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Eye-candy


Eye-candy

Postby Malmer » May 17, 2001 @ 12:33pm

oh boy oh boy oh boy...this is so sweet I can't hold it away from you guys.<br><br>I managed to make the units, buildings and other sprites use an alpha channel. So? what does that mean? Well, it means no jaggies on the edges, because the pixels are semi-transparent (ie. buildings become more of a part of the landscape), building shadows are smooth and are colored by the landscape the fall on. But more importantly: It will mean some pretty cool explosions where you see things through the "fire" and stuff.<br><br>Still don't get what I'm saying...well it looks sortof like realtime anti-aliasing. <br><br>Think glowing engines, think smoke...the possibilities are quite big...the only thing that restricts us is imagination, timeframes and framerate.<br><br>// Fredrik<br><br>PS. For all you MOD-people out there. Most 3D software allows rendering of the alpha channel. So building your own units with alpha shouldn't be an issue. DS.<br>Last modification: Fredrik Malmer - 05/17/01 at 09:33:49
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Re: Eye-candy

Postby Paul » May 17, 2001 @ 2:24pm

well done
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Re: Eye-candy

Postby Malmer » May 17, 2001 @ 2:35pm

Here is a image that makes it all a bit clearer. The screenshot part of it is a real ingame shot as it looks in the game.<br><br>Not even Carpediem has seen this...now you guys go ahead and feel exclusive!<br><br>Image<br><br>// Fredrik
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Re: Eye-candy

Postby Paul » May 17, 2001 @ 2:49pm

so how do you do things like this? do you make a 3d model then take shots at various angles or just draw the thing like that?
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Re: Eye-candy

Postby Moose or Chuck » May 17, 2001 @ 3:06pm

There's only one angle, atleast at present, and it looks to me like it could have been done easily enough (meaning not taking a week or two) using Adobe Photoshop and some choice filters.
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Re: Eye-candy

Postby Malmer » May 17, 2001 @ 3:11pm

It is a 3D model, built in . I rendered it and the alpha channel (which I modified slightly in Photoshop) and created an image, that the game uses.<br><br>Oh, this facility might be replaced in the final version of the game. Because I'm not very good at 3D modelling, compared to those who know what they're doing. We're working on getting a real 3D artist...<br><br>// Fredrik<br><br>Last modification: Fredrik Malmer - 05/17/01 at 12:11:52
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Re: Eye-candy

Postby Digby » May 17, 2001 @ 5:05pm

Do you even need an alpha channel for this?  If you're using a color-key with your source image and copying pixels manually, you should know where the edges of the image are within the sprite's rect.  Just draw that edge pixel with 50% alpha blending with the destination pixel.  I'm thinking you could RLE the transparent pixels and speed things up a bit.<br><br>Granted you might want to use an alpha channel for some of the other effects you've mentioned, but I thought I just throw out this idea for discussion.
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Re: Eye-candy

Postby Moose or Chuck » May 17, 2001 @ 5:15pm

Alpha channels are fuzzy
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Re: Eye-candy

Postby Malmer » May 17, 2001 @ 5:47pm

Digby:<br><br>I could trace the edges of the bitmap, but then I couldn't have things like glowing engines or nice explosions. And most imprtantly. I could kiss goodbye to the nice building shadows. <br><br>I can't do RLE by the way because I need to go through the sprites pixel by pixel anyways because I have to check with the z-buffer to see if a pixel is behind a hill or not. Also hills casts shadows on units (yes they do!), so that has to be accounted for too.<br><br>But I do know a couple of things here and there that can be optimized so hopefully speed won't be an issue. And units will be quite small too.<br><br><br>Moose:<br><br>What do you mean fuzzy?<br><br>// Fredrik<br>
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Re: Eye-candy

Postby Digby » May 17, 2001 @ 6:11pm

Fredrik,<br><br>Right you are about glowing effects and translucency, you'll want an alpha channel for that sort of thing.  How many bits is your alpha channel?<br><br>I'm saying RLE the *transparent* pixels in your sprite.  Why would you need to perform a Z test on a transparent pixel?<br><br>BTW, could you post a larger image of the screenshot you've included in this thread on the web someplace?  It's not much bigger than a postage stamp and I'd really like to have a closer look at your work.  Thanks!<br>
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Re: Eye-candy

Postby Moose or Chuck » May 17, 2001 @ 6:26pm

Nothing, I like alpha channels, that's all. Alpha channels are good, and fuzzy.
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Re: Eye-candy

Postby Robotbeat » May 17, 2001 @ 6:26pm

Holy cow... If (when) you get a working public demo and I show this to any Palm RTS fan, he (mostly likely he and not a she...) will probably steal my Pocket PC! This is sweet!<br><br>Digby, you should more personally team up with Fred and "Seize the Day"(ahem... Carpedium...)!
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Re: Eye-candy

Postby Malmer » May 17, 2001 @ 6:38pm

Good idea about the RLE coding on the transparent pixels. Thanks!<br><br>As for bigger screenshot...well I'm working on the website right now. We will probably have a few of them there.<br><br>// Fredrik
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Re: Eye-candy

Postby Digby » May 17, 2001 @ 7:10pm

Fredrik,<br><br>Just a hint on RLE, try encoding runs vertically as well as horizontally.  For some images you'll get better compression that way.<br>
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Re: Eye-candy

Postby Slicky » May 18, 2001 @ 5:06am

Hey guys,<br>anyone out there who can explain me what the hell run length encoding gives in this case.<br>Not only that it's compression is comparable bad, it's also quite useless, at least nowadays nowhere used (well maybe i lay wrong , RLE TIFF's??).<br><br>However anyone who can bring light to my smokin' brain.?
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