What's with the anti-aliasing in Gameboy sprites?

[TheouAegis]

Ok, if you don't get what I mean by anti-aliasing, which I'm sure is the wrong term in this case, check out the enemy sprites for Castlevania: Belmont's Revenge on the Gameboy. That is one ugly sprite sheet and a bitch to recolor (which is why I wanted it).

I'm not blaming BadBatman3 for bad quality. He did a great job with what he had to work with. Of course, I thought he might have messed some things up because some tiles didn't seem to line up right, also.

So I loaded up Belmont's Revenge in VBA and took a look at the sprites myself. And what I saw was DISGUSTING. The sprites didn't have crisp designs. They didn't have bold, black outlines. Sure, some sprites had partial black outlines, which served as partial outlines, partial demarcations and partial shadows. I'll give the artist credit for the brilliant use of "black" in the Gameboy. But if you tried to actually colorize the sprites, may God forgive the artist. All the light-colored crap around the outsides of the sprites are ugly and, in fact, can be deleted without actually changing the sprite's appearance too much.

Of course this topic isn't about just one game, since normally I'd just assume it was that one game. But a lot of Gameboy sprites seem to have similar sprite features. I checked out Animal Breeder, I think it was, which had much crisper sprites, but I did notice a faint anti-aliasing (again, maybe not the right term) where light colors "spilled over" the black. Now, Belmont's Revenge was the worst I've seen, but is this the game designer's fault or is it a hardware issue? Does the Gameboy itself put those ugly pixels there? Or rather, is it a software issue with Virtual Boy Advance, or any other emulator -- is there a setting that needs to be adjusted to get rid of the ugly pixels?

[Solink]

AA was used often on GB games to make the sprites look smoother on white backgrounds
I see nothing wrong with it

[Deathbringer]

Designers do that on purpose, it helps when the sprites are shown a black background.

http://www.spriters-resource.com/gameboy/T.html

Look at Titus the Fox, the other method designers do is a white outline, which does help when the background it heavily populated.

[Cobalt Blue]

i have one word for you: context

[TheouAegis]

Fine, fine. Point taken. I still say it looks ugly. Titus, sure. But Belmont's Revenge didn't need it -- the sprites would have been better off not blending into the background. I still say it's ugly in most cases. And a pain in the patoot when trying to recolor. T_T

[Stirred Drei Ling]

Stop being a lazy little kid and realize they weren't made for recolouring, you should sprite your own work. Also its your opinion that it was ugly, and honestly those sprites are actually good.

And yes, context is indeed important.

[Neslug]

Recolouring tiny (grayscale) Gameboy sprites is like putting meatballs in your icecream. It just doesn't work.

[Gors]

But Belmont's Revenge didn't need it -- the sprites would have been better off not blending into the background.

If it wasn't needed, then the graphic designers wouldn't do that.

Since they're 4-color sprites, you need to make them readable. This is when anti-alias comes in handy: with a lighter outline, you can see the sprites in any background.

Also why'd you recolor sprites?

[Cobalt Blue]

waaa why wouldnt they let me recolor them waaaa

[Maneko]

Well, even if recolored, these sprites would look bad anyways- just remember the Super Game Boy's "recoloring" option and the epic disasters it used to cause.
Personally I like these black and white sprites, since it shows us how the original designers could do more with less.

[D.moffett1990]

it really wasnt tht hard to take the out line off
but ive never played this game so idk wat they are suppost to look like :/
mabey now you can try to recolor them ....

[TheouAegis]

Also why'd you recolor sprites?

Because the Gameboy Castlevania games had some cool enemies not found in the NES Castlevanias. And except for the occasional 4th shade, a lot of them used three shades like the NES's sprites. When a 4th shade is used, I just edit it out with one of the other three shades, depending on the sprite. And when I rip my own sprites, I'm always worried I accidentally included some miscellaneous artifacts (even if that's impossible with a tile sheet), and AAed sprites confused it even more.

Again, in Belmont's Revenge, most of the time you didn't need AA because the backgrounds were pale or non-existent, while the sprites typically used the darker three shades. They would have looked crisp and clear, not muddled.

Compare these to how the Dulluahan and druid thingy appear in Gameboy Color/Super Gameboy. See how much nicer it looks without AA? They're even compatible with the NES. (Both are edits, btw)

[Cobalt Blue]

i have one word for you: context

i need to remark this part.