[CF-Devel] png<-> xpm 24<->32

[Michael Toennies]

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      -----Original Message-----
     
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      From: 
      
      crossfire-devel-admin at lists.real-time.com
      
      
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      [mailto:
      
      crossfire-devel-admin at lists.real-time.com
      
      ]On Behalf Of Mark
     
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      Wedel
     
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      Sent: Monday, November 06, 2000 5:29 AM
     
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      To: Michael Toennies
     
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      Cc: Crossfire-Devel
     
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      Subject: Re: [CF-Devel] png<-> xpm 24<->32
     
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       As a note, this can also be done in the server distribution -
     
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       If we can identify what png's are resized xpm's (and thus pretty
     
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      ugly),it is
     
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      easy enough to make non expanded (yet resized) png's in the
     
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      distribution that
     
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      look better.
     
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       What I mean is that you take the 24x24 xpm (which looks good),
     
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      and turn it into
     
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      a 32x32 png, with the 24x24 data centered (so you have 4 border
     
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      pixels).  Doing
     
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      this should be quite easy - just some pipes of data through the
     
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      pbm toolkit.
     
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       The problem is identifying the bad png's.
     
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       I will note there is a good many of png's that are 32x32 and
     
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      look really good -
     
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      David Sundqvist did some work on those.  It would be a shame to
     
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      lose those.
     
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       As a note, at least on the unix client, the image data the
     
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      server sends to the
     
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      client is only relevant in that the client can understand it and
     
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      make it some
     
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      form of drawable.  Whether it be png or xpm, what the client gets
     
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      a hold of it
     
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      and renders it, it all becomes and xpixmap no matter what the
     
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      original source.
     
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      So the idea of at least the unix client getting a xpm and
     
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      converting it to a png
     
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      makes no sense, so all it will do is take that png and convert it
     
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      to an xpixmap,
     
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      so why not do that with the xpm in the first place.
     
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       So to restate:
     
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       We need to identify what pngs images out there are scaled up
     
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      xpm's that would
     
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      look better as non scaled xpm's and make the change.
     
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       As for the perspective (iso) images:  Its a mixed bag - I agree
     
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      that for some
     
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      objects and monsters, the flatter representation would look
     
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      better, as it is
     
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      clearer.  But for some things, like buildings and walls and some
     
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      other objects,
     
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      I think the perspective view looks nicer.
     
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       The preferance probably depends a lot on the size of the image
     
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      (perspective on
     
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      single space objects doesn't work because generally it results in not much
     
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      visible area), and also how quickly you need to identify it.
     
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      Being able to
     
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      identify that the shop is a weapons vs armor shop in an instant isn't very
     
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      demanding, but being able to identify monsters quickly (say from a fairly
     
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      harmless one compared to a nasty spell caster) is pretty important.
     
     
For the iso images, i mainly mean the monsters like the guards... They look
cruel
and the colors are bad. The buildings/walls are ok, except the hidden walls
and
the doors/gates, which don't are set to left and right exactly to a wall (AV
wrotes
a mail about it some day ago).

There are also some ok looking 32x32 monsters like the cleaning woman, they
are old
style and looks good, perhaps they are from the 32x32 xpm set (which i never
see).

the xpm to png resize can be done for many items. Also can we eleminate some
of the
bad looking 32x32 pngs with it.

There are also some quick task, which should goes fast in the CVS.
What we MUST change are the skills scrolls fo example! They look exactly
like normal scrolls,
except 2-3 pixels. Also some other like the holder of arrows are from what i
call the "brown color"
set. They look all brown and i think the old xpms look some nicer, even if
they are smaller.

The nice thing is, that most rezist pictures are items and some buildings.

Because the monsters should more "in size" we should only resize the items.

Thats makes the whole task more easy to handle. Now we need a poor guys, who
goes through the items with a program and change the xpm to png of the bad
pictures. Who will ? :)

What we get should be a little "out of size" set, but it should look much
nice
and should be useful and playable until some guys redraw it.

I will make a mail with images which should be changed which should be
updated by you all.

Michael