64k Hearts ought to be enough for anyone...
... in the scene, right?
How it started
I've fumbled with ECM before (Ceci n'est pas PETSCII and Covered in ECM) but those had custom chars and thus are not PETSCII in my eyes. ECM's additional colors come at a price, a limited CharSet and at that point in time was just too limited for me to come up with something.
After having sent a MultiColor PETSCII to a compo (Hyperdrive Monkey), I thought I'd give ECM PETSCII another go. There must be something in there that should result in a sharable pic, right?
Funnily enough, this pic was one of the, if not the fasted pic that I've created so far. About half an hour for the first iteration and an hour or so for tweaking, but as always, when you're in the flow, you're in the flow.
Anyway, main goal was to come up with something for Syntax 2024. The obvious thing would be doing an Austria/Australia joke, but then again that's an old hat and I'm not even sure if this kind of joke is a thing in Australia. But it was a starting point and my triggered brain made the following jumps:
- let's keep Austria in it by using red/white
- let's send greetings from Austria to Australia
- let's send those greetings via baloon
- let's send a red, heart shaped baloon!
And here's what my first pic ended up looking like.
Due to the red/white combo, the colors for mixing — and thus the ECM bg colors — were rather obvious with red, light red and white. Using = and - for blending worked like a charm too. Further, I kept the blue and light blue as a backdrop, which BTW is the default setting when starting a new pic in PETSCII Editor. It contrasts red/white fantastically too.
Due to my lunch break ending, I had to stop working on this first iteration. The white highlights would definitely need more tweaks as well as the overall shape of the baloon. The string was a placeholder too and maybe I'll manage to add a little greetings-note to it, but those are all ideas that I'm gonna deal with in the evening hours.
Back at home, I'm booting up the pic, still liking its look, and that's when it hit me. I don't need to attach a note to the string, let's just write something onto the baloon itself and thus, F4CG was added turning it into a "F4CG send's out greeting to the scene" thingy.
The whole image is differing so much from my previous pics that it's a real joy not having to consider outlines and/or hard edges. There's no need for a clever font either and it's the first time, that a picture kept its everything goes attitude from the first scribble thoughout its whole journey and funnily enough, it worked.
Just some tweaks here and there and that's all I wanted to add. Don't overthink it.
BTW, the "basic text" was a no-brainer and worked right away. The only bummer is that I couldn't add a cursor, but LOVE: is an OKish replacement for that.
Conclusion
Well, maybe it's the summer heat or pure luck, but I think it's the first pic that was kind-of channeled instead of made. It wanted to be out there, it's reflecting my current state towards the scene perfectly which might explain it a bit. It's awesome to be part of it.
That sounds more emotional than I usually am, so it's definitely the heat. Frikking record temperatures of August 2024 in Vienna.
Post release notes
I've released it on CSDb as Graphics (PETSCII) with a production note to make clear that it's PETSCII but with a twist. To me, PETSCII is defined by "unchanged CharSet used" and that's it. Funnily enough, despite the note, it didn't take long for a "That's not PETSCII"-comment to pop up nonetheless 😂
What's CSDb thinking about it
(14.08.2024)
Sorry for asking, but i see more than one background color, not? :)
(14.08.2024)
<3
(14.08.2024)
Great work again and again!
(14.08.2024)
Really cool!
(14.08.2024)
screams for being animated!
anyway, nice one!
(14.08.2024)
Another lovely piece.
And I like the details on the text.
(14.08.2024)
Great !
(14.08.2024)
Very cool!
@Shine Jep, standard CharSet but I've flipped the ECM switch on