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Basicly, I've made several spins in pict format, 32 bit quality. When play EVO, the ship has... paler. It has dots and it's just not nearly as clear as it should be coming out.
I converted a PNG format movie sequence using GraphicConverter. I'm wondering if:
1. Could it be GraphicConverter that misconcieved it? 2. Should I save the picts in a lower quality level? 3. Should I save the sprites in a different format maybe?
All help would be much appreciated.
------------------ (url="http://"mailto:Jonathan@Woodburn.cc")mailto:Jonathan@Woodburn.cc(/url)Jonathan@Woodburn.cc
EVO only works in 256 colours. To get the best result, change the colour depth down in Graphic Converter to 256 colours on the system palette.
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And the colors aren't very accurate? the problem might be that EV(/O) uses 8-bit palette for colors, wich is far from adequate IMHO and makes the picture look grainy. possible fixes:
Try turning "dithering" off, it is what makes the pic look grainy. The downside is that you'll lose accuracy of the colors (dithering forms a color from multipe dots wich have the avarage color of the color you want, but wich isn't avaieble in the 8-bit palette.
Use colors like red and blue that can be presented acceptably even in the limited 8-bit mac standard palette. If you ask me, this was the reason why rebels are red and confeds blue... talkin of wich, greys are very much okay in 8-bits.
Hope that helps...
ComputerLizard
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Quote
Originally posted by ComputerLizard: **And the colors aren't very accurate? the problem might be that EV(/O) uses 8-bit palette for colors, wich is far from adequate IMHO and makes the picture look grainy. **
8-bit color was still pretty cool stuff in 1994 when I started writing EV. At any rate, EV Nova supports 16-bit color so you should be happy with it.
mcb
------------------ "If it's not on fire, it's a software problem."
Originally posted by mburch: **8-bit color was still pretty cool stuff in 1994 when I started writing EV. At any rate, EV Nova supports 16-bit color so you should be happy with it.:)
**
Why not also 32 bits?
------------------ -- Nikolaus Wegner
Originally posted by nwegner: **Why not also 32 bits?
Hmm... are you planning on using millions of colors in your sprites?
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I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!
With all of the work I've been doing for this one plug, it's become increasingly more evident that the EVO platform was not going to be enough (not to put it down, I still think it's a great game. :)).
Another question that's been plaguing me is, what exactly are the specs for Nova? It would be an incredible help if I could get my hands on the beta or, at least, a specifications list of window sizes, features, and other such variables of EV:Nova.
As it stands, we're making a plug for a yet to be released game which as I'm sure you can see, is a heavty predicament.
Until now, yes. I was. ------------------ (url="http://"mailto:Jonathan@Woodburn.cc")mailto:Jonathan@Woodburn.cc(/url)Jonathan@Woodburn.cc
Originally posted by Zeta: **I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!
Another question that's been plaguing me is, what exactly are the specs for Nova? It would be an incredible help if I could get my hands on the beta or, at least, a specifications list of window sizes, features, and other such variables of EV:Nova.**
Well, Nova hasn't hit beta yet, and the testers will be picked by ATMOS and Matt Burch. All the tech specs available so far should be available in the (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/webboard/Forum18/HTML/000007.html")progress log(/url).
Originally posted by nwegner: Why not also 32 bits?
Simple bit: If sprites were 32 bit the memory requirements would double.
Complicated bit: Memory - Ships need to be loaded into memory if you're using them, so do all weapons, and to avoid game lag while firing something, they get cached so everything is in memory.
Now, look at the memory usage. Take an 8x8 rocket. At 8 bits each sprite takes 888 bits of memory, 512 bits, 64 bytes. It has 36 frames, making a total of 2304 bytes, or 2.25KB. At 16 bits it grows to 8816*36, 4.5KB, at 32 bits it is 9KB.
In other words, it doubles the size when you increase from 8 to 16 and 16 to 32. Now, if I increase the same thing to a 16x16 pixel ship, at 8 bits it is 9KB, at 16 it is 18 and at 32 it is 36, for a 32x32, it is 36, 72 and 144 KB. A 4-fold increase each time. Now multiply that by the number of ships and weapons in EV, and you see why EV:N doesnt have 32 bit sprites.
Originally posted by blackhole: **Complicated bit: Memory - Ships need to be loaded into memory if you're using them, so do all weapons, and to avoid game lag while firing something, they get cached so everything is in memory.
This is also assuming your only using ONE color.
As soon as you use more then one your size grows a bit more exponentially as the bit depths go up.
------------------ "I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone." -Bill Cosby Star Trek Escape Velocity (url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/startrekev/")http://homepage.mac.com/startrekev/(/url)
Oh, one other thing that I'm surprised wasn't mentioned: a monitor only displays 24 bits. "32 bit" color just means that there is 8 bit transparancy: every color has eight levels of transparancy (I believe). When it's actually on-screen though, it just does calculations according to what's behind it to average it out and then display the averaged color from the 24 bit palette. Also, for sprites, images that are not very large, the difference between 16 bits and 24 bits is barely noticeable. Keep in mind that 16 bit color doesn't have twice as many colors: it has 256 times as many (8 bit: 256 colors, 16 bit: 65536). And for 32 bit color (which is possible) you'd need more processor power besides disk space, in order to display transparancies.
-I'm not an expert on this, and I'm tired. Feel free to correct me snooze
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Originally posted by blackhole: **
Simple bit: If sprites were 32 bit the memory requirements would double. **
Yes, I realize that. The reason 32bits are good is because of the better picture quality, and, on ati cards, there is little speed difference between 16 and 32 bits (at least in 3d). The memory usage is not that bad for high-end systems as well. If you want to run it on a lower-end system, all EVN would have to do is downsample (I have seen some pretty good VQ code to do this) images, which is fairly fast and commonly supported by graphics libraries. Lastly, there are compressed image formats (ping, etc.) that would cut down on hard-disk requirements. Ohh, and there are also VQ algorithms to compress images in such a way that decompression is faster than loading the uncompressed version.
But dont forget that EV is having to cope with alsorts of system, such as my computer that only has 2mb of VRAM, and downsampling takes runtime. It may not take long to downsample on a G4, but it will on those computers that need the downsampling.
I am not a computer game programming person, but I do know that the majority of sprite based games in existance operate on 16 bit colour. And dont forget that any special blitter effects will take longer on a higher bit depth sprite, it's a bigger file.
Lastly, EV:N is 16 bit in game because that's what was decided.
(quote)Originally posted by mburch: **8-bit color was still pretty cool stuff in 1994 when I started writing EV. At any rate, EV Nova supports 16-bit color so you should be happy with it.:) And with good skills and wise choises in colors one can achive results like the graphics in for example pale. I still admire the useage of 8-bit colors in that plug... EV's original graphics were cool too, but EV/O used colors that don't display too well in 8-bits and therefore sometimes looked worse than the graphics in the original EV.
And Matt, was i right abou the reason behind the colors red and blue?
------------------ **
After reviewing the progress log with many jaw dropping experiences, I realize I still need more info. The progress log only states what it update, and not the specific changes involved (such as landing picts sizes, how the engine glows and running lights work, etc).
Unfortunetly, I figure I'll have to wait until Nova is released before I can find out. :frown:
Therefore, is there anyway that if I made say 70% of a game for the EVO platform, that I could easily port it over to the Nova platform once it came out?
Oh please, Matt! Lend my your Alpha?
-Zeta
Originally posted by Zeta: Therefore, is there anyway that if I made say 70% of a game for the EVO platform, that I could easily port it over to the Nova platform once it came out?
I believe that R&R; are making a converter...
I believe the landing pictures and outfits, ship yards etc. are in millions o' colors, and yeah, the sprites are in thousands.
The difference between these 2 will not be expecially noticable in a game like EV:N, the only time when it is highly recognisable is recorded movies. Thousands make them look incredibly grainy. I think that thousands is a good compromise to allow more people than those with 40000000MB of RAM to play it . . .
- Squinky
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Originally posted by nwegner: 32bit sprites
lol! That's a joke right? Right? No? Hmmm. Dude, seriously. You can NOT tell the difference between 16 and 32 bit sprites. I promise. -david-
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Originally posted by Meowx Design: **lol! That's a joke right? Right? No? Hmmm. Dude, seriously. You can NOT tell the difference between 16 and 32 bit sprites. I promise. -david-
errrrrrrrr...
Yes you can. There is actually quite a noticeable difference between 16bit and 32bit...
But you do need a fairly good eye for it
It is just that the added colors don't make as much of a difference; like they do between 8 bit and 16 bit.
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