I wrote a Raytracer for DOS, 16 VGA colors

Bisqwit's discussion of dithering is outstanding . He presents a very impressive algorithm for arbitrary-palette dithering that is animation safe . > This paper introduces a patent-free positional (ordered) dithering algorithm that is applicable for arbitrary palettes. Such dithering algorithm can be used to change truecolor animations into paletted ones, while maximally avoiding unintended jitter arising from dithering. He demonstrates it "live coding" style in this[1] video where he writes a demo in 256 colors of a "starfield" animation with color blending and Gaussian blur style bloom. The first animation at 6:33 using traditional ordered dithering has the usual annoying artifacts. The animation at 13:00 using an optimal palette and his "gamma-aware Knoll-Yliluom positional dithering" changed my understanding of what was possible with a 256 color palette. The animation even looks decent[2] dithered all the way down to a 16 color palette! If that wasn't crazy enough, he also "live codes" a raytracer[3] in DOS that "renders in 16-color VGA palette at 640x480 resolution." [1] link [2] link [3] ▶ this video

Agreed. My favourite programming YouTuber by a long stretch. If anyone is unfamiliar with him and wants to watch some of the "classics" I'd recommend these: His "cracking videogame passwords" series: link Creating a Doom-style 3D engine in C: link Creating a Rogue-like game in C++11: link Creating a PIC16 emulator and NES music player: link Creating a NES emulator: link Creating a DOS VGA raytracer: ▶ this video

Wow that's really cool. I liked the structure you added to the Martian landscape. It was funny to wake up and see this on HN, as I was watching something DOS and 3D-related on Bisqwit's channel last night. ▶ this video