@ RebBugler \ Flag Questions

[Davinci]

Reb - How is it going in the Great State of Arkansas!

Hey, this is an example of the first flag that I have worked on, well...working on.....

The flag is roughly placed on a 1024x1024 sheet with four across, and four down.

Basically, sixteen flags on the sheet each flag is representing 256 pixels....."You Know"...Not sure of the correct terminology here.

I made sure about lining each of them up in the identical position of each square.

And then just added in some waves where as each wave was just a random wave not really based on the previous wave. I probably have to work on that!

I haven’t added in the flag-pole, just sort of experimenting with this.

Problem :

The flag waves alright, but it jumps up and down!

Question

Do the pixels for the placement of the flags have to be altered from the first flag?

Do I add a pixel up \ down or left \ right – or have I just messed-up from the first position?

Does this make sense, did I explain this correctly?

BTW - I'm saving them as png files, the quality came out very good I think!

[ EDIT POST] - Disregard, I think that I figured it out!

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davinci

[RebBugler]

Hey D,

Glad you figured it out.

Those flags look great, or at least one frame of them. :laugh: Can't remember why I didn't use PNG, think it was an opaque issue, regardless, I'll experiment again after seeing yours. That was ages ago and I've learned a lot since. I'd love to ditch DDS for a smaller footprint memory wise plus getting rid of that DDS shimmering effect.

[Davinci]

Reb - I got it figured out, it did take a while.

I downloaded a fabric of wool \ cotton off the Internet, the same place that I downloaded that flag and tried to combine both of the images. To give the flag a more texture look.

That probably didn’t turn out too well…..still in the early stages of learning how to do this.

My next idea is to make the flag a little bit larger…..probably 340x340 so that I can put three flags per line per sheet. (i.e..1024x1024)

I think that this size should help with adding the names of battles on the flags. I’m not really into the authentic-thing , but I think that that should work.

The names almost showed up on the flag in the picture which is ‘256x256’.

I still have to work on getting the shadow effect in the flag when it’s moving, but I’m sure that YouTube has videos of how to do that.

I slightly altered this flag to get rid of the cloth-patch-part in the left corner and re-did the left most “star” but I think that it turned out alright for the first-ever-flag.

Yes the ‘png’ files work very well, very soon everything in the game (well…my game) is going to be converted over to png files, I’m almost there already.

Thanks for the input!

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davinci

[Crikey]

D - when making the 1836 flags I used the surrender (blank) flag as the template and just cloned the new flag over it using around 80% opacity. Then tidied up the edges. That way I got the ripples etc. Not as good as yours or Rebs but at least I could churn some out for the mod.

[RebBugler]

Well too bad about PNG builds, they only take up about 12 percent of the space as DDS, however, as you see by the attachment, PNG designs have a very splotchy appearance...they look like a moving terrain relief map, at least with my flag designs.

PNG on the left, DDS on the right

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D, since you haven't added your shading you haven't seen this yet. Of course you can eliminate shading and shazam, no splotches. However, this does take away from the animation towards a realistic look since shading enhances the 3D depth.

[Davinci]

Crikey - Hey how is everything going!

Reb - Yes, that is quite a difference!

Here is what I'm trying to do, well...something like this.

I'm trying to take the image picture below since the flags were designed along those lines and attempting to combine both images together.

Basically, the flag over the stitched cloth. To give the flag a more cloth-look.

Since there isn't that much going on in the forums lately, it's time to start experimenting with anything and everything to make the next sixteen-months pass by until the next release.

@ Reb - Are you using the SuperPNG Plugin, or another type of Png Savings?

Would different Plug-Ins affect the image after it's saved?

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davinci

[Crikey]

D - you could possibly achieve this by cloning a recoloured cloth texture over an existing flag, perhaps at 20% opacity to start with. Sounds like the dds file would need to be big to get the resolution high enough so that the effect shows up, some paint prog come with textures too. I'll take a quick look over the weekend in case I can help.

B)

[RebBugler]

@ Reb - Are you using the SuperPNG Plugin, or another type of Png Savings?

Would different Plug-Ins affect the image after it's saved?

I checked for better PNG plugin's and nada, least for the app I use, Paint.net. Not sure what you mean by that second question. :huh:

[Davinci]

D - you could possibly achieve this by cloning a recoloured cloth texture over an existing flag, perhaps at 20% opacity to start with. Sounds like the dds file would need to be big to get the resolution high enough so that the effect shows up, some paint prog come with textures too. I'll take a quick look over the weekend in case I can help. B)

Thanks, Crikey - Good idea, I didn't think about the textures plug-ins, I'll do a Google Search this weekend for some.

I checked for better PNG plugin's and nada, least for the app I use, Paint.net. Not sure what you mean by that second question. :huh:

Well, you answered the first question about a different plug-in, the second question was do different plug-ins have any affect on the quality of the image after it is saved.

Such As: The default png plug-in that I had didn’t do a very good job, also didn’t save the Alpha-Channel’s.

The SuperPng – plug-in seems \ appears to do a better job!

@Hey – Can you post your flag-pole that you used in the HD flags here; I can’t open any of those dds files in Photoshop without getting an error?

If you would save them as tga \ png .

Thanks

davinci

[RebBugler]

As requested, also included my most recent shading and displacement template, maybe you can use it. Remember, frames are duped so you have frame 1,1; frame 2,2; etc.

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