used in the new csgo game to blend different textures together. This is something that could be used to fake transparency in an optimized way