Emulation of the CRT

Emulation is hard.

Obsolete media Vs. Modern Displays

The start of all my troubles: Also known as "Challenging myself"

The world is full of the sleekest newest things, and due to digitization they will remain "New" forever in one way or another. Though the late 90's and 2000 were a bridging point of analog and digital with vastly different technologies to view the digital content.mages and videos were mastered and viewed differently. I wanted to make these icons to call back to those times where the imperfections, conversations, and limitations impacted the style of images.

Step One: Drawing poorly on paper.

My first idea was to use this project to make Icons for a UI/UX interface. To constrain my ability to flat and more utilitarian icons.

One of the major considerations was for the icons to show status through a similarly shaped section on each icon where the colors would change according to their status.

This made a very bad original draft. Followed by many digital re-drawing and scraping phases.

Step 2: See step one but make it digital.

The original limitation was "Windows 95" and using the 16 color palette that windows machines could display over VGA connectors to a monitor.

This was a flawed concept, as due to using vector instead of pixel based art it inherited all the limitations but none of the charm. Not to mention that I had run into the problem of the icons not really resembling each other in the set due the breath of the "Computer Icon" idea.

Step Three: Back to the drawing board

In my pile of drawings for this project I had the idea of simulating 3d objects through "Cell Shading" leading to my second development draft.

There is no doubt this was a better idea, though I still kept the former limitations with the purpose of computer icons, and status colors. The modeling was alright but it was too, saturated and the angle of the icons were too steep.

It was clear after this section I had a good idea, but the limitations I set on the project and the purpose was holding back the quality and most importantly fun of the projects.

So I changed the focus from UI/UX to models of obsolete media types.

Now I needed a way to make the "3d" icons not appear so slick as I wanted to bring a retro feel to the project.

Step Four: Emulating CRT playing a VHS tape.

To emulate a CRT display is a complex art, it is extremely different to lcd displays. Not only that but there is differences even among CRT's and they age causing images to appear different over time.

In this icon set the make of the CRT's aperture grill and age matters less due to how color is processed in lcds and people tend not to hold CRT's color-shifting as something they liked in their childhood.

Nevertheless CRT emulation is important for certain media mastered for the display technology, such as pixel art games from the Sega-Genisis.

The main part of a CRT display that I am emulating is how they displayed the video. Mainly scan-lines, distortion due to horizontal scanning, and interlaced video.

T emulate the distortion that comes from horizontal scanning I cut the finished icon in a single location and shifted it to the side to simulate the image being re-drawn by the display. While the interlacing of the image and scan-lines are emulated by the white lines breaking up the icon.

The scan-lines were the hardest thing to get done as in software they would disappear and appear oddly depending on the zoom.

Both these images are the same with slightly different zoom, and the lines appear in different places and in some locations they disappear completely.

I think that my lines and shifting of the icons simulate the medium which I am trying to invoke of the old days of simple 3d objects from a Playstation 1 being displayed on a CRT TV.

Though these are just modifications on a crisp and less noisy icons. Though I think these have less character and are less interesting.