Icon and Picture Conversion

[JonnieR]

I am working on a mod that I actually started in FRUA, mainly because there was more artwork available. But the limitations of FRUA (circa 1992) were too much and I decided to move the project over to DC despite it being unfinished at this time.

I will have to convert some old graphics from FRUA to DC, because I am truly without any artistic talent. I do have the software to change the scale and convert to bmp or png format.

Are there other steps I could be taking to make the art more presentable?

[manikus]

Actually, all of the FRUA artwork has been converted already.
http://frua.rosedragon.org/dc/art/
Just look in the appropriate directory. As well as all of the default art, the masterful icons of Autery, hans and Kaz-Keith have also been converted.

I can walk you through it, if you still need to convert some artwork, or I can do some for you, as I have some Photoshop actions created that can do it for me.

[JonnieR]

Thanks for the link. I beleive it will solve most of my graphic challenges.

[Uatu]

I wonder if using some algorithm programs like the following would make the resized icons look better:

http://scale2x.sourceforge.net/index.html

Might be fun to test out! (I've tried it with larger icons, not sure what will happen with 48 x 48 icons.)

[manikus]

Oh my god! If this works, I will let everybody know. This might have just made my day.

[manikus]

Alright, here's a comparison of the standard 1x1 icons for both FRUA (x2 to fit DC without any algorithms) and DC (x2 using scale2x), then x4 so that they're easier to see. FRUA are on the left, DC on the right.

Click on thumbnail to see it full-sized.

[SilentThief]

would be cool if you could re-size the walls, too

-SilentThief

[SilentThief]

Good old sourceforge!!! I use a picture conversion program from them that is small yet functional, for making bmps into pngs for display as attachments on the ironworksforum page.
Its called BIMP
I keep looking over there for C++ editor/compiler but I haven't DLed any of them yet. Would be nice to see someone re-write the friggin microsoft libraries that are the foundation of DC code

-SilentThief

[Uatu]

Ha ha... Not bad, right?

Of course, the algorithm is not PERFECT, but it is pretty good for DC purposes, I think (it does not dither, only smoothing out, which is good for us). Perfectionists will want to do some further touch-ups, but otherwise, it is a pretty good quick-fix.

(I used it to do my mobat icon (I think?), based on the normal-sized large bat icon, with some other shrinkage and lots of touch-up, of course.)

[manikus]

ST- what format do you use? Anyways, you could totally use this for the walls, if CocoaSpud and the artists around at the beginning (maybe Ziroc?) had just doubled the graphics of FRUA instead of stretching them...if only I were doing this 10 years ago.

I haven't tried this on any larger graphics yet, but I think I'm going to do some resizing of FRUA dragons and giants to see what they look like.