Conversion Settings

rez2ans — Conversion Settings Tab (User Docs) ⚙️🧠

This is the Conversion Settings tab — the place where you decide HOW rez2ans turns pixels into ANSI. If the Image Adjustments tab is “make the source look right,” then Conversion Settings is:

“Pick the rules of the game: palette, glyphs, dithering, and the overall vibe.”

You’ll spend most of your time here once you’ve got cropping working.

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What this tab controls (big picture)

Conversion Settings decides:

• Mode (hires / shades / hybrid / tronicshade / etc.)
• Palette behavior (ANSI16, hint-assisted, shader-assisted)
• Glyph set (blocks, shades, halfblocks, glyph-only, etc.)
• Dither / diffusion (how gradients are faked)
• Edge vs texture priorities (block thresholds, smoothing, settle/weight)

It’s basically the renderer’s “personality.”

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1) Mode (choose your weapon)

The Mode dropdown is the main switch that changes the whole pipeline. Common modes you’ll see:

• hires — sharp detail, more literal, more “pixel decisions”
• shades — driven by ░▒▓█ shading, chunkier, classic ANSI look
• hybrid — mix of detail + shading (often the best start)
• cartoon — bold simplification; great for flat art/logos
• colorbook — stylized color treatment; more “illustrative”
• glyphfit — tries harder to fit character shapes to texture/edges
• autoshader — shader-assisted stylizing
• tronicshade — style engine + settle passes; pack-ready texture
• ANSI Art Mode variants — ansiblocks / glyph-only paths

Mode picking cheat-sheet

• Photos: start hybrid, then try tronicshade
• Logos / line art: cartoon or shades
• Pixel art: ANSI Art Mode (ansiblocks-pixel)
• “Make it look like a pack”: tronicshade + shader/patchbook

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2) Palette / Color choices (the 16-color prison yard)

rez2ans outputs in ANSI 16 colors (CP437 + classic attrs). So palette handling is everything.

You’ll commonly see controls like:

Palette selector (or palette strategy)

Examples of behaviors you might have available:

• Plain ANSI16 mapping: nearest-match FG/BG
• Hint-assisted: your Color Hints push choices toward specific ANSI indices
• Shader-assisted: restricts or biases FG/BG combos based on shader pairs

When palette feels “wrong”

Try this order:

1. Lower Saturation slightly (Image Adjustments tab)
2. Use Color Hints for the problem colors
3. If available, use a Shader BIN/profile to restrict combos (more consistent)

Scene truth:

Most “bad ANSI” isn’t glyph choice — it’s palette mismatch + too much saturation.

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3) Glyph set (what characters are allowed)

Glyph set controls the alphabet the renderer is allowed to use. Common sets you’ll see in rez2ans-land:

• Blocks + halfblocks (█ ▀ ▄ ▌ ▐ etc.)
• Shades (░ ▒ ▓ █)
• Mixed (shades + blocks + halfblocks)
• Glyph-only (characters only; colors may be handled separately)
• Glyph-only (keep existing colors) (re-char without recolor)

Why glyph set matters

If your glyph set is too broad:

• you get weird “letter soup” textures
• edges become noisy

If your glyph set is too narrow:

• you lose detail
• gradients band

Practical picks:

• Want clean: shades/blocks only
• Want detail: hybrid/mixed glyphs
• Want pixel art: ansiblocks-pixel
• Want re-char an existing ANSI: glyph-only keep colors

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4) Dither / diffusion (fake colors like it’s 1996)

ANSI has limited colors, so the renderer uses dithering/diffusion to suggest extra tones.

You may see:

Dither amount / strength

• Low: cleaner, fewer artifacts, more banding
• High: smoother gradients, but more sparkle/noise

Ordered dither (Bayer)

• Bayer4: stronger grid texture (classic ANSI pattern)
• Bayer8: smoother, less obvious pattern

Dither troubleshooting

• Banding in skies/gradients → increase dither a bit or use Bayer8
• Salt & pepper noise → reduce dither, or use ANSIrez/TronicShade settle

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5) Thresholds & weighting (edge vs mush decisions)

Depending on mode, you may see some of these:

Block threshold

How willing it is to use full blocks (█) / strong block coverage.

• Higher: cleaner chunky areas, more “toon poster”
• Lower: more halfblock/shade texture, more gritty

Shade / settle weight (TronicShade vibes)

How much refinement/coherence is applied after the initial solve.

• Higher: smoother, less shimmer, more “finished”
• Lower: raw texture, more noise but more bite

Edge keep / smear type settings (in TronicShade styles)

These are often inside style profiles, but they affect how edges survive vs smear into texture.

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6) Shader / Patchbook hooks (if present here)

Some builds place these controls partly under Conversion Settings:

Use shader (BIN/ANS)

Restricts or biases allowed FG/BG pairs and/or glyph-pair choices. Great for consistency across a pack.

Patchbook

A learned stash of “good decisions” from imported art. If empty, import shader/art first (or build with AnsiLab).

When you want “everything in this set matches”:

Shader + Patchbook + TronicShade = consistency cannon.

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Suggested starter settings (safe defaults)

A) Photo-ish (start here)

• Mode: hybrid
• Glyph set: mixed shades/blocks
• Dither: moderate
• If noisy: enable settle/ANSIrez/median passes

B) Clean poster / logo

• Mode: cartoon or shades
• Glyph set: shades + blocks (avoid letters)
• Dither: low
• Block threshold: higher

C) Gritty pack texture

• Mode: tronicshade
• Use style/shader if available
• Dither/diffusion: medium-high
• Shade/settle weight: medium-high

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Mini “render ritual” (works every time)

1. Pick Mode
2. Pick Glyph set
3. Set Dither just enough to kill banding
4. Render (F12)
5. If colors are wrong → hints/shader/saturation
6. If texture is wrong → block threshold / weight / settle

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If you tell me your target vibe (clean toon / gritty halfblock / photo smooth), I’ll write a one-screen preset recipe for Conversion Settings that matches it.