Dumb question?

[Tarlanon]

Now...I know someone already created a FRUA->DC art conversion 'pack' a long time ago. But this art is really just the old FRUA art resized to the basic DC dimensions. The end result is a lot of pixelated blurs.

My dumb question...Has a newer, better, FRUA art conversion pack been created already and I just don't know about it? I've already finished converting an old FRUA module, but the art really doesn't look good from that pack. I tried smoothing some of it out a little, but I still don't think it looks very good. Is there a pack available? Or am I stuck hunting and pecking through all the art available out there?

There are a few other modules I'd like to convert, but without a better art pack I don't think they would be good to show off on DC.

[manikus]

OK, check out the attachment.

Let me explain the labels ~
Original= umm, the original pcx file in 8-bit format
1-A= 8-bit stretch of original to 176x211
1-B= 24-bit stretch of original to 176x211
2-A= 8-bit conversion of original using scalerx* (2) then stretched to 176x211
2-B= 24-bit conversion of original using scalerx (2) then stretched to 176x211
3-A= 8-bit conversion of original using scalerx (2x3) then shrunk to 176x211
3-B= 24-bit conversion of original using scalerx (2x3) then shrunk to 176x211

For each of the 24-bit conversions, color depth was set to 24-bits before resizing.

* using scalerx available from SourceForge, pointed out by Uatu in another thread here.
http://scale2x.sourceforge.net/index.html

click on image to see full-sized

[Uatu]

Very nice demo there! I see you are enjoying scale2x

[Tarlanon]

Thank for the info...Now....is there a place to download all the original (not resized) art?

[manikus]

Originally Posted by Tarlanon Now....is there a place to download all the original (not resized) art?

You might try Rosedragon...

I ended up dling a utility there, by Dan Autery, maybe called 'Show' and then extracting everything myself.

[Tarlanon]

Yeah, I have that utility...Well...I guess it's off to work on converting all the FRUA art via Scale2x. Fun fun

If/when I get it all done, I'll provide a zip file of all the newly converted art somewhere.

[manikus]

Let me know what you're working on, and then I can take a different part of it and work on converting that.

[Tarlanon]

Well...Converting the walls via scale2x isn't the way to go. Because scale2x can convert only by direct multiples of an image (i.e. 320x200 -> 640x400), it can't directly upscale the walls, overlays or anything that doesn't match the default art definitions for DC. True, the resultant images can be reprocessed by hand to work, but at that point it is becoming more work than I currently have time for....and to be honest doesn't look a lot better than the few I already did /w PSP by hand already. So that's out (for me).

However....

Scale2x DID work well with upscaling the default UA icons. Granted, I still had to cut/paste the resultant images into the side-by-side format DC likes for icons...But that was quick and dirty work. The scaled UA icons, while not the quality of the ones produced by DC's fine artits, are considerably better than the old, heavily pixelated ones done a long time ago.

So the good news out of all this is....I've fixed the art deficiencies in my conversion mod, loaded the new icons, and am doing the final play test now. Hopefully I can release it before too long.

T

[manikus]

That's great news! (The part about the releasing your design.)

For people using Photoshop, you can create an action to do the cut and paste of the icons for you. I think The Gimp also has this option.

[Tarlanon]

Yeah, it'll be nice to finally release something meaningful into the community. =) Then after I gotta sink my teeth back into the combat code. Gotta get these little quirks fixed. Unfortunately, the combat code is a BEAST (+10 obfuscation factor), so it'll take me a bit. But now that Hockey season is about done, I'll have some more time.

In the mean time, anyone who has played an MMO should watch this :
http://www.youtube.com/user/watchtheguild

Funny stuff.