[CF List] Re: png images

[Jonathan Taporg]

Mark Wedel wrote:

>
     
      > Clearly, I'm biased on the subject, because I prefer
     
     >
     
      > to draw without color restrictions.  And while it may
     
     >
     
      > take more skill to do a good job on low-color image,
     
     >
     
      > I believe that well-done high color images can look
     
     >
     
      > noticably better than ones with the existing colorset.
     
     >
     
     
     >
     
      Certainly it is easier to do anything if there is no restrictions. 
     
     
Well, I think the reason is better than just removing restrictions.
My personal style, for instance, would have me drawing the images  
in highcolor regardless, and if necessary, quantizing to a palette.
But furthermore, I do believe that, insofar as visual appeal is
relevant, highcolor images on average look better than 8 bit images.
For me, at least, the difference is perceptible.

Anyways, I've done some experimenting, with the following results:
     
     ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/crossfire/incoming/images.png
     
     
In the image above, the first column contains the original highcolor
tiles.  The second column contains tiles quantized to the crossfire
palette that you've provided.  The third column is quantized to
3/3/2 RGB, logarithmically allocated, and the fourth column is also
3/3/2 RGB, but linearly allocated.  Some of the tiles have "holes"
in them, but that's only because the quantizing program mistakenly
quantized to the transparent color, so I wouldn't worry about it.

Anyways, I think the linear 3/3/2 is garbage compared to the others,
So I won't even bother considering it.  Both the crossfire palette
and
the logarithmic 3/3/2 are fine on some images, but they have problems
with others.  The crossfire palette, for instance does a poor job of
the mage's purple, as well as the dark browns of the viking's shield.

The logarithmic palette has problems with blues and bright greens,
which I suppose is no surprise given only four levels of blue.

>
     
      But my own feeling is that why break something that doesn't need 
     
     >
     
      to be broken.
     
     
I'd like to clarify what exactly would get broken here.  First of
all,
I'm assuming that the server is independent of color depth color,
because it would simply be silly otherwise.  Also, in my cursory
examination of the client code (at least the gtk version), it didn't
seem that anything within the code would limit the display to
being 8 bit.  Thus, if I am not mistaken, the only thing that would
be broken by the inclusion of full-color images would be the
platforms that run on 8-bit displays, correct?  And even in cases
where the display is 8-bit, the program would still function,
although
the images with extra color would be quantized to the local palette,
right?  Which, if necessary, could be set early if the server were
to send a pixmap containing its ideal colorset early on...

>
     
      Someone actually mentioned that he thought it 
     
     >
     
      worked better for the images to be a little more iconic than photo
     
     >
     
      realistic.
     
     

This I can understand, based on the idea that if the majority of the
tileset is semi-realistic, it becomes easier to notice the tiles
that are inconsistant.  But then, given that part of the tileset
has already been made semi-realistic, and that good photo realism
isn't likely at 32x32 no matter how many colors are allowed, I'd
say that it's a moot point.

>
     
      And I think most people will agree that even with the
     
     >
     
      limited color set used for the png's, they still look very
     
     >
     
      nice.
     
     
No disagreement here.  And I think that you'll notice in the
test image listed above, some of the tiles look pretty much the
same  when quantized down.  However, some of them don't.  And I'm
not sure that it's reasonable for artists to always have to check
if the color scheme that they want to use is well developed.

To take the argument a step further, I think it's necessary for the
default palette to do a good job with common stuff, such as walls,
characters, and common monsters, which I think it does.  Beyond that,
however, I would also say it seems acceptable if an artist is to make
a more exotic monster look good on a full color display, and for
users with 8 bit displays to see a quantized version which is
"good enough".

-j




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