Mastertronic Retouch 2

Continuing the retouching theme from my previous blog post is another 'rescued' loading screen from my old tape archive.  Read the post 'Mastertronic Retouch 1' first to understand why these images were pixelled back in the 1980's.

After retouching the loading screens for 'Action Biker' and 'The Captive', it seems next on my list was 'Excaliba', also from Mastertronic.  I've screen grabbed both my 'retouch' as well as the original image and compiled them into an animated GIF below to easier see the changes.

Again, I would like to send an apology to whoever pixelled the original; modifying someone else's work is something I would never do today unless with express permission or by request.  As with previous attempts, 12-year-old me was continuing his experimentation with shading/dithering/antialiasing based on observations of images pixelled by Paul 'Dokk' Docherty and Robin Levy.

I seem to remember (as much as memory will allow) my main beef with the original (shading, or lack thereof aside) was the logo down the left hand side.  In no way did it resemble the logo on the Mastertronic box art in my posession.  This was the first thing I 'corrected', albeit in a vertical direction.  Once complete, I was satisfied that the new logo looked similar to the box art but was a little disappointed that the letters 'l' and 'i' looked a bit 'squiffy', even though I *knew* through magnification that they were 'centred' with the other letters.  Ho-hum.  It was my choice to do it vertical I suppose...

While attempting to copy the logo, I found there wasn't enough room so I had to shift the entire image a few chars to the right to make more room.  As a result of this slide to the right, there was no longer room on the far right to give the room a 3D look as per the original, so this was lost and replaced by an entirely 'flat' 2D wall.  The picture frame was adjusted to 2D to account for this and the footstool and box also had to go in the process, again lack of space.

While shifting everything right, I also took the opportunity to switch out the Mastertronic logo with my improved version.  It should be noted that all these movements and changes were only possible because of the tools built into and the overall 'power' of OCP's 'Advanced Art Studio'!

Other changes?  Well, I think all the shading, dithering and anti-aliasing of just about, er, everything is just about noticeable?!  I realised part the way through that this was turning out to be more than a retouch.  Of the original image, just about all that remained was the 'outline' shapes of the knight, goose and door; even the floor, wall stones and flaming torch were completely pixelled from scratch.

I've converted my 'rescued' final-version Art Studio file to the more commonly used Koala format.  In the download below is the bitmap in Koala format, the bitmap in C64 executable format and the screen dumps which are pictured above, along with the game box art.

To download a zip file containing all this, click here...

I have yet more C15's with some other bitmaps on them and will convert these in time.