SpriteDX - Pixel Alignment - Existing Solutions

Continuing from https://blog.sprited.app/spritedx-pixel-alignment-ideation, today, we will look into existing solutions.

Resource

Baseline

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Pixel Perfect AI Art Converter

https://github.com/nygaard91/Pixel-Perfect-AI-Art-Converter

It provides approximation of pixel art with hard edges, but it is not something that human would have created.

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Manual Line Cleanup

I tried doing this manually by downscaling (bilinear) then doing a manual cleanup of outlines.

It provides best results but still mushi.

I can also try doing cleanup in non-outline regions, but it is painstaking process.

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ML Model

One Idea: From dataset of real pixel arts, produce fake upscaled ones, then try to learn a ML model to undo that.

We will investigate in another blog post later.

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Scenario Pixelate

https://app.scenario.com/pixelate

This produces blurry image.

It does also support background removal. However, the background removal ends up creating very thick outlines for some reason.

So far though, the quality of this background removed version seems rather promising.

If you look at the hand, we can clearly tell apart fingers which is not the case in other options.

If we can solve the thick outline problem, this may provide a valid solution.

I tried removing 1 pixel thick outer outline. It is still not really what I need.

PixelOver

https://pixelover.io/

I wasn’t able to get this working properly on my device. So skipping it for now.

Pixel Art Villiage

https://pixelartvillage.com/

It also creates blurry image.

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Next Steps

• Pixelate in Scenario was one of the best approaches, but it’s not exactly what I need.

• I will try to build a ML model for this pixelation operation.

— Sprited Dev 🌱