XBRZPXL.EXE
If you’re familiar with retro gaming, you might have seen some of the pixel scaling algorithms that have been invented over the past few years. It’s usually been used as a post-process effect, to upscale old images. But now Ben Porter has created a small paint program that lets you directly paint with the XBRZ algorithm, making a new kind of pixel art much easier to create.
It’s called XBRZPXL.EXE, and there’s already a lot of incredible artwork that’s been made with the program.
The controls are rudimentary, but there’s a few tricks. Pressing ESC fills the canvas with the current color. Right clicking on an antialiased pixel will pick up that color. Pressing S saves the current image to ‘image.png’ (and overwrites your previous saved image! Make sure you copy it if you want to keep it!)
XBRZPXL is a good example of how something that was previously an impersonal algorithm can eventually transition into being a controllable tool for artists to work with. Artificial intelligence doesn’t need to replace artists, it can give us new procedurally generated paint guns to use. Eventually, even complex algorithms like neural-doodle will be a part of many artists workflow.
The tools change, but the fundamentals don’t.
Have an image you’ve made with XBRZPXL, or some other procgen artistic tool? I’d like to see it!