Incredibly Screwy Tile Problems

I have a "screen" in my rpg where you can increase some skills and somesuch, which I've created using a map and four 400x400 pixel tiles to make up the interface background. (Buttons are stamp-based, and controlled via events.) My problem is that, while my buttons show up okay, the "ground" tiles are all garbled with colors and lines crud all over the screen. The game still works fine, but this garbledness is a problem. I've tried both the png and pict formats, making the names simpler - everything. In short, these tiles should work fine. My stamps work, so I don't think ignorance of proper settings in Photoshop is the explanation here.

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Well... how big are your tiles in the map? I mean the size you defined while creating the map itself? you asked for 400400 tiles? because if you put 400400 tiles where they are difined for 96*96 you'll definitely have a pbm... if the pbm is eslewhere, are you sure your tiles in pict format are 32000 color and not 16M?
if all thiis is ok then use a stamp for your tiles and leave the "ground" blank... (this shouldn't prevent the events to occure and the graphics should be better...)

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What is the ground tile size (you should have it set to whatever your tile size is, 400X400). Also, I don;t know anything about CS's tile system, but these tiles may be just too big. Make them smaller (default size is 96X96, so somewhere below 100 is good) and that might fix your problem (but first check if your ground tiles are set to the right size...

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Originally posted by LoneIgadzra:
My problem is that, while my buttons show up okay, the "ground" tiles are all garbled with colors and lines crud all over the screen.

That suggests to me that you're perhaps using 8-bit indexed color images by mistake. Double-check their color depth.

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Originally posted by Glenn:
That suggests to me that you're perhaps using 8-bit indexed color images by mistake. Double-check their color depth.

Yep, in my experience having the wrong color depth will result in some really funky colors being garbled in the display.

Open up the tiles in graphics converter and make sure they are 16-bit and 72ppi.

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FYI, I had an NPC which looked fine in the Coldstone display (I had taken an existing one and changed the clothes and hair style) but when I played the game, the NPC appeared as a rectangle with color dots all over it. I just went back and selected 16 bit color in Graphics Converter and my NPC came out just fine. I'm sure I was having the same problem as Lonelgadzra. Now we know. Thanks Glenn and Stark.

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Originally posted by Rubber Ducky:
FYI, I had an NPC which looked fine in the Coldstone display (I had taken an existing one and changed the clothes and hair style) but when I played the game, the NPC appeared as a rectangle with color dots all over it. I just went back and selected 16 bit color in Graphics Converter and my NPC came out just fine. I'm sure I was having the same problem as Lonelgadzra. Now we know. Thanks Glenn and Stark.

Yeah, that is a pet peeve of mine; the Coldstone display shows many formats that aren't supported just fine, yet in the game they goof up. I wish the two would use the same formats so that if something isn't going to work in the game, it won't work in the display either.

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How strange... all my PNGs have shown up garbled in the editor, but they display fine in-game. I guess the moral is that you can't trust the editor to be entirely accurate either way.

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Originally posted by Stark Bledfast:
**Yeah, that is a pet peeve of mine; the Coldstone display shows many formats that aren't supported just fine, yet in the game they goof up. I wish the two would use the same formats so that if something isn't going to work in the game, it won't work in the display either.

**

Yet another thing to blame on the decision to make the editor with RealBasic, I suspect.

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Quote

Originally posted by Glenn:
Yet another thing to blame on the decision to make the editor with RealBasic, I suspect.

You're probably right there.

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Originally posted by Glenn:
**That suggests to me that you're perhaps using 8-bit indexed color images by mistake. Double-check their color depth.

**

That's a problem? I was under the impression that low bit depth images, being what most games require, wouldn't matter to Coldstone. Knowing a thing or two about Coldstone, I did set the map up correctly - but even if I didn't, I think Coldstone would have scaled the tiles; I've accidentally chosen the wrong tile sizes before. In any event, I ran the images through ImageReady, and made them 8 bit pngs (to save on size you know), so I guess that's the explanation.

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Originally posted by LoneIgadzra:
That's a problem? I was under the impression that low bit depth images, being what most games require, wouldn't matter to Coldstone.

Back during the betas, Coldstone supported 8-bit color. Somewhere along the line (probably about the time they added in alpha-masking as a feature) that support disappeared. It certainly ought to be better documented, as you're by no means the first person to run into this particular "gotcha".

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Okay, my husband is trying to do a "this is what you see" screen between map boards. He's tried both 16-bit and true color settings in the Project>Game Options dialog>Misc tab, Game screen group. But what we're seeing looks more like 256 colors: lots of posterizing, with a definite stair-step gradient effect where there shouldn't be one. He's also tried beaucoup file formats, including picts... it doesn't seem to make a difference. Suggestions, anyone?
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Originally posted by Axe_at_the_PC:
...what we're seeing looks more like 256 colors: lots of posterizing, with a definite stair-step gradient effect where there shouldn't be one.

Something like this?

Posted Image

(from my not-so-frequently-updated Coldstone 1.0.1 "known issues" list at (url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/glennfield/ColdstoneBugs.html")http://homepage.mac....dstoneBugs.html(/url) )

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Sort of. I don't think we're getting even thousands of colors. The color steps are much more noticable than the ones in the image you showed. Some of the value differences we're seeing are as great as those between the grey and the black on this board, and it should be a smooth gradient.