The Bears Pit: v1.13 General Development Talk

Home » MODDING HQ 1.13 » v1.13 General Development Talk » New main menu background

Show: Today's Messages :: Polls :: Message Navigator

New main menu background[message #294286]

Tue, 29 November 2011 19:19

Inkompetent

Messages:22
Registered:November 2011
Location: Sweden

Greetings all!

I just got an offer in general from an art student aquaintance of mine, that she'd like to to get serious requests for things to do, to add to her work experience.

Seeing there's been talk to and from about a new main menu background for 1.13 I thought this might be a quite good chance.

Her gallery can be found here: http://captured-epoch.deviantart.com/gallery/

I'm not entirely sure how well her previous works represents what possible artwork we'd want for a new background, but seeing some of her newer stuff and some photo art I'm seeing promise for some true JA2 grit.

I thought that if we could define what we want, and give some parameters and references, I could send her a more defined and worked out request to see if it's something she'd want to do.

So first and foremost, should we ask at all?

And secondly, what are the technical specifications for a new picture if we want one, aside from fitting the current button and version text design and layout of the main menu?

Report message to a moderator

Private 1st Class

Re: New main menu background[message #294338]

Thu, 01 December 2011 00:44

Kazuya

Messages:208
Registered:January 2009

First: I don't know if it's me, but I can't see any pictures on that site.

Okay, now to the background picture:
I think a new main menu background should be military/mercenary themed, but other than that, there is no need to restrict the artist, at least in my opinion. And she shouldn't wory about technical restrictions of the sti format. I can get you anything transformed to sti. For this, a picture in any lossless format will do. I personally prefer .png for this, but any other format that isn't totally exotic, is fine. The size should be 1024x768 or larger, but preferably in a 4:3 format.

The reason, why she shouldn't worry about sti restrictions, is simply because a lot of artists find it really difficult to work within that frame. Sti files are restricted to 256 colours with pure black (RGB 0,0,0) being reserved for transparent pixels. So you really have only 255 colours to draw your picture. The restrictions are essentially the same as for 8 bit .pcx files like I described here:
http://www.ja-galaxy-forum.com/board/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=18219&Number=279924#Post279924

I have gained quite some experience with sti conversion and I can get you any static image transformed with very little quality loss, as you can see in the linked thread.

Report message to a moderator

Sergeant 1st Class

Re: New main menu background[message #294340]

Thu, 01 December 2011 02:03

Headrock

Messages:1757
Registered:March 2006
Location: Jerusalem

Artsy Swedish chick? Hmmm... I dunno, I didn't like her nail polish.

But what the heck, sure.

Quote:

Sti files are restricted to 256 colours with pure black (RGB 0,0,0) being reserved for transparent pixels.

Erm... only if they've got more than 1 frame. Otherwise... 16-bit color.

Report message to a moderator

Sergeant Major

Re: New main menu background[message #294350]

Thu, 01 December 2011 13:47

Inkompetent

Messages:22
Registered:November 2011
Location: Sweden

That looks awesome, Kazuya!

And no, HR. She's not Swedish. She's far more crazy than that.

Report message to a moderator

Private 1st Class

Re: New main menu background[message #294355]

Thu, 01 December 2011 15:02

Kazuya

Messages:208
Registered:January 2009

Headrock

Erm... only if they've got more than 1 frame. Otherwise... 16-bit color.

While the sti format allows for this, JA2 tends to get extremly stroppy when confronted with 16bit sti files.

http://img854.imageshack.us/img854/2579/main8bit.png

You can get this as a 8bit mainmenubackground.sti here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?oyodec3cwi1w0xi

http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/5996/main16bit.png

And here the picture as a 16bit mainmenubackground.sti:
http://www.mediafire.com/?majvnyxc791xxyr

Using the 16 bit version will lead to this error:

http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/1070/errorbyn.png

I'd love to see a working 16bit version, but it seems to me, that either JA2 doesn't read them properly or grv and sti edit can't create them properly. Either way, it seems that we are stuck with 8 bit sti for now.
I have tried to create the 16bit version with sti edit and grv, both led to the same result. Besides that, I don't know how to convince sti edit to create a new 16bit sti file with a higher resolution than 640x480.

Report message to a moderator

Sergeant 1st Class

Re: New main menu background[message #294357]

Thu, 01 December 2011 16:04

Cafu

Messages:35
Registered:February 2008
Location: Finnland, very north

For larger resolutions you must use GRV

GRV is found example here:
http://kermi.pp.fi/JA_2/Modding_Tools/

Report message to a moderator

Private 1st Class

Re: New main menu background[message #295557]

Wed, 21 December 2011 08:17

Kaerar

Messages:2016
Registered:January 2003
Location: Australia :D

Hmm 16bit's are possible, my personal bg is 16bit and I've been using it for ages, but there are some restrictions with creating them with GRV. Took a long time to get it working IIRC...

Report message to a moderator

Lieutenant

Re: New main menu background[message #295572]

Wed, 21 December 2011 17:38

wanne (aka RoWa21)

Messages:1949
Registered:October 2005
Location: Austria

for the main menu screen you have to use 8 bit. loadscreens can have 16 bit.

I have to check the code why it works on loadscreens and not on main menu screen...

[Updated on: Wed, 21 December 2011 17:40] by Moderator

Report message to a moderator

Sergeant Major

Re: New main menu background[message #309448]

Thu, 23 August 2012 18:36

lalienxx

Messages:86
Registered:February 2006

Is this still interesting for someone: from revision 5498 on you can use png images for main menu background and for load screens. The images can have better resolution than 640x480 and stretched to full screen by default. The 8 bit sti's are not functional anymore.

Report message to a moderator

Corporal 1st Class

Re: New main menu background[message #309450]

Thu, 23 August 2012 18:51

Wil473

Messages:2808
Registered:September 2004
Location: Canada

Is this a feature/requirement that is related to the Externalized Load Screens I had to disable in the INI's for UC-1.13 to prevent some map related CTD?

[Updated on: Thu, 23 August 2012 18:55] by Moderator

Report message to a moderator

Lieutenant

Previous Topic:	Using / degrading parts of items for merges
Next Topic:	EnemyGunChoices.xml for latest 1.13/NCTH?

Goto Forum:

-=] Back to Top [=-

Current Time: Fri Jun 12 01:53:40 GMT+3 2026

Total time taken to generate the page: 0.00823 seconds