Geneforged Graphics

[Ishad Nha]

The Geneforge graphics found on the Louvre site really look good. Unfortunately using the grass floor in a BoA scenario leads to white "snow" at the edge of the screen. This is only a problem with the Geneforge graphics, all other custom graphics work well. (When other custom graphics are at the edge of the screen the snow disappears.) I think this is due to the original Geneforge graphics being reduced in size. It was also a problem with other Geneforge graphics, like the hot pads on the floor. In the latter case I manually cleaned up the white border zone, that seemed to work. Has anyone else struck this problem?

 

While on the subject of graphics, how did Niemand do those boulders on his site? I tried the same thing with the grass and boulder graphics, turning one color transparent at a time. I used the Microsoft Photo Editor, the results were passable but not perfect.

[Ephesos]

Quote:

Originally written by Ishad Nha:
I think this is due to the original Geneforge graphics being reduced in size. It was also a problem with other Geneforge graphics, like the hot pads on the floor. In the latter case I manually cleaned up the white border zone, that seemed to work. Has anyone else struck this problem?

I think you're right, but I don't think it's a huge problem.

I've actually been considering trying to port some more Geneforge/A4 graphics to BoA lately, but it depends on my having free time, which I don't. But personally, I wouldn't bother cleaning up the edges... that's a lot of tiles, after all.

[Niemand]

The way I did the boulders was simple: Open up your graphics application, (these days I use a trial version of Acorn, but it's Mac only.) open up or paste in the sheet you want to edit, select the pencil tool and the color pure white (it must be exactly 255,255,255) and start coloring over the pixels you want to remove. It's tedious, but the only real way to do it. You could of course also use an eraser or paintbrush tool for large areas.

 

Concerning white snow: JPEG compression is commonly believed to be the cause. JPEGs use a method similar to Fourier series to compress the image data, as I understand it; this means that the exact colors of pixels may be altered slightly. The trouble is, BoA treats only pure white as transparent, so if some white pixel become slightly off-white, they suddenly show up when BoA draws the graphic. The moral: save images for use with BoA as GIFs or PNGs!

[Belial]

 

At least in Photoshop, the tool "Magic Wand" and it's sub-option "Tolerance" offer quite an easy way of getting rid of the compression-smudges. After the general selection, it's quick to just de-select the possible few lighter parts of the graphic which got selected by the wand, and then delete the rest.

[Ishad Nha]

The Geneforge problem was actually simple to understand and solve. I went into Windows Explorer and looked at the directory where the original jpg images were stored. Perusing the Size and Dimensions columns showed that most of the jpgs had a size (in bytes) slightly larger than the area (width x height) of the image. Hence they were 1 byte or 8 – bit images, whereas the images giving me all the “snow” I had saved as 24 – bit. Problem solved.

[nikki.]

Quote:

Originally written by Ephesos:
I've actually been considering trying to port some more Geneforge/A4 graphics to BoA lately, but it depends on my having free time, which I don't. But personally, I wouldn't bother cleaning up the edges... that's a lot of tiles, after all.

I have some creature graphics (mainly townspeople) from A4 and GF4, one of which I think is a Slith that Lazarus gave me, and some terrain (the spiral stairs spring to mind). I'll try and get some uploaded while I have some free time.

Edit: I may as well put these here...


(She appeared in TV.)


(This was ported by Lazarus (I think).)


(I'm sure these are available elsewhere, but I'm including them anyway.)


(Ported by Dikiyoba.)


(No caption for this one...)

For anybody wanting to port GF/A4 graphics, I think I tend to shrink them by 5-10%, that is, so that the graphic is 85-90% of the original.

[Ishad Nha]

Yes, the snow is RGB = 255,255,253 or some such combination. The snow can be removed in one hit by the use of a transparency function set to a color similarity of 1%. However Bitmaps don’t support the transparency function.

 

One option is to convert the jpg to a png, then reduce the resulting png from 24-bit to 8-bit. Reading the help file for the Microsoft Photo Editor: “PNG saves images as 8-bit or 24-bit images. In 24-bit images, PNG saves transparency in an alpha channel. In 8-bit images, PNG substitutes a transparent color on the palette.” What we want here is the transparency option not the alpha channel. Thus the trick is to go into File > Properties and choose “Palette or 256 color (8 bit)” type. Then save the file and exit the editor. Next open the file in Paint and save as 24 – bit Bitmap

 

Another option is to deal with the pixels individually; the file is left as 24-bit. What is really needed is a replace – one - color - with - another function. If the transparency function has the “Color similarity: Exact” setting, if 255,255,255 is deleted, a lot of the snow will then show up clearly. In the Editor you can’t delete near – transparent colors, but the information will be a guide in the Paint program where you can delete. Pixel view is 400%, there it only takes a few minutes to clean up one icon. You can use varying sizes of erasers, and a pencil if needs be.

 

As for deleting backgrounds from boulders, like the graphics for terrain types 128 thru 136, sometimes I am not too sure whether a given pixel is wanted or not.

[Niemand]

Yeah, when I was doing the boulder graphics, I started agonizing about whether each pixel was part of the boulder or the ground. After a little bit of that, I decided to just be aggressive with my erasing and see how it came out. The result looked ok, so I left it.

 

My preferred method for erasing snow is to open the graphic in a program that supports layers, place a magenta layer behind the graphic, then delete all white and off white pixels from the graphic layer. With the magenta background, remaining snow is easy to spot and eliminate. When finished, just use a fill tool to replace all transparent areas in the graphic layer with white and remove the magenta layer.

[Ishad Nha]

What we really need for things like the boulders is a graphics program that lets you see the same graphic at both 100% and 400%, at the same time. That way you can see immediately and exactly what the effect of deleting a particular pixel is.

 

While we are at it, if graphics are so tricky maybe we should compile a list of useful programs.

[Thralni]

Mac OS 10.5 seems to have this new ability in preview... You have a new "magic wand" tool, with which you can erase all unnecesary background. For more information, I redirect you to Macworld's video podcast "Cool leopard features."

[Ishad Nha]

As for the Geneforge graphics themselves, one thing that I could not help noticing: in the actual game the automap icons are derived from the editor icons. There are editor icons found in all the Geneforge games, look around G1600.bmp, but they are in many cases a bit crude for use in the automap. So I have had to design my own.

 

Edit:

I have had some luck converting the Geneforge 4 and Avernum 4 graphics to BoA format. One success is the logs in 1313.bmp. Things like the brazier in 1490.bmp are easy to convert because they are smaller than usual BoA terrain types. I am currently working on the floor graphics.

 

Floors are easy, they can just be reduced in size. However there will be distortion if the floor had a distinct pattern. For instance some of those carpets in Geneforge 4.

 

One solution, that may or may not work, is to use only a part of the original graphic. Thus the A4 stairs going into ground graphics, 1370.bmp &, were easily ported to BoA format. This won't work if there is something special about the border of the graphic proper. In GF4, 1250.bmp, the first three icons will look funny if this technique is used: the outside edges won't join in the proper pattern.

 

The mask can be removed in one hit by the methods used for the "snow" above. Ditto if you want to remove part of a group of pictures. Say you want to use the hills parts of "flboehil.png" with other floor types. (This graphic is the "Hills" part of the Blazing Blades BoA Pics - Floors sheet.) Thus you can remove the grass part which will leave only the desired hills.

 

Walls are in need of special masks. I have devised a mask which lines up correctly with the original GF4/A4 graphic. It has an external black border which lines up with the border of the original graphic, then the intended BoA borders lie inside this.

 

Doors are tough, they are much bigger than the BoA doors, so far I have not been able to solve this problem.

[Ishad Nha]

One thing that I have noticed: if you edit your post, this won't show up in the list of posts and when they were last edited. Especially if yours is the last post in a given topic.

 

Thus the post above was orginally written on November 3, it was then edited several times. But the Blades of Avernum Editor forum always listed "November 3" in its list of posts.