Inscriptions on the Greenhilt sword's hilt?

[mockingbyrd7]

Hey, I just noticed that in strip 476: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0476.html and every strip prior, the Greenhilt sword's hilt was just solid green. However, in strip 477: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0477.html it sure seems like there are tiny dark green lines on the hilt. I can't tell if it's just a cool art upgrade or runes or an inscription or what, but I don't know how to blow stuff up (as in enlarge it) so I was just curious what was up with the hilt. What do you think?

[Gavin Sage]

The pattern on the sword while in existence is random and different in every panel. This means its some kind of computer error (probably in compression) as opposed to an actual new way of doing art.

[DreadSpoon]

In explanation, the comics are GIF images, which are limited in the number of colors they can support. For comics with a lot of different colors, the imaging software will dither the colors. Dithering is when you take pixels of several colors and put them together. When viewed at a slight distance, they different colors blend together and look like the original intended color. The effect usually works better on a CRT than an LCD, as the pixels on CRTs are naturally blurry and you can't visibly see the clean pixel edges like you can on an LCD. The dithering will only happen in comics that have a lot of colors and go over the color limit of the GIF image format. More simply colored comics will not have as much dithering, likely none at all.

In some of the other comics, Roy's face has quite noticeable dithering, making him look like he has a rash or something.

It's not a compression thing, as GIF compression is lossless. It doesn't introduce errors into the image. JPEG is lossy, but most other common image formats are not.

[Demented]

Random and different? Just being rotated could make it vary that much.

In any case, it's just an effect called "dither". Apparently, the comic had 1 color too many for GIF, and Giant's image program decided to pick on greenhilt. (Must be in style.)

Aw nerts, ninja'd by two minutes. I suck as a monster.

[Neek]

I believe it states, "If found, please mail to BOX #12, Cliffport."

Or what they said.

[Forealms]

Pssst!

"Mockingbyrd, it's an art upgrade, we're supposed to pretend we were always drawn that way."

[mockingbyrd7]

Ahhhh, I understand. In that case, there were a LOT of dithering problems with strip 105: the gate, Xykon's cape, the ghasts' armor, the female goblins' hair, Redcloak's cloak, the other goblin cleric's cloak, one of the female goblin's shield straps, V's hair, Durkon's beard, Elan's pants, Elan's lute, Roy's skin, Belkar's pants

(Did I miss anything?)

[Bocc Kob]

"Attack with other end"

[Demented]

(Did I miss anything?)

Probably. =P
But nobody'll count to make sure...

There's another example of dither here, in this strip. Of course, the colors aren't quite as varied, so it would have looked better anyway, but it's still worth mentioning that the Giant had 325 strips to tweak his dithering settings to make it an awesome looking strip.

[Pyro]

So while we're talking about dithering I'm wondering where those spots cleaned up for the print releases?