Working with unit graphics

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Pyro
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Re: Working with unit graphics

Post by Pyro »

MindBrain wrote:That's weird cause I running The Desert Between Your Ears, max warrs and thrall. No slowdown at all, computer doesn't run any hotter, blew up the whole army with some wights, no slowdown. Unit's look better far away and zoomed in (in my opinion) I'm on a Macbook Core2Duo 2.4ghz 9400m, 2gigs of ram...
Well the plugin Graydon is referring to had bitmaps at like 4x the normal size if memory serves me right. Your bitmaps are only 2x the size so it won't be as bad as the those others. Keep in mind, it isn't the specs of a computer but how it handles all that extra pixels. Some drivers don't run them so well seeing as these days games tend to use more 3D stuff and more compressed forms of sprites, therefore the people making the drivers don't take this old way of rendering sprites into account. Or something to that effect.
MindBrain wrote:I just need help scaling the projectiles, fixing the selection boxes, and aligning the animations. I want to either just use it for myself, or make a multiplayer version (highresify all the trees, the baron, flag and ball)
That is the part that is tedious and rather boring to do. As for how to compare with original, you could go about it a number of ways. Rename the local folder then load Oak. Duplicate the original collections so they have a different name and tagid than the original. It automatically gives it a different tagid so don't worry about manually doing that part. Then close Oak, add the tags from the earlier local to this new local. Now you have the modified collections and duplicates of the originals. So you can open both and compare side by side.

Keep in mind, when you make your tagset do not include the duplicated originals since you won't use them.
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Re: Working with unit graphics

Post by Jon God »

MindBrain wrote:If anyone wants me to post the plugin to check it out themselves I'll do that. If anyone has a link to other plugins attempting the same thing then show me. If anyone wants me to shut up about the whole idea I'll do that too (when I start having too much trouble with the project that is eheheheh) At this point it hasn't been too difficult and I like the way it looks...
http://hl.udogs.net/files/Uploads/%20Us ... %201.3.zip
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MindBrain
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Re: Working with unit graphics

Post by MindBrain »

Pyro wrote: That is the part that is tedious and rather boring to do. As for how to compare with original, you could go about it a number of ways. Rename the local folder then load Oak. Duplicate the original collections so they have a different name and tagid than the original. It automatically gives it a different tagid so don't worry about manually doing that part. Then close Oak, add the tags from the earlier local to this new local. Now you have the modified collections and duplicates of the originals. So you can open both and compare side by side.

Keep in mind, when you make your tagset do not include the duplicated originals since you won't use them.
Ok, I got everything copied so I can compare, and I'm getting the hang of adjusting the selection boxes, I got all the higher res bmps ready except for Fetch (the background didn't work like I expected) After that all that's left is adjusting the scales. It looks like the plugin will be about 61.7mb If I got any more questions I'll post them here, thanks for your help
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carlinho
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Re: Working with unit graphics

Post by carlinho »

Someone should point him to TWindA demo perhaps? A) It would save Mind a ton of time, B) It would show him how high res sprites lag computers.
that's weird, 1944 normandy uses 4x unit sprites and it doesn't lag computers
at least in all the testings...and I was hosting with a 2005 power mac

the greek plug did...it's all a mystery I guess what lags and what doesn't....
I think with 1.7.2 and ongoing we should 't fear about high res units anymore....
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Jon God
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Re: Working with unit graphics

Post by Jon God »

carlinho wrote:
Someone should point him to TWindA demo perhaps? A) It would save Mind a ton of time, B) It would show him how high res sprites lag computers.
that's weird, 1944 normandy uses 4x unit sprites and it doesn't lag computers
at least in all the testings...and I was hosting with a 2005 power mac

the greek plug did...it's all a mystery I guess what lags and what doesn't....
I think with 1.7.2 and ongoing we should 't fear about high res units anymore....
I think it depends on the number of collections, as well resolution of projectiles. Any chancee I can test the Greek plugin for lag?
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carlinho
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Re: Working with unit graphics

Post by carlinho »

mmm interesting....yep, amount of different collections might be it....
sent you a pm don't want to take this off topic

but definitely 1.4 had some really sweet high res warriors....
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Graydon
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Re: Working with unit graphics

Post by Graydon »

Yea I'd suspect the major difference Carl, is that the WW2 variant has fewer unique sets of collections (are any weapon projectiles shared etc, Point's into that sort of thing), and very likely fewer total sprites per collection. The lag comes when you're initially caching all that data to your card, and then subsequently comes when you have to load new data that wasnt cached initially (say a new unit comes on screen, every time a new frame or sprite plays that hasnt been loaded yet, will choke the cache).

Those factors and some significant improvements on memory management on the code end are probably resulting in smooth gameplay for high res WW2. I'm even curious if you went back to the greek tagset on 1.7.2 if it'd be much/any better.
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carlinho
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Re: Working with unit graphics

Post by carlinho »

jeez I wish it didn't lag, just pmed Jon, will go back to it once I finish wwII
mmm and I did new units for wwii maybe I'm screwing it up....hehehe

so myth IV would still be slowing down computers on 1.7.2?
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Jon God
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Re: Working with unit graphics

Post by Jon God »

carlinho wrote:jeez I wish it didn't lag, just pmed Jon, will go back to it once I finish wwII
mmm and I did new units for wwii maybe I'm screwing it up....hehehe

so myth IV would still be slowing down computers on 1.7.2?
Depends on the computers. Older computers, probably. Newer computers, at least a whole lot less, maybe not anymore.

As for the WWII, I will let you know if it starts lagging to much for me. :D
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MindBrain
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Re: Working with unit graphics

Post by MindBrain »

Here's as far as I could get with this, got most of the Warrior and Bowman animations realigned but still not perfect. Most of the objects are scaled to normal size, selection boxes were quickly adjusted.. but its too much work (mostly realigning the animations)

So I'm posting this test so people can see what they look like and if in the future anyone needs to use the graphics or wants me to improve them just let me know. If Oak could somehow be made to accommodate the 2x resolution and maintain the sequence positions then it would be very easy.

Well if you want to take a look and see if it would be worth it here it is: http://www.mediafire.com/?1se5c44d5jcdu78
Graydon
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Re: Working with unit graphics

Post by Graydon »

Oak does all of what you want it to do, but in a different form, optimized for Magma's upresing project that I've been telling you to just wait for. It's basically "select old unit", "select new unit renders directory", "hit ok", "watch magic happen".

That said it'd probably work for your hand edited 'high res' renders too.... Give it a try. Tools-->UpRes Tool. The options are pretty minimal, it should be self explanatory. (This is only available on the most recent version of Oak [Build 119])
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MindBrain
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Re: Working with unit graphics

Post by MindBrain »

Graydon wrote:Oak does all of what you want it to do, but in a different form, optimized for Magma's upresing project that I've been telling you to just wait for. It's basically "select old unit", "select new unit renders directory", "hit ok", "watch magic happen".

That said it'd probably work for your hand edited 'high res' renders too.... Give it a try. Tools-->UpRes Tool. The options are pretty minimal, it should be self explanatory. (This is only available on the most recent version of Oak [Build 119])
Oh ok well I'll see what happens THANKS and I'll be awaiting Magma's update too
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