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Found a trick for making 90s style starfield backgrounds in paint
I was messing around on an old Windows 98 machine last weekend at a retro gaming meetup in Portland and this guy named Dave saw me struggling with a starfield animation in Netscape. He walked over and showed me how to do it manually by plotting coordinates on a grid in MS Paint, then saving as a bitmap. No scripts, no javascript, just pure manual pixel placement and he said "that's how we did it before you kids had libraries." I tried his method and it actually came out looking just like those old Geocities pages from 1997. The trick was using alternating patterns of white and light blue pixels to fake a twinkle effect. Has anyone else run into an old school trick like that from someone at a retro event?
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matthewg632mo ago
Whoa, hold on. Did you say he plotted coordinates on a GRID in MS Paint? That's insane. I mean, I've heard of people doing pixel art that way, but for a starfield animation that's a whole other level of patience. My hat's off to that Dave guy, seriously. That twinkle trick with the alternating white and light blue pixels is a slick detail too, never would have thought of that myself.
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