Images, was Re: [CF-Devel] And almost a year later...
Michael Toennies
michael.toennies at nord-com.net
Wed Mar 7 09:50:52 CST 2001
Hi
Well, as i read the last mails about png and iso gfx, i notice
that many people means the same - but the discussion goes often wrong.
Thats why some people mix the artist style of the png set with the technical
reason why we change to png (and what the png can do for us).
So again: A png structure is a modern picture format with many many more
features
then xpm (real palettes, alpha maps, native true color bitmaps, packed pixel
data, etc.).
In fact, all what xpm can do, can also a png in better way. Dot.
So, there is no "pngs looks bader" only a "the current pngs looks bader -
lets redraw them" - in fact
thats what we just right now are doing! Saying, "because they look bader as
some xpm yet, we drop
pngs and stand to xpms forever" is not so clever in my opinion. Really, no
one will start to be
inpotent or incontinent because he play some time with a gfx set in work.
Simply look at them,
tell the people what you don't like and wait for a better one. Thats how ALL
work works.
In fact we need YOUR help to drop the parts we don't want. Or do you think,
some slave sits on the
whole png set and works them over until you are happy and give your go to
include it at once?
Notice that some people from the dev team had give some much time to work
the pngs set out.
Even the performance question is not as many expect, because parsing text
files (xpms) into pixel map
is not very speedy. Pngs has more data overhead, but it stores the data in
packed and/or more native formats. But thats only some of the technical
parts, where i don't want talk about.
Who is interested in it, should read in the net about it, there are tons of
infos out about
different file & gfx formats and what they can do or not.
There are 2 "artist" problems with the current png set.
First, the iso style gfx some parts of the png set use, is bad and don't
follows the style rules
"real" iso gfx use. Many non commercial games (and even commercial games)
use false iso style gfx -
they had not understand what iso game gfx is. My mail, i posted some weeks
ago and now attached under this
text explained the way iso game gfx works. And why ISO GAME gfx is something
different than ISO GFX
(notice the missing GAME in iso gfx).
ISO game gfx is a very special way you fool eyes with faked object and
perspectives - which normally don't
fit together but do it in a some special situations. The text after this
mail decribed the main parts of
this trick.
And i show, why our png iso style is not what some expecet. In fact, in the
demo pictures i had done
you will see how worse they look when you include them in real iso game gfx.
But what is then our png iso style we have? It is nothing more than a drawn
3D perspective. When you
use circle and calculator you should be able to wrote down the x/y/z values
of it. That means also,
that the iso style don't use any eye tricks or something.
And because you use then all times the same object size, you a bad image -
the eye notice the 3d style
but also notice it that object near to you had the same size than away from
you - one point why the
iso png style always looks something flat ( i describe downwards which
tricks the real iso gfx use
to avoid this bad effect).
The 2nd artist problem is what a call the "brown ages". Like the Dreads, the
beholder and many items.
All container for example. The are brown in brown. Well, this is really not
a question of pngs. It
some problem the artist have with colors != brown - i had no idea why. :)
Well, simply lets change suckers. We talk about 30-50 tiles perhaps 75-100
when you count the multi
tiles but not more. Thats not the big part in a set of >3000.
In fact, this will change when you protest louf and kneel the artists to
draw a better one -
better than even the xpm one, because with news drawing tools, more desktop
colors and the png
format we can easily produce nicer gfx!
But for this, we had to HUGE and KISS the artist who perhaps will do it -
telling them, png is
bad, 4 color xmps are great, and please draw them in 3 sets, in 3 different
gfx formats,
in 3 different color formats - well, this will not give them the big orgasm,
belive me.
Art is not always better than sex.
Michael
Here is my old message with some demo pictures from real commercial iso game
style games.
Please notice that i wrote some times about 90° tiles, that a error of me,
its 45° of course,
sorry.
[snip)
Hi
I love this title - kick me for it.
Ok, i have read alot about iso gfx and iso style here
and i try to explain why things are different as some expect.
So, i make this mail and some demo gfx to SHOW you why things are
different as we do it in CF and why the CF png iso style is nonsense.
1. What is ISO gfx?
ISO gfx is NOT a 3D gfx. It is not drawn 3D perspective.
ISO style gfx is a eye trick. A way to fool yours eyes.
You THINK you see a natural perspective gfx - in real its a big fake.
It uses gfx tricks to fool you and tricks to make drawing gfx simple.
I will show you the interesting tricks.
2. Diablo and Age of Empire
Diablo and Age of Empire use both rectangle gfx turned for 90°.
This is only a way to attach in a easy way the tiles - i will show you
later why we don't need it.
Diablo 2 use not real ISO tile gfx. It uses "ISO parts", big rendered parts
which gets connected to a big picture. But int the core it is the same as
Age of Empire.
Age of Empires is one of the most sofisticated ISO bitmap tile engine which
is on market.
It has a map editor and i will show you the examples with it.
3. What ISO style bitmaps use?
a.) *nearly* FLAT BITMAP Objects!
b.) On all positions of a map objects of same *size*
c.) background gfx who fool the eye to think you see a perpective
d.) hidden "eye lines" in all object to fool your eyes to the perspective.
This brings me to the first big point:
The artist who native draw the CF png set don't know what iso style gfx are
and how it
works!
** We have NOT iso gfx in the png set - we have a bad frozen 3D gfx in it
!!**
Let me show you first picture (gfx from age of empire! microsoft copyright,
so beware)
This is simple grass with a few fighters.
http://mids.student.utwente.nl/~michtoen/isodemo/demo1.png
As you can see, the 2 figures going the the right - THEY ARE *nearly* FLAT!!
The guy above is also flat, but the gfx has a animation on it, which turn
the figure
looking left to right. but the figure IS FLAT. The figure is drawn 'inside'
as a object
which look like propotions - thats all.
All figures are drawn flat from front!!
But as you can see, the pictures *without* any objects look real good - look
NOT flat.
why? Well, i will show you.
But first the funny part: Look this ...
http://mids.student.utwente.nl/~michtoen/isodemo/demo2.png
Grin. Thats our ninja png ....
Now look at it. THATS WHY OUR PNG pictures are NOT iso style gfx...
Its a broken 3D gfx...
Why artist don't use this? Why want the use the flat one?
Because iso works with it! Because you can show more details! Because only
this
fools the eyes.
Now i include the pngs all people from you called "flat"...
http://mids.student.utwente.nl/~michtoen/isodemo/demo3.png
Hello? What is flat here? You see it? Welcome to ISO style gfx.
Our flat little suckers mutate to real 3d like iso orcs...
Ok. WHY?
4. Hidden perspective lines
The *trick* are hidden in the grass... There are structures and
*perspective*
lines in it, which let your eye see the "iso perspective*.
I had drawn lines in this picture to show you where they are...
* i had drawn the lines *more* turned to the perspektive, than the real
lines
in the grass structures are, so you will see difference easily **
http://mids.student.utwente.nl/~michtoen/isodemo/demo4.png
Thats all? thats real all?
Yes.
Thats the whole trick.
The point is - The background must look as ONE perpective object.
When this is not the case - things start looking strange.
A nice demo picture. All objects are ok here, but vertical line,
sitting in the middle breaks the eye perpective... not much, but
it look good as when you put your hand on it and shows at the left one part.
http://mids.student.utwente.nl/~michtoen/isodemo/demo5.png
This "hidden" perspective lines works also, when you had nearly vertical
structures.
At this demo picture, all things are slighty turned or not 100% vertical...
result...
See for yourself.
http://mids.student.utwente.nl/~michtoen/isodemo/demo6.png
Give the background a look. See you, how the hidden structures in the grass
give you the
3D perspektive look?
But in real, the non vertical structures gives you the iso look. This 90°
thing.
So without. LOOK AT THE BACKGROUND. There is the perspective, NOT in the
figure.
http://mids.student.utwente.nl/~michtoen/isodemo/demo7.png
Here with ...
http://mids.student.utwente.nl/~michtoen/isodemo/demo8.png
5. So whats the point?
a.) Our problem are the png iso gfx.
DELETE THEM.
b.) We need this kind of background structures.
c.) We don't need 90° tiles like in AoE or Diablo.
The structures can also in rectangle tile included.
Look at demo7.png... its a rectangle. You can cut this in 32x32 tiles.
What you need is a collection of parts where the hidden lines go on.
d.) Its only a task of map making
6.) Are there more tricks
Some. Most is to had "in the whole picture" the hidden lines.
Because the lines are 90° its easy to draw when tiles are 90° too -
but Diablo 2 for example use big rendered parts. Inside there are not 90°
tiles... Its just more native to do it, but we don't must.
7.) How we can do it
In fact for us is easier to draw rectangles... Simply draw the lines in
bigger pictures
and cut them out.
** Then use for maps bigger structures **
Don't include like we had done in old maps vertical lines of same tiles...
This destroys the iso perspective.
Look at the grass structures of the demo pictures, that gives you
imagination
how this bigger structures works.
Its easy! You don't need much tiles. Plus some masks we can easily include
because we
have multi tile maps...
8.) Use background / object layers.
We had some gfx- trees for example who had included backgrounds. This must
removed also,
because you start getting trouble with the background structures.
But thats always a sign of good map editors to have logical layers.
Its something we had included in CF long time - Simply we don't use it in
our tile set.
This must be changed.
9.) For fun: true high levels.
If you ever think how the fancy high levels in AoE or other games works:
here.
The trick is, when you got a tile between 2 high levels - make this tile
*longer* or shorter*
Means, when all tiles 32x32. Make in a high levels first step 32x32, next
step (thats goind down)
28x32 and the bottom tile (where you see much room) 36x32...
This goes with masks.
Now, when a object move in this, you had a speed x. 32/x are the pixels you
move every turn.
For the 28x32 tile is it 28/x ... means you can move faster (or slower when
calc it different).
Because you now have also a real *on the map existing* pixel difference, you
see in AoE the figures
really going high or down in the map... Because the tile SIZE is
different...
But thats only for fun, we want do this in CF before version 4.0 or so :)
http://mids.student.utwente.nl/~michtoen/isodemo/levels
10.) Whats now?
Ok, lets talk about. I hope i had cleared the things for you.
Our problem is the background and the maps, meaning the use of background
gfx in the maps.
Also, when we dont include rectangle houses/dungeons , we got it.
Its simple to add a 90° dungeons, with 90° walls... in fact, we can do it
with the set we have.
Michael
>
-----Original Message-----
>
From:
crossfire-devel-admin at lists.real-time.com
>
[mailto:
crossfire-devel-admin at lists.real-time.com
]On Behalf Of Tom
>
Barnes-Lawrence
>
Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2001 5:36 AM
>
To:
crossfire-devel at lists.real-time.com
>
Subject: Re: Images, was Re: [CF-Devel] And almost a year later...
>
>
>
>From: Mark Wedel <
mwedel at scruz.net
>
>
>Subject: Images, was Re: [CF-Devel] And almost a year later...
>
> Might as well have the subject represent what this is really >about.
>
>
Yeah, sorry, I already made another reply with that subject.
>
>
BTW I've been splitting my large emails into paragraphs, with line
>
breaks between in an attempt to make them more digetible, but when
>
the list sends me back copies, hotmail shows them in one huge block.
>
If anyone has been receiving them in similar form and finding
>
them hard to read that way, the list archive seems to show them
>
properly.
>
>
Also, I am making replies, and changing "to" field to the list
>
address, but those replies are not appearing to be part of the
>
same thread. Could this be the fault of hotmail, or am I doing
>
something wrong? Hotmail sucks....
>
>
> In terms of PNG - I think the big problem is with the isomorphic >
>
>monsters (and
>
>some of the scaled up xpm images). After MichT's mail on images and
>
>perspective, it became pretty apprantly that the isomorphic
>
>monsters are
>
>just
>
>wrong.
>
>
Part of my argument was that the monsters dont even need to
>
be in the same perspective as the walls, etc.; Strictly
>
speaking, it's the walls and buildings that *ought to* look wrong
>
in both tilesets- because they are angled to one side. But they
>
look right. They just scan properly. Ironically, making the
>
*monsters* angled that way in the PNGs should make everything look
>
better, due to it all fitting the same perspective that already
>
works for the walls, but it visibly doesn't.
>
>
I think our minds see the angled perspective as appropriate for
>
the nice (semi-)permanent buildings and surroundings, but the more
>
vertical, looking-me-in-the-eye perspective as appropriate for the
>
things running around in them. It makes no clear sense, but you
>
can't really argue with it. It would have all been different if
>
the tiles and view had been diamond shaped, but it must be *way*
>
too late for that (it did sound like MichT had been suggesting that
>
as a change)
>
My other problem was largely with the nasty looking colours, and
>
apparent lack of contrast in most of the PNGs I've seen.
>
>
>
> In terms of other images in the PNG set, are there other ones
>
>that are
>
>really bad?
>
Personally, I've only seen the screenshots of the PNG set,
>
so I prolly sound a bit stupid now- but I also found the cobble-
>
stone tiles in the zoo pretty awful. I couldn't tell if they
>
were scaled or new. I didn't like the grates either. They looked
>
kind of ill-defined, like all detail and contrast had been sucked
>
out. Is the PNG set currently only usable on the GTK and DX clients?
>
If the GTK one does need imlib, I wont touch it with a 50ft pole...
>
I may try the DX client on my windoze box tho.
>
>
>
>
> The idea of palletized images is that there is some number of
>
>pallets,
>
>so someplace, the server can say 'display image X using
>
>pallete Y'.
>
That sounds kind of like what I thought he meant.
>
> What I'm not sure is if pallete Y (or use of pallete Y) is
>
some >global
>
>pallete for all images, or if each image has some number of
>
>pallets.
>
I'm not sure either. I got the impression it was sort of a hybrid,
>
where the map had a palette of all colours it wanted (but I'm still
>
hoping only 256 in total...), but then all the images had their
>
own virtual palette which hooked into that so it all worked...:P
>
Actually, I'm not sure if what I've just said makes any sense,
>
or would be any more useful or possible, or anything much as
>
my brain is running down. I need sleep now. I also don't know
>
if what I'm referring to is what MichT was.
>
NO Actually, Im sure that's right, just badly described. I'll
>
have another look at that tomorrow, whilst I try to document my
>
old idea...
>
>
>
>Hopefully the later, as trying to deal with global palletes would
>
>seem to not really work very well (for example, change the green in
>
>the monster or orange via pallete may be cool, but you probably
>
>really don't want to change the green in the trees to
>
>orange for example)
>
I am currently unable to consider whether my interpretation avoids
>
that. I think that was an aspect of it, I just don't know whether
>
it works or is mad stupid crap from my tired brain :P
>
Yes, see above. I'm sure it does.Ish.
>
>
>
>In terms of code support, I would probably say that a hybridized
>
>naming scheme. So the the pallet could be denoted by %(pallet_num)
>
>-ie, instead of human.111, it would be human.111%5 for the 5'th
>
>pallete.
>
> Advantage of that is that if the image does not have a
>
pallete, >it could
>
>just use the default one.
>
I think maybe that approach sounds good.
>
Signing off for tonight, methinks
>
Tom Barnes-Lawrence (AKA Tomble)
>
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>
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