History Main / ConspicuouslyLightPatch

* The "different palette" version shows up a lot, albeit unplanned, when playing a monochrome UsefulNotes/GameBoy game on a UsefulNotes/GameBoyColor or UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance. Backgrounds are colored green and sprites are colored red. Fortunately, there's a couple different palettes you can choose when turning the game on that negate this effect.

** The UsefulNotes/{{Nintendo 64}} ''Zeldas'' are terrible about this. Most of the interiors and one very key town in ''Ocarina'' are created with a pre-rendered background, thus the interactive objects are very obviously polygons. ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask Majora's Mask]]'' is a little better about this, but still suffers from the limitations inherit in the console. (ONE rock is in this canyon, guess which one you have to bomb?)

** Want to know if a corpse in the UsefulNotes/PlayStation-era game is just a corpse or if it's going to bite your legs off as you walk past? Just check whether it's rendered like the background or like a character model. Smooth-shaded = dead dead, jagged polygons = zombie. Not nearly so easy in the UsefulNotes/GameCube remake, however. The increased render capabilities make the zombies blend in a lot better to the remade backgrounds. Occasionally the series will fake you out, though, with a polygonal body that ''doesn't'' get up and try to eat you.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'': In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX3sfoCARGs one scene]] when Jonathan is snooping around Charlotte's house, trying to find something to embarrass her with at the office, he comes across a shelf of home movies. On the tape that he takes, the label is a different shade of blue, and has different handwriting.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Dumbo}}'': In the "Baby Mine" scene, when we see the montage of baby animals and their mothers after Dumbo and Timothy visit Dumbo's mother still in the cage, a mother zebra actually has her head drawn on an individual cel while her body is drawn onto the background! (her colt is also drawn on an individual cel).

** While the characters' fairly straightforward animation is understandable in contrast to the sumptuously painted backgrounds, when something in the background needs animating, it can be rather jarring. The mud sloshing around the Brisby's house as they're trying to move it is particularly obvious.

'''Dean:''' No, that one. The one that isn't painted into the background of the car --''[coughs]'' -- library.

* A few ''Manga/{{Doraemon}}'' movies, especially from the older series, uses this trope every now and then.
** ''Anime/DoraemonNobitaAndTheTinLabyrinth'' has Gian avoiding the bombing of Hotel Burinkin from Napogistler's planes amidst a copse of palm trees, all but one in the foreground which are dark-coloured. Then, Gian decides to fight back by ripping out one of the trees as an improvised baseball bat - guess which one he rips out. Just guess.
** Appears again in the climax of ''Anime/DoraemonNobitaAndTheRobotKingdom'', when Nobita uses the Anything Controller on one of the robot colosseum's giant statues to improvise a giant mech and battle Dester. Those statues are mostly dark-colored, solid and blends with the background, and the one Nobita pilots quickly turns light and animated.

[[folder:Films — Animation]]

[[folder:Films — Live-Action]]

* ''Film/{{Flash Gordon|1980}}'' as a bit where, as a rocket travels forward entering the Imperial Vortex, this bright, transparent... thing moves behind it. Instead of moving steadily behind the rocket, it sort of jumps whenever the rocket's going to go past it.

* ''Film/{{Xanadu|1980}}'': Sonny gets gets a mystical aura [[spoiler:as he enters the muses' world]], as seen at the bottom of [[http://www.agonybooth.com/recaps/Xanadu.aspx?Page=6 this page]].

* Referenced in the ''Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse'' book ''[[Literature/PastDoctorAdventures Verdigris]]'', where Jo is asked:

* The anime ''Anime/BlueSeed'' has an {{omake}} sequence after one episode which parodies this; one character [[NoFourthWall stops and monologues]] on the properties of a set of desk drawers, noticing that one is drawn more simply and in a different palette -- therefore it must be the only one that moves, and contains the item he is looking for. In the same sequence, Matsudaira warns Kunikida not to step on a part of the cliff that is colored differently. Much to their surprise, the more complex part of the cliff collapses.

* Inverted in ''Anime/NausicaaOfTheValleyOfTheWind'', where the titanic Ohmu insects are made up of animated ''backgrounds''.

* ''Anime/PokemonJourneys'': Goh calls out his giant Golurk to help him dig for fossils. The Pokémon stretches and faces the background, where you can see a large boulder that's animated differently and ready to move, only seen for this scene. Golurk actually ignores this boulder completely to break open a regular-looking rock.
* {{Averted|Trope}} in ''Anime/SpiritedAway''; the art book points out that CG was used to animate the dishes when Chihiro's parents start nudging them around with their pig snouts.

[[folder:Films — Animation]]

* A few ''Manga/{{Doraemon}}'' movies, especially from the older series, uses this trope every now and then. For instance, ''Anime/DoraemonNobitaAndTheTinLabyrinth'' has Gian avoiding the bombing of Hotel Burinkin from Napogistler's planes amidst a copse of palm trees, all but one in the foreground which are dark-coloured. Then, Gian decides to fight back by ripping out one of the trees as an improvised baseball bat - guess which one he rips out. Just guess.

* Purposely avoided in the second episode of ''LightNovel/LoveChunibyoAndOtherDelusions'', a missing cat decorated like a chimaera is sitting on the shelf in a bedroom filled with the belongings of a {{chuunibyou}}. In the full-room shot the cat is purposely drawn like the background. However this is explainable since said animal doesn't move until the next shot.

* Near the end of World 8-3 of the original ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros'', if you look very closely at the last brick wall in the background (it's behind the last Hammer Bros. there) before the flagpole, you can easily tell that one of the bricks making up the wall contains coins. What makes this obvious is the fact that the coin brick has a thin white line drawn above. In the SNES remake however, that brick is completely visible all the time as those walls have been removed and placed in a different background.

** In the final mission of ''San Andreas'', "End of the Line", the player is required to ram through a fortified wall using a SWAT APC. The breakable segment of the wall has a noticeably light tinge to it[[note]]Due to how the building's lighting is [[http://www.gtagarage.com/mods/show.php?id=6052 baked during development]] but dynamic objects aren't.[[/note]], and its textures don't line up with the rest of the building. Same case with part of the bridge rail where Tenpenney's firetruck crashes through.

* On your first exploration through the [[GardenOfEvil Garden of Madness]] in ''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaChroniclesOfSorrow Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow]]'', you'll come across a tree that is, contrast to the dull browns and greens of its contemporaries, a striking shade of red. It's inevitably used during a crucial in-game event in which [[spoiler:somebody gets tied to said tree and shot dead]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'', as with many early {{FPS}}es, uses many Conspicuously Light Patches along with other texturing and lighting tricks, as they're often a clue to where a secret is, or where monsters will come from. In this case, they're put in deliberately to help the player rather than a side effect of graphical limitations; several commercial and fan-made levels do avert this, and it makes things exponentially more frustrating.

* ''VideoGame/{{Pokemon}}'':

* Later sequels would have your character [[NoticeThis turn to look at important items or openable doors]], but the first ''VideoGame/SilentHill1'' has no such gimmick, but also uses the same polygonal art style for all level geometry and interactive elements. Things you discover will get marked on your map, but for the most part you need to simply [[TryEverything try every door and check every object]] to make progress.

* Later sequels would have your character [[NoticeThis turn to look at important items or openable doors]], but ''VideoGame/SilentHill1'' uses the same polygonal art style for all level geometry and interactive elements. Things you discover will get marked on your map, but for the most part you need to simply [[TryEverything try every door and check every object]] to make progress.

* ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'', as with many early {{FPS}}es, uses many Conspicuously Light Patches along with other texturing and lighting tricks, as they're often a clue to where a secret is, or where monsters will come from.