Ironworks Gaming Forum - picture formats

Ironworks Gaming Forum (http://www.ironworksforum.com/forum/index.php)

- Dungeon Craft - RPG Game Maker (http://www.ironworksforum.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=20)

- - picture formats (http://www.ironworksforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=42318)

Well, Targa may be of some use for the gaming-industry. Since I do not know the gaming-industry, I have no idea what is useful for game-creation. If you work in the print- or webdesign-industry, Targa is next to useless and no one uses this file-type. No offense intended, but it seems to me, that Targa is only used in the gaming-industry,

At the moment, DC has no support of alpha-channels or any other type of transparency-mapping expect the ability to make one colour invisible. So, a 32-bit-alpha-channel is absolutely useless for DC.

I looked into the specifics of the PNG-filesystem and I compared some PNGs to TIFFs, Targas or BMPs. I could see no blurring in any of the PNG-Files. I use 24-bit PNGs and there is no noticable difference to any of the files mentioned above. The only loss that could happen is reducing to 8-bits.

in the trials i've conducted on my pc, .jpg has had significant color loss and distortion. .png, .bmp, .tga and .pcx have all been comparable in quality. .gif is very restrictive but if you only want 256 colors it alright. i personally go with .png b/c it's the smallest size.
as far as the usefullness of targa- my machine can't handle 32 bit graphics. so i can't fully utilize it's benefits.
it's all moot anyways, as targa is not supported by dungeon craft. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[img]graemlins/1druid.gif[/img]

-manikus

Quote:

Originally posted by Joerg:
Well, Targa may be of some use for the gaming-industry. Since I do not know the gaming-industry, I have no idea what is useful for game-creation. If you work in the print- or webdesign-industry, Targa is next to useless and no one uses this file-type. No offense intended, but it seems to me, that Targa is only used in the gaming-industry,

At the moment, DC has no support of alpha-channels or any other type of transparency-mapping expect the ability to make one colour invisible. So, a 32-bit-alpha-channel is absolutely useless for DC.

I looked into the specifics of the PNG-filesystem and I compared some PNGs to TIFFs, Targas or BMPs. I could see no blurring in any of the PNG-Files. I use 24-bit PNGs and there is no noticable difference to any of the files mentioned above. The only loss that could happen is reducing to 8-bits.

Actually, Dungeon Craft MAY HAVE transparency support in the future.

For Print, I agree, working with PSD's is the best for us, working at 1200 dpi and such, TGA doesn't handle the dpi settings.

But, since we ARE talking about a game (DC), and TGA is best, well... [img]smile.gif[/img]

Quote:

Originally posted by manikus:
in the trials i've conducted on my pc, .jpg has had significant color loss and distortion. .png, .bmp, .tga and .pcx have all been comparable in quality. .gif is very restrictive but if you only want 256 colors it alright. i personally go with .png b/c it's the smallest size.
as far as the usefullness of targa- my machine can't handle 32 bit graphics. so i can't fully utilize it's benefits.
it's all moot anyways, as targa is not supported by dungeon craft. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[img]graemlins/1druid.gif[/img]

-manikus

Yeah, I've talked with Spud in the past about adding it, but I think he wants to get spell stuff finished--which is totally cool.

What I do anyway, is draw in TGA, and when done, convert to BMP or PCX, so I have a backup of the TGA (So in the future, DC may have support for it)

It would be REALLY cool if say, you cast a spell, or a monster did--casting invisibility, and using 32-bit, you can fade the pic out! [img]smile.gif[/img] [img]smile.gif[/img]

Quote:

Originally posted by Ziroc:
Yeah, I've talked with Spud in the past about adding it, but I think he wants to get spell stuff finished--which is totally cool.

What I do anyway, is draw in TGA, and when done, convert to BMP or PCX, so I have a backup of the TGA (So in the future, DC may have support for it)

It would be REALLY cool if say, you cast a spell, or a monster did--casting invisibility, and using 32-bit, you can fade the pic out! [img]smile.gif[/img] [img]smile.gif[/img]

i hear that. invisibility that actually looked the part would be awesome.

what happens with the graphics on an older machine like mine? my video card only supports up to 24 bit colors. i'm probably not going to upgrade till after the new year at the very earliest.

[img]graemlins/1druid.gif[/img]

-manikus