Posted by Dusty

A key point in "upscaling"(ps you're using the terms 8bit and 16bit incorrectly here. Xbit refers to the amount of colors in the image[or more accurately, the palette]. 1bit would be 2 colors, 2bit is 4colors, 4bit is 16 colors and so on. It has nothing to do with resolution) is to somewhat reinterpret what little visual information there is into something more detailed. But more importantly you have to maintain the readability of at least the original -- you don't want to LOSE readability. I fear what has happened here is that in the process up upscaling the image you didn't interpret the information that was there, and thus it's hard for us, the viewer, to process.

For example, say you have a very lower resolution sprite. Low resolutions mean low visual data to work with and more importantly a skewed sense of scale. A single pixel can be used to represent everything from an entire eye, to a leaf or a button. However, when you upscale suddenly that single pixel can now be scaled up to 2x2(or 4) pixels to work with. That single dot representing an eye can now be fleshed out to resemble a more detail eye. But if you take that single pixel that's supposed to be a leaf, and just upscale it as an even larger cluster, it starts to look less like a leaf and more like a cluster of pixels. The scale has thrown everything off.

This relates to your pillar mostly. While I can vaguely make out things like brick layouts and such, I have to put effort into trying to figure out what I'm looking at. Now, don't take that as "that doesn't look like a pillar!" but that even a slight microsecond of further evaluation of a graphic is a huge difference when you're playing a game -- graphic readability in a video game is of the upmost importance.

So ya, take a step back, look at what you're upscaling, interpret what the original pixels are trying to portray and approach it with that newfound knowledge. Is that pixel supposed to be a crack in the brick or is it just noise? These things make a huge difference in pixelart.