Mosaicus
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Credits

Mosaicus stands on other people's work: the measurements of the C64's colors, well-known ways of dithering and scaling pixel art, open-source software, and, on this site, public-domain pictures.

Made by

Mosaicus is made by Brandon Staggs and published on Obliterator918.

Palettes

How the C64's 16 colors look depends on the machine and the screen. Mosaicus' built-in palettes come from two sets of measurements:

  • Colodore (2017): Pepto's later measurements, the default palette.
  • Pepto (PAL, 2001): Pepto's measurements of the VIC-II chip's colors. The 9 brightness levels of View ▸ Checks ▸ Luma levels (9) follow them too.

You can also load VICE's .vpl palette files. See Palettes and colors.

Fonts

The Text tool's two built-in fonts are Mosaicus' own: an 8 × 8 font in the C64's style and a 3 × 5 pixel font, both drawn for Mosaicus. Neither is taken from the C64's character ROM, and no Commodore ROM is included in Mosaicus. The other fonts the Text tool lists are the ones installed on your computer. See Text.

Methods

Some of what Mosaicus does is named after the people who found it:

  • RotSprite (Xenowhirl, 2007): turning pixel art at any angle while keeping its one-pixel lines clean, used for floating pieces (Moving and transforming).
  • Error diffusion dithers: Floyd–Steinberg, Atkinson, Sierra (three kinds), Jarvis–Judice–Ninke, Stucki and Burkes, each named after its authors (Dithering).
  • Ordered dithers: Bayer's matrices, laid out as in Thomas Knoll's pattern dithering.

Software

  • Rust, the language of Mosaicus' core, and open-source Rust libraries (crates) for reading and writing pictures, data files and fonts, for running work in parallel, and for the command line.
  • Tauri, which makes the desktop app, and React, which draws its interface.
  • VICE, the C64 emulator that Run ▸ In VICE uses. It isn't included: install it from vice-emu.sourceforge.io (Preferences).
  • Pagefind, the search on these help pages.

Pictures on this site

The screenshots and samples on this site are made from these public-domain pictures, from Wikimedia Commons:

  • Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675), c. 1665, in the Mauritshuis, The Hague. Public domain: the painter died in 1675, and a faithful photograph of a two-dimensional public-domain painting is public domain too.

  • The Great Wave off Kanagawa, from Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, by Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849), c. 1831, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Public domain: the artist died in 1849, and the print was published before 1931.

  • The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890), 1889, in the Museum of Modern Art, New York (the photograph is from the Google Art Project). Public domain: the painter died in 1890, and a faithful photograph of a two-dimensional public-domain painting is public domain too.

  • The Earth seen from Apollo 17 ("The Blue Marble"), by NASA and the Apollo 17 crew (taken by Harrison Schmitt or Ron Evans), 7 December 1972. Public domain: made by NASA, and works of the United States government aren't protected by copyright.

  • Buzz Aldrin on the Moon, by NASA, photographed by Neil Armstrong, 21 July 1969. Public domain: made by NASA, as above.

  • The Rhinoceros, a woodcut by Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528), 1515. Public domain: the artist died in 1528.

  • Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), c. 1503–1519, in the Louvre, Paris (the C2RMF's photograph). Public domain: the painter died in 1519, and a faithful photograph of a two-dimensional public-domain painting is public domain too.

  • Pillars of Creation, by NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), 2014. Public domain in the United States: made by NASA.

  • Among the Sierra Nevada, California by Albert Bierstadt (1830–1902), 1868 (the photograph is from the Google Art Project). Public domain: the painter died in 1902, and a faithful photograph of a two-dimensional public-domain painting is public domain too.

  • Fine Wind, Clear Morning ("Red Fuji"), from Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, by Katsushika Hokusai, c. 1830. Public domain: the artist died in 1849.

  • Wanderer above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840), c. 1817, in the Hamburger Kunsthalle. Public domain: the painter died in 1840, and a faithful photograph of a two-dimensional public-domain painting is public domain too.

  • Earthrise, by NASA, photographed by Bill Anders from Apollo 8, 24 December 1968. Public domain: made by NASA.

The file pages linked above give each picture's full source and license details.

The STRATE charset logo and the STR8 sprite logo on the Charset logo and Sprite sheet pages are from Obliterator918's own C64 productions.

The STAR RUNNER title screen on the Framing page was drawn for this site, and you may use it freely.