WW2-1979 Graphics Showcase

[Jimmywax]

Re: Actually . . . . .

Originally posted by Exile
All you have to do is fiddle with them a bit. Re-size the rectangle and let my graphix prog take care of the details. I seem to recall that saving the image as a BMP solves the problem neatly.

And what program would that be specifically?

[Catfish]

Originally posted by curtsibling
Catfish, you are a graphic wizard, sir!

Not really. It turns out that this is a pretty well-known problem amongst web-designers.

Originally posted by fairline
Hopefully without the gamma correction problem.

Nope, still too dark. It's command line stuff here, not drag-and-drop (just in case ). By default PNGout uses the /k0 option which removes all unnecessary chunks – including the gAMA chunk responsible for gamma levels. You should have something like this:

pngout fairline_spotbollock_tanks.png fairline_spotbollock_tanks.png

This will overwrite the original one and wipe the gamma setting. It's the same for converting bitmaps. I'll attach a fixed version again.

Originally posted by jimmywax
And what program would that be specifically?

Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop should do nicely.

[fairline]

Originally posted by Catfish
Nope, still too dark. It's command line stuff here, not drag-and-drop (just in case ).

Ah, thanks Catfish - I did indeed just drop and drag the bmp onto pngout. Oops. Always pays to read the instructions first I suppose

Yes, those PNGs CAN be use with MGE. I've done it before now.

Phenix: The issue isn't whether you can use the png file - you certainly can if you load up the MGE 8-bit palette, tweak a few colours and cut and paste into a smaller MGE slot. The problem is png files appear much darker when posted onto a website when viewed with Internet Explorer, as Catfish explains above. If a viewer subsequently right-clicks and saves a png, he/she actually saves a darker version of the original graphics file. This is all made doubly confusing by the fact that the png file I originally create prior to posting has the correct brightness when I view it in psp....

BTW, I already made MGE conversions of these ToT gfx:

[Catfish]

Originally posted by fairline
Ah, thanks Catfish - I did indeed just drop and drag the bmp onto pngout. Oops. Always pays to read the instructions first I suppose

If you're allergic to command line programs you could try PNGGauntlet which incorporates PNGout. It uses a GUI. I've downloaded it, but yet to try it. Looks like it's got batch processing.

Originally posted by fairline
If a viewer subsequently right-clicks and saves a png, he/she actually saves a darker version of the original graphics file. This is all made doubly confusing by the fact that the png file I originally create prior to posting has the correct brightness when I view it in psp....

That's because you're downloading (edit: I meant copying. The original file is downloaded to the browser cache. You would then copy the messed up version from IE.) the abused altered version from the webpage.

BTW, I suspect Exile's talking about resizing the Ju-88 and B-25, but just in case...

BMP is the standard graphical format for ToT. The reason we're posting them as PNGs is file size. These PNGs are 24-bit, compressed (better than ZIP with PNGout) and lossless. BMPs are uncompressed and the file size is huge by comparison. The PNG icons can be pasted straight into a ToT units.bmp file. After you've loaded the Civ2 palette (for older versions) it doesn't matter whether you save it as a GIF or a BMP (except GIFs are much smaller uncompressed).

[Exile]

Thanks Cat. Now can you fix up the JU-88 and B-25 too?



About my graphix prog; No idea what its name is. I got it as part of my scanner package. There are no less than two other graphix progs on my comp. The original one that I used is a mystery. No idea where that one came from, but the third one came with a webcam package and its too cumbersome to use. It does bad things too. The scanner-package-graphix prog though, seems to do just about anything I need it to, although figuring out how to make it perform was a mystery at first.

You guys all know these minute details about your graphix progs and that's cool. I'm just shooting in the dark.

[Eivind IV]

Without permission I converted and resized these fantastic units to MGE compatibility. If you mind, Gareth, I'll remove them immediately.

[fairline]

Originally posted by Exile
Thanks Cat. Now can you fix up the JU-88 and B-25 too?

Phenix, I'm already working on reduced-size versions of the Ju-88 and B-25 for Curt - I'll be sure to send you copies when finished. It's not simply a case of size-reduction (about 85% of the original in this case, using pixel-resize rather than smart-resize ); there's a lot of post-reduction work to make the re-size look presentable.

[fairline]

Ah, posted before the page had loaded Eivind's resizes - they aint too bad, although they came out green when I loaded up the civ palette into the ToT originals. Did you use the ToT versions I posted as pngs without removing the gamma-correction feature? They look pretty dark (and brown ) so I'm guessing you did

[Eivind IV]

You got me there! And they do indeed look a bit brown. That damn "lesser-civ-version" (as you so eloquently put it ), -palette

Want me to remove them?

[curtsibling]

I stick to regular Bitmaps - And avoid all that PNG palaver!

Here is something from my current efforts -
A Gotha 229 fighter/bomber, tweaked from Fairline's B1 Spirit...

[Eivind IV]

Nice

[curtsibling]

And before I am asked to - Here is the MGE version too!

[Arthedain]

Very nice!

[Jimmywax]

@ catfish: Do you use PSP 8 to apply those textures? I have a copy of PSP 7 that is actually kind of a pain in the arse to use. I usually get frustrated and switch back to my old, old, old version of Adobe photoshop. I'm not sure if it is easier to use or if it just has fewer features to confuse me.

[Catfish]

Originally posted by Exile
Thanks Cat. Now can you fix up the JU-88 and B-25 too?

I could, but when you've got other people throwing themselves at you…

Originally posted by fairline
(about 85% of the original in this case, using pixel-resize rather than smart-resize )

Is that directed at me? Yes, smart-size uses anti-aliasing – not good at this scale.

Originally posted by curtsibling
I stick to regular Bitmaps - And avoid all that PNG palaver!

Who's the girly-man now? Try doing that with 40 of them. Nice unit BTW.

Originally posted by jimmywax
@ catfish: Do you use PSP 8 to apply those textures? I have a copy of PSP 7 that is actually kind of a pain in the arse to use. I usually get frustrated and switch back to my old, old, old version of Adobe photoshop. I'm not sure if it is easier to use or if it just has fewer features to confuse me.

PSP 8.10 to be exact (8.01 is quite buggy). Version 9 is out now, but I don't have it. The methods for applying textures are described in the Graphics Workshop thread. Basically, I paint/airbrush/retouch a greyscale version of the subject in layers with a variety of blend modes. I'm a bit vague on PSP 7, but I think it has primitive support for layers, but no scripting.