Good RLE programs?

In re-doing some of the graphics for Anathema, I discovered that the culprit of the jagged edges in some of the shäns was not low rendering quality; it was a product of the conversion into a rlëD using EnRLE. After converting the sprites, they would end up jagged and pixelated. So I used Mission Computer to do a few instead, which worked great in the conversion process. However, pasting in pasting the masks, they became fuzzy around the edges. Here are a few pictures for demonstration:

Mask in Graphic Converter:

Same mask, converted into a rlëD in MC 3.3.3:

This creates a very low-quality shän, as you can imagine. Here's a screenshot of what it looks like all put together:

Yuck. Not something I want to upload.

So, the crux of the issue is: has anybody had better luck with other RLE programs? As fuzzy as the screenshots are, they're much better than what was created by EnRLE, which had huge pixelation and a tendency for pieces to flit in and out of existence. I wish there were a way just to use PICTs, since they are much better looking. Oh well.

So yeah, anybody have any ideas?

And here I am thinking that MakeRLE is the greatest thing ever...

Hmm, what's never heard of that before.

Oh and while I'm here, is there any compelling reason to include both rlë8s as well as rlëDs? I know the data files do so, but what's the reason for including the extra 8-bit files?

http://www.galactics...page.php?page=5

That might be good.

SpinApp is actually just used to make the sprite and mask files, which I'm not having trouble with. What I need is a program that can take those and make them into high-quality RLE files.

Small update: Because the fuzziness on the ships is black, they actually look decent as long as they are not on top of a planet or another ship.

That mask is anti-aliased, and Nova doesn't support antialiased masks, so you'll have to make them as smooth as you can without antialiasing them, before putting them into Make RLE.

What Nil'kimas means is that the mask can only possess pixels in pure white or pure black, like the attachment. Grey pixels anywhere will mess with you.

I noticed something about the size... I don't think it should be 336 by 333, not for a thirty-six frame sprite.

(Edit) Attachment removed because this topic is resolved.

This post has been edited by Eugene Chin : 04 November 2007 - 10:50 PM

Well, it's obviously not a 36 frame sprite. I think the 3 pixels margin just came from a quick recut of a screenshot or something.

At any rate, it's the issue with small, narrow things. When it starts coming down to few pixels in size, there is not much you can do to smooth it. Personally, I think it looks fine. Sure maybe it looks a bit ugly while passing by a planet, but that's a minor thing.

Other than that... I dunno... smooth it by hand? That's what I do. Well, I do everything almost pixel per pixel by hand, but whatever. :rolleyes:

I'm sure there are tutorials around the dev corner somewhere which describe a number of different methods for creating good masks. Just using a magic wand to select the black won't work in situations where you have 'holes' in your ship. Or you could just ask Eugene how he made that one.

And no, you don't need to include rle8s.

As for rle programs, I recommend not using EnRLE as it can create sprites with problems. Use MakeRLE or if you need batch processing use orca's utility (just make sure you dither to 16-bit before using it).

This post has been edited by Guy : 26 September 2007 - 10:34 PM

Guess it makes sense that having anti-aliased or oversampled the file would screw with masking even if I'd flattened it to B&W beforehand.

I'll give that a shot. And, um, what's Orca's utility? Didn't see anything with that as the author in the utilities site.

(edit 2) Turning off oversampling and anti-aliasing actually did nothing. MC still makes fuzzy masks.

This post has been edited by Archon : 26 September 2007 - 11:56 PM

If anti-aliasing and oversampling make your sprite look better then do it. You can always create the mask separately.
Orca's utility is here. You won't see any difference in the output but you can read about the problem it avoids in that topic.

I actually stumbled across that (although I didn't look at the name of the author facedesk). Unfortunately, the link is pretty much thrashed. Couldn't find it on a web search or on the add-ons page. Anybody have one uploaded somewhere?

For now I'm just going with the MC RLEs, even though they're not perfect, they're much smoother.

MC's and orca's RLEs are as perfect as they get. What more do you want? We've already told you the problem is with the masks.
And the link is fine, just right-click and choose download. Remove the .txt extension from the downloaded file and you'll have a working .sitx file. (Note to orca: you can probably fix that by adding a mime type for sitx to your .htaccess. Or just use .zip)

I tried using MakeRLE on that mask and the results were as acceptable as any results I've gotten with my own work. Personally, I love MakeRLE and have never had any trouble with it. Maybe you are just unlucky....?

And only now does Archon realize that re-sizing in GraphicConverter yields gray frames from a formerly B&W image

embarrassed

That'd do it..... Don't worry about it. We all screw up sometimes.

The absence of support for greyscale masks is the principal weakness of the RLE format and, arguably, of EV Nova ’s graphical engine; if you give MissionComputer a greyscale image for the mask, it has no choice but to run a basic threshold operation and produce fuzzy results. Far better to create a good, black-and-white mask yourself, which MissionComputer can them reproduce pixel for pixel.

I’m exploring the possibility of having MissionComputer warn you if you supply a mask of the wrong depth.

It would be great if it could just treat all grey pixels as white.

It actually speeds things up a bit for me ironically. For the most part now I can just render mask images at their final size instead of doing 200x200 or 400x400s. Baring that, GC and Photoshop work fine.

It would be crazy cool if it could treat all non-black pixels as white. Then it would be great if they did the same for EVNEW Then I would hardly ever have to create a mask file, except for those that have pure black pixels.