[Koji]

well hopefully it'll also make making custom graphics easier (so long as you remember there is a 4 colors per 8x14 area).

[apage43]

But remember that smzx is 4x14 per tile, and the 8x14 area will be cut to 4x14 most poorly. It simply ignores the pixels that arent in the right row. You may want to create the stuff at 4x14 tiles and then expand it's width before you convert it

This post has been edited by apage43: 18 August 2004 - 02:40 AM

[Revvy]

I recommend porting to C/SDL and using SDL_Image to accept many different image types besides png.

[RoSS]

Revvy, on Aug 17 2004, 11:05 PM, said:

I recommend porting to C/SDL and using SDL_Image to accept many different image types besides png.

Pfft. I'm sure PHP can handle any type of image, really, he's just using png-specific functions. I mean, PHP has a command for everything so why not other image types =P

[apage43]

RoSS is right.
although the only other formats I can think of are GIF and JPG that you might actually want to use.
GIF, is restricted to palette images
JPG is restricted to truecolor
PNG can be both and also always decodes the same way and is lossless
so I make you use it. Ha.

[Dr Lancer-X]

png is infinitely better than any other bitmap format anyway.. wtf else do you NEED?

[paulguy]

What is SMZX mode 3?

[apage43]

paulguy:

Quoting Koji in the Vapourware Platformer thread:

Quote

Mode 3's color configuration iirc is in a offset pointer style, iirc, where the color assigned to a character is the offset in the 256 color palette to the 4 colors it uses,

EDIT: IOW if you have a char that is color cB7 then the colors used for that character are cB7 (00) cB8 (10) cB9 (01) and cC0 (11), which helps alot in setting up unique palletes (64 totally unique ones) but in using this method, you might waste space on the palette with lots of repeated colors. But hell it's still easier to use than the original smzx modes, which could be removed since no one will use them in light of this easier to use mode!

[Smallhacker]

apage43, on Aug 18 2004, 07:56 AM, said:

RoSS is right.
although the only other formats I can think of are GIF and JPG that you might actually want to use.
GIF, is restricted to palette images
JPG is restricted to truecolor
PNG can be both and also always decodes the same way and is lossless
so I make you use it. Ha.

What about BMP?

[RoSS]

Smallhacker, on Aug 18 2004, 04:30 PM, said:

What about BMP?

Lancer-X, on Aug 18 2004, 01:29 AM, said:

png is infinitely better than any other bitmap format anyway.. wtf else do you NEED?

That basicly answers your question. To further answer you question, nearly all of the newest (and not-so-new) graphical editors (even MSPaint!) will save as png. PNG is just a generally better format.

[Lachesis]

RoSS, on Aug 18 2004, 04:18 PM, said:

That basicly answers your question. To further answer you question, nearly all of the newest (and not-so-new) graphical editors (even MSPaint!) will save as png. PNG is just a generally better format.

And smaller

[Micah]

The saving quality of JPEG would add extra colors in there,
and GIF loses color formation as well unless you convert from
another format.

[Koji]

Well, you know, converting to smzx will lose color information too... I mean gif is more than adequate for this application.

[LogiCow]

Sometime an image will be smaller in .gif than in .png.
Also with specific programs you can have .gif lossy which makes pictures much smaller.

And for big photos .jpg is the one and only format to use.


Otherwise .png is good

[Pyro1588]

lessee, here's my result:
i edited john's banjo the clown avatar for this (i think i cropped it vertically one and added however much was needed horizontally for it to fit 8x14) and converted it. smzx freezes whenever i try to load the palette. then i converted tails.gif (first frame) to png and tried converting it to smzx. all i got was a blocky crappy image that in no way resembled tails.
successes - 0

[Koji]

That's because you suck... try being less sucky... then you will have success.

[Pyro1588]

koji: what?

[Koji]

*shrugs* I wasn't being serious..

Anyway, the only solutions I can reccomend are

1) Make sure that the resolution of the picture is a magnitude of 4x14

2) Take your time looking over your image to make sure that there aren't more than 4 colors in every 4x14 section of the picture.

3) Make sure that there aren't more than 256 colors in the image, (Mostlikely you'd want to even shoot for less than that... more like 16 to 32 colors.)

There, if you do that theres absolutely NO reason for the converter to screw things up. If it sends you more garbage after that I don't know what to tell you.

[Dr Lancer-X]

Koji: Actually the resolution would have to be a magnitude of 8x14 because of the way apage's prog works. It discards every second column.

[Koji]

My mistake.