Mixing jpgs and pngs
by Eric Kinkead · in Torque Game Builder · 04/23/2007 (12:35 pm) · 9 replies
Ive been png all the way. does it matter if I now mix some jpg in there? For images that maybe have no alpha? Will I get the benefits of the compression or does it not matter?
what gives oh wise ones
what gives oh wise ones
#2
ok, stickin' to pngs.
SuperPng's, awe shucks. well the GREAT thing about this engine is that I don't have to reimport, I can just switch them pngs out when i figure out a way to make those.
I'll look around my Photoslop to see if i can Superfy my pngs.
I have noticed that my png's that come out of 3DS Max9 have alpha that is too tight around the edges. and when I render them in Torque I get a slight white line around the edges of the objects that are alpha-rendered to transparent bg. Smooth gradients are cool though, and I have noticed that if I just run a batch smooth around the edges so faint you cant even notice it clears the problem.
04/23/2007 (12:52 pm)
Holly Ja-Mole! ok, stickin' to pngs.
SuperPng's, awe shucks. well the GREAT thing about this engine is that I don't have to reimport, I can just switch them pngs out when i figure out a way to make those.
I'll look around my Photoslop to see if i can Superfy my pngs.
I have noticed that my png's that come out of 3DS Max9 have alpha that is too tight around the edges. and when I render them in Torque I get a slight white line around the edges of the objects that are alpha-rendered to transparent bg. Smooth gradients are cool though, and I have noticed that if I just run a batch smooth around the edges so faint you cant even notice it clears the problem.
#3
For example, with PNG's, by default, when you have data in a pixel and then delete the pixel, all that's really happening is the pixels alpha channel is being changed, leaving behind the unnecessary pixel data -- which, depending on what the image started out looking like ... could be a problem ... I've seen PNG's of People that were cut out ... and if you load them with a program that doesn't support the alpha channel, you can actually see the background that was removed ... SuperPNG helps get rid of this ... it also has an option for not storing meta-data that Photoshop likes to add ;)
04/23/2007 (12:59 pm)
Eric, SuperPNG is a plugin that replaces Photoshops default PNG Filter -- I believe it is also available for a number of other Image software suites, and may even have a stand-alone application for converting -- but basically, it just strips out all the unnecessary data.For example, with PNG's, by default, when you have data in a pixel and then delete the pixel, all that's really happening is the pixels alpha channel is being changed, leaving behind the unnecessary pixel data -- which, depending on what the image started out looking like ... could be a problem ... I've seen PNG's of People that were cut out ... and if you load them with a program that doesn't support the alpha channel, you can actually see the background that was removed ... SuperPNG helps get rid of this ... it also has an option for not storing meta-data that Photoshop likes to add ;)
#4
granted this is super zoomed in, but with a buncho sprites on the screen you can see little white whispies all around them. Notice the tile, I went in and added the water fade edge myself which probably destroyed/oveerwrote that redundant png data causing the whispieness. It is much easier to do that with tile than it is multiple frames, however I did write a batch command in photoslop to soften it out of the edges of my character.
And strangely enough, it doesnt do it with the shadow which is nice and soft so I might be able to solve the problem by just changing my anti-aliasing algorythm in Max.
But yea, if there is a Photoslop plug in I'll check it out.
EDIT: WOOT! www.fnordware.com/superpng/
04/23/2007 (1:10 pm)
Well then this could be a two bird 1 stone type of deal-eo.granted this is super zoomed in, but with a buncho sprites on the screen you can see little white whispies all around them. Notice the tile, I went in and added the water fade edge myself which probably destroyed/oveerwrote that redundant png data causing the whispieness. It is much easier to do that with tile than it is multiple frames, however I did write a batch command in photoslop to soften it out of the edges of my character.
And strangely enough, it doesnt do it with the shadow which is nice and soft so I might be able to solve the problem by just changing my anti-aliasing algorythm in Max.
But yea, if there is a Photoslop plug in I'll check it out.
EDIT: WOOT! www.fnordware.com/superpng/
#5
Oh..Em..Gee.. I spent most of my day in Microsoft Project trying to remove/complete those scheduled tasks. lol. this is the second time you have helped us out! you rock! Thanks! I think I am going to take a day off and maybe edit my account settings or join that game experiment thing.
04/23/2007 (3:39 pm)
Omg... you just saved us 3 days that we had scheduled... 3 days of Tom Foolery and batch commands, re-rendering, and basic wastes of time to hide our little white whispy edges... Oh..Em..Gee.. I spent most of my day in Microsoft Project trying to remove/complete those scheduled tasks. lol. this is the second time you have helped us out! you rock! Thanks! I think I am going to take a day off and maybe edit my account settings or join that game experiment thing.
#6
I work for a company that makes a Project Management tool (bug tracking, ticket management, feature requests, etc, etc) and Microsoft Project just makes me ... erm ... not feel so well? :)
Although, I do have to say, I recently had some up close and personal encounters with it ;)
But hey ... instead of MS Project, Overlord's a great little web based tracker, I use it at home to track my game dev things (don't tell my boss ;p)
04/23/2007 (3:52 pm)
Eeeek --- Project? Your gonna make me cry ;)I work for a company that makes a Project Management tool (bug tracking, ticket management, feature requests, etc, etc) and Microsoft Project just makes me ... erm ... not feel so well? :)
Although, I do have to say, I recently had some up close and personal encounters with it ;)
But hey ... instead of MS Project, Overlord's a great little web based tracker, I use it at home to track my game dev things (don't tell my boss ;p)
#8
MSP can be very tiresome. We had a big IGDA meeting on it not to long ago.
www.igda.org/austin/archives/2007/03/meeting_report_1.html#more
You can go to his website and check out his GDC presentation on this subject that he gave us. " GDC 2007 Presentation: Bend Microsoft Project To Your Will " lol.
www.mcshaffry.com/mrmike/
he has a link to a really cool plug-in to export to .xls, thats the only thing that keeps me using MSP. Our Austin IGDA meetings are a blast. Can you imagine having a blast at a meeting about MSP? happens...
I'm going to check out this Overlord action...
04/23/2007 (4:04 pm)
Yikes!MSP can be very tiresome. We had a big IGDA meeting on it not to long ago.
www.igda.org/austin/archives/2007/03/meeting_report_1.html#more
You can go to his website and check out his GDC presentation on this subject that he gave us. " GDC 2007 Presentation: Bend Microsoft Project To Your Will " lol.
www.mcshaffry.com/mrmike/
he has a link to a really cool plug-in to export to .xls, thats the only thing that keeps me using MSP. Our Austin IGDA meetings are a blast. Can you imagine having a blast at a meeting about MSP? happens...
I'm going to check out this Overlord action...
#9
Can I ask a dumb question though ... whats the use of the Project to Excel plugin? What do you do with the data in Excel that you can't in Project? :)
04/23/2007 (4:19 pm)
Eric, definitely going to check out that presentation -- I had tons of questions about Project when I was working on the above blog article I linked too -- I wrote the importer not knowing a darn thing about Project, other then our customers wanted the functionality ... ;)Can I ask a dumb question though ... whats the use of the Project to Excel plugin? What do you do with the data in Excel that you can't in Project? :)
Associate David Higgins
DPHCoders.com
As for mixing formats, there has been some discussions raised about older hardware not supporting some of this ... so, depending on your target audience, it may not be a good idea ... I would suggest sticking with PNG's and using SuperPNG to strip all the meta-data and unnecessary information out of the PNG, thereby reducing it's size (sometimes dramatically).
For more information, look up the GG user 'amaranthia', and review her posts -- she's brought quite a few issues to the table with mixing formats, and other 'gotchas' with image formats and older hardware.