X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: f996b,469880f98c02568e X-Google-Attributes: gidf996b,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1994-04-22 02:15:25 PST Path: gmd.de!nntp.gmd.de!newsserver.jvnc.net!news.cac.psu.edu!news.pop.psu.edu!psuvax1!psuvax1!flee From: flee@cse.psu.edu (Felix Lee) Newsgroups: alt.ascii-art Subject: Re: TALK: How To Draw Ascii Art. Date: 22 Apr 1994 09:15:25 GMT Organization: Penn State Comp Sci & Eng Lines: 47 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: dictionopolis.cse.psu.edu Row: >Here's something I've been working on for quite a while now. It's my >attempt at a "how to draw ascii art" FAQ, although in reality it's >just an analysis of my style, so isn't a "be all, end all". It was well done and very interesting. I've been thinking about something related: how to break down ascii art techniques in general. This is what I've come up with so far. There are two major divisions: Limitations and Possibilities. Limitations: L1. The grid. Since ascii text is confined to a grid, a lot of ascii art uses some sort of "pixellation" technique. The simplest version uses just one character, like X, as an "on" pixel, to make pictures similar to black-and-white bitmaps. Some of the snoopy pictures are like this. Other pictures, like many gif conversions, use several different characters to approximate grayscale. L2. The characters. The shape of the ascii characters is pretty fundamental to much ascii art. Small art in particular, like the smilies and most sig-sized art, relies heavily on this. Possibilities: P1. Thin lines. Thin lines are those drawn with | \ - / etc, anything with a width smaller than the grid width. P2. Thick lines and boundaries. These are lines that are thicker than the grid width, like 8888 or aaaa lines. This is also concerned with the shape of the boundary between filled and non-filled regions. "Anti-aliasing" like ,ad88ba, is one common technique. P3. Texture and shade. This is the use of patterns and non-patterns to fill regions and put tone in a picture. Hmm. A category like 3-d art doesn't belong anywhere in this. I think it probably belongs in a third major division, Forms. 3-d, cartoons, animation, etc, are different forms. And I guess this makes a type of hierarchy: forms are built on possibilities, possibilities are built on limitations. Does all this make sense? --