Chapter 7 of Les Forges’ pixel-art course covers dithering and surface textures. It shows how interleaved few-color patterns fake gradients and optical mixes, when dithering helps or hurts, and common pattern types. It then breaks materials into surface pattern plus light response—wood, stone, marble, glass/water, clay, metals—and treats hair/fur via highlight clumps. It closes on using restraint so detail supports depth rather than noise.
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