GRAPHIC: Mizaq's Improved Wonder Screen Project (w/ Overlays!)

[godinex]

Can You edit the links? its only for download 1 or 2 zip files. Thanx, great work.

[Harlan]

Hi Mizaq,
Nice splashes. I'm glad to see my work hasn't gone totally unnoticed, and that you used some of the images from my website.

Complaining you don't have enough suggestions? I'll fix that!

One, what you have as the Oracle isn't actually the Oracle, but is probably a famous monastery on the island of Santorini (you can even see the Christian cross!). I have an artist's painting of what the real Oracle of Delphi looked like, based on all the historical evidence, though its unfortunately only at 160 by 120 pixels. It comes out pretty grainy when blown up to 320 by 320, which is why I didn't put it on my website. But you could give it a try, or get the original. I believe I scanned it from one of those Time Life books on world history. I forget the title, but all the books in the series are dark grey and each book covers about a hundred years or so (more in ancient times, less in recent). Most of them are in my local library, so they're probably in yours.

I don't get your Cure for Cancer image - bees and flower? Mines' better.

While your picture of Potala Palace is indeed great, I believe the Forbidden Palace wonder should have a pic of the Forbidden Palace for it. Potala Palace should be a wonder in its own right, for modpacks.

I'm also a big fan of color over black and white. I think you could definitely do better with Theory of Evolution, Military Academy, Intelligence Agency and Women's Sufferage for that reason. Howabout the famous image of apes walking then turning into men walking for Theory of Evolution? And I like my Pyramids and Art of War better! My Pyramids cos yours looks nearly black and white, and mine shows what it actually looked like back in the day, complete with Sphinx and golden tops on the pyramids.

Playhouse is too dark. Some tweaking in a graphics program could increase the visibility.

Here's the images I have on my website by the way (for those who don't know):

http://apolyton.net/haven/webshots.html

http://apolyton.net/haven/webshots2.html

http://apolyton.net/haven/webshots3.html

http://apolyton.net/haven/webshots4.html

Later today I'll zip them up and give a link to that to make them easier for people to get.

I have some more images I should put up as well. Amongst them are better Lighthouse and Colossus images (the Colossus didn't actually straddle over the harbor so ships could pass through its legs).

[Harlan]

Ooh! Ooh! I just found a real cool Oracle picture that's almost as good as the one that's too small. Praises to Google Image search.

[Harlan]

Okay,
I now have zip files of all the splash images from my site plus some new ones I dug up. I tried putting them up on my site but encountered problems (Markos - help!). If anyone has any suggestions on how I can post them, or has a place to put them, let me know and I'll email them (warning- they're 3 files of almost 2 mgs each).

[Mizaq]

Harlan, civfanatics has a file server that will accept 3mb files. BTW, I put Haven in the bottom right corner of the pics I got from your site because I didn't realize your screenname was Harlan (I apologize for paying attention when I read your front page, it's right there in the first paragraph now that I go look again).

Also, you can find my complete set of wonder splashes from here on the CivFan server.

The Cure for Cancer pic is an X-Files reference. I searched for a couple hours for a better pyramids pic, and that was my favorite by a narrow margin. Later on I'll post the others I found. Finding a good pic of the pyramids is a real pain in the butt. The Intelligence Agency pic is actually from a movie poster for one of the earliest ever spy movies. That was the best image I could find to show Women's Suffrage, I'm not sure what would qualify as a better choice. I believe I was originally using your pyramids pic until I found one I liked more and put it into the collection.

[Harlan]

Okay then,
Until I solve my webpage problem I put the zips on that server. You can get them here:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads/wonder_graphics.zip

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads/wonder_graphics2.zip

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads/improvement_graphics.zip

Also, since you mentioned you couldn't find good Women's Suffrage, I've found a color one. I was a bit surprised actually, given it was before the color photograph era and this appears to be a color picture and not a painting. Maybe its colorized? When did color pictures begin, anyways?

I also came up with a good Darwin pic while I was at it, to show what I'm talking about. Its a bit grainy - I'm sure there are better versions of this super famous illustration. I only noticed now that the official Civ3 image for this wonder also uses this illustration, but in a very dorky way (their working mode seemed to be, when you can't think of an image for something, put a symbol on a pedestal, and pretend its a famous statue).

I'm sure you can find good color Military Academy (any random West Point or Annapolis pic will do) or Intelligence Agency (James Bond, if desperate, though it should be a building after all) pics, so I won't bother with those.

Those two can be found at:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads/evolution.jpg

and

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads/suffrage2.jpg

And an X-Files reference? Ugh. I hate that show. Most people will be scratching their heads on that one. The one in my zip is at least easily understandable.

I couldn't find the good Lighthouse pic on my harddrive, but there are some other good ones in the zip you might want to use, including Magellans and Pyramids (this Magellan shows the types of ships he actually used, while yours is from a later time. Also, most of his journey was in multiple ships, though only one made it home and without him on it).

I also just now fixed the Colossus a bit, so that will have to wait for the next zip (looking at the Civ3 art made me realize the statue isn't the right color of weathered bronze).

I totally don't understand the whole .pcx color palatte thing, so all of these are .jpgs. If someone wants to convert them and post that, that would help me make this into a formal modpack of splash screens for mostly alternative wonders. I'd greatly appreciate it. Maybe that will help inspire people to make more mods using new wonders, cos I think there aren't enough in the standard game.

[Mizaq]

k, I'll take a look. I'm pretty busy lately, so it will probably take me until next weekend to get a look. Once you know what you are doing, it probably takes about 2 minutes on average to convert .jpg files into Civ3-usable .pcx files.

[Harlan]

Mizaq,
I think I've figured out the .pcx thing. Is the only special color to worry about the pink, or should I worry about the green as well? I see in your splashes you ignore the green. Do I even need to worry about the pink in wonder splashes?

[Mizaq]

what matters is that your transparent color is going to be whatever is the index number 255. I use paint shop pro for the palette editing so I just hit shift+p to open up the screen. I usually add the existing 255 to custom colors then replace it with pure purple. Then I used the color replacement tool to replace all the purple slotches that just appeared with a color that already exists. If there is no color close, do make something fit by subverting another color (remember you have the original saved in the custom color box in case you need it).

I use pure purple because it usually stands out from the pic. Whatever is transparent will show through as black, so if you already have 255 as black I suppose it wouldn't matter if you changed it or not (bad form IMO).

Crap you guys are killing me with the votes, why would so many people download it if they didn't like it? Vote you ghosts!

[Gramphos]

Could you add them all in one file and email them to me? Having 6+ files can't be fun for the downloaders.

[Mizaq]

Gramphos, if you click here you can download the complete set in one file from CivFanatics. If you look up a few posts I gave this link.

[Gramphos]

Well, I missed that one...

the Full thing

[lorddread]

Hey!

Originally posted by Mizaq
Ok, got tired of waiting so I just photoshopped the one Dixon posted. Here is the new Magellan's.

attached at the bottom is the pcx

I was just perusing your pictures and I realized this one was familiar. I have it hanging on my wall right behind me as an oil painting.


Do you have all of them in a set?

[lorddread]

Originally posted by Gramphos
Could you add them all in one file and email them to me? Having 6+ files can't be fun for the downloaders.

Did you ever gett all the files Mizaq created together in one place? I would like to download them, but I hate doing things piecemeal.

[Mizaq]

sorry I missed this one, but Gramphos gives a link to it in his last post. I also linked to it on another server.