JPG

[LOGAN]

I think it's time to put JPG support into the game engine. That way I can have high quality graphics with small file sizes.
Please put in JPG support so I can get smaller files to download.

[jettooo]

Errr. We've had this discusion before.
JPG has low quality.
ik works crap with invisible area's.
images in ags are converted to pcx anyway

[LOGAN]

Errr. We've had this discusion before.
JPG has low quality.
ik works crap with invisible area's.
images in ags are converted to pcx anyway

Sorry about that.

PS. so you say the banner (JPG) at the top of this page is low quality???
I bet it looks worse in 256.

Oh well, if AGS converts them internally to 265 colors anyway importing hi quality bitmaps of my 3D renders is totally useless.

[Isegrim]

They are converted to 16bit, not 8bit (pcx can be true color as well as hi-col as well as palette)
and jettooo is basically right: the JPG compression works in a way that somewhat diffuses outlines and clear color fields (ever watched a low-quality MPEG? It's basically the same effect). That may not be visible at first sight (that's why they do it that way) but you will get stray visible pixels outside your sprites it you apply transparency.

P.S. I advise you to turn off "anti-aliasing against background" in your renderer, otherwise your sprites will have strangely colored edges  

[Archangel (aka SoupDragon)]

Erm, Logan... a 16-bit AGS game saves the images as 16 bit pcx files, not 256 colours. You need to stop being so bloody rude, tbh.

[jetxl]

What do you mean 265 colors. AGS supports 16k color.

[LOGAN]

Erm, Logan... a 16-bit AGS game saves the images as 16 bit pcx files, not 256 colours. You need to stop being so bloody rude, tbh.

You are right, sorry!

But I get the feeling you all refer to cartoon filled graphics while I want my 3D scenes to show up like the JPG's I made of them. I just feel misunderstood. Not able to communicate that I want to use indeed photo quality.

I TOTALLY agree that when you make a cartoon background you SHOULD USE 256 colours, and just saying that JPG looks bad is only tru when you do work with cartoon fill. I myself look very closely to my 3D renders and I see they look perfect.

I hope you understand that. (Look at the banner at the top of this page PLEASE!)
Just saying JPG looks bad (due to bad compression or whatever) does not cut it as I know they can look great.

I think my problem comes from importing a 24bit bitmap and it is converted to less colours (16 bit). (so some gradients are lost) I wish I had a tool that created 16-bit graphics.


At least tell me if you understand my problem. If it cant be helped - well ok... thats not our fault. cant do anything about that...

I just want my images look like they look in my image editor.

btw. I dont have Photoshop, and cant use it as I dont have a licence.......

SORRY AGAIN!

[LOGAN]

And if I was bloody rude to anyone in this post I am also sorry, but I guess you refer to the another thread.

[Isegrim]

*sigh*

I somehow don't really seem to understand your problem... I'm using rendered backgrounds and sprite PCXs as well and I do get full crisp quality. If you have large gradiented areas like the sky or so I admit that in 16bit the gradients somehow... suck.
But I don't see the necessity of such large gradients. Use cloudy skies for example.

But still it is true what we said about JPGs. They do not look bad to you or to anyone else, but try with transparency and you will see what we mean.

And concerning the file size: PCXs are compressed, you won't get much higher compression without significantly losing quality (and, as we all know now very well, this is not what you want)