Wonder doesn't want to show up in the game.

Hard to say without seeing the files.
Icon set properly on the atlas? You should leave the black background there and just overlay your icon on top of the white circle. Make sure it's saved with an alpha layer. Make sure the icon atlas is defined properly in the XML.

@COF

In this particular case you have three options for PS here:

1. save you original 45x45 icon without any compression (choose 8.8.8.8 ARGB option in NVIDIA dds format dialog).

2. if you want to save with DXT3/5 compression then you may want to resize canvas size to create the image with proper dimensions - with you original 45x45 icon do:
- Image -> Canvas size...
- in Canvas Size window: change units from pixels to percent and type 200 for width and height, and as Anchor set top left corner, click OK, then save.

3. Resize your image to 44x44

@DarkScythe

There are various levels of corrupted files ;] Some may crash the game, some may work, but have other issues, etc. That's true the images saved in GIMP with odd dimensions and with DXT compression work in game. But for the plugin I tested (here) GIMP was just using tricks to create such odd files :] The actual compressed part of the image was in 44x44 dimesions, and the excessive row and column of those additional pixels were masked out by alpha channel. The file was good in game, but it had issues with Windows Texture Viewer were preview was all messed up.
So maybe you're using some other plugin where everything is correct?

Actually, based on what you've been saying, it sounds like this "issue" comes up when you utilize compression?

If that's the case, then it's not so much that I'm using another plugin, but rather that I've simply saved every DDS file so far as uncompressed / 8888 ARGB. I guess I've "accidentally" sidestepped the issue, although it was mainly because I was dissatisfied with color rendition when any compression was used.

Civ5Mod files are technically compressed archives anyway, so there wouldn't be any major issue in-transit; it'd just eat up a little more space once unpacked.

Yes, this applies to compressed files. Uncompressed ones can be saved with any dimensions, and there are no problems with them for both GIMP and PS.

And that's correct it affects download times not that much, as uncompressed files have a very good compression ratio, and Civ5Mod files are actual 7z archives.
Though if you multiply this by the number of mods, and other bad habbits then it escalates a bit ;] Just for the sake of comparison: once I downloaded over 200 wonders in separate mods, and unpacked content was like over 1.3 GB on disk drive. I reviewed the files, cropped properly and recompressed everything, which made all those content not larger than 85 MB in size ;]

Which is fine if it works, but as I said, I was dissatisfied with color rendition of my images when I applied any compression to them, so I chose to save them as uncompressed. I can live with a larger disk space consumption if it means the image looks the way I wanted it to look, otherwise it would've been a waste of time editing it in the first place.

So, this is what the thing looks like. I tried saving it as :
"DXT1 ARGB 4 bpp | 1 bit alpha" and tried once again as "8.8.8.8 ARGB"

But that only gave me a red square in game. I really have no clue what to do.

Might be an issue with the alpha layer. I think Photoshop does not apply one by default? You should doublecheck that.

What exactly is an alpha layer? I am kinda new to this.

Also, the red square was because I didn't set import to VFS to true. I fixed that and now its back to the black frame.

Icons in Civ use transparency info to hide unnecessary areas of the image. Alpha = transparency in short.

In PS make sure you have "Alpha 1" layer on Channels tab. And it should be all black with circle filled with white in size of your round icon image.
You may want to use WTV to inspect your files. You can press U to show alpha channel in WTV, or A to show how it will be influencing your original image (your round icon should be intact, while the space around it should turn pink).

Icon should:
- be saved ax DXT3/5/ARGB8888 image,
- have proper alpha channel
- have no mip maps
- preferably be in dimensions of your icon(s) (try not to use that huge original template, because it's completely waste of space, just crop it to the size you need)

Yeah, from what it sounds like, if you save it as uncompressed, you will probably not run into the "multiple of 4" compression thing, so you can just do the one icon.

With that said, you will need to load up your image (I usually export them to a PNG first, for ease of use, so this will be what I start with) then look at the "Channels" for your image.

I'm not sure if it's changed through various versions of Photoshop, but at least with the version I use (CS4) it's on the tab next to the Layers tab. You should see at least "Red," "Green," and "Blue." If you do not see a channel called "Alpha 1" then you need to make it.

Thankfully, it's not too hard assuming your icon is done properly with transparency already.
Simply ctrl+click the THUMBNAIL of the icon in the Layers tab -- this should create a selection that encompasses your entire icon without selecting any transparent area which should lie outside the "Circle." Then, go into the "Channels" tab, and at the bottom, there is a button that says "Save selection as a channel." Clicking this should automatically create an Alpha layer in the shape if your icon (white on black.) After that, you can save the image as a DDS with an alpha layer.

@COF
Actually when I think about it, that original PS template DarkScythe mentioned, and is probably used here, already has proper alpha channel.
So the black icons may also be caused by imporper settings for icon atlases in xml/sql code of your mod. You may want to post code here, and icon file as an attachement - it may be much quicker to inspect it and come up with a fix, than to try to guess any possible issue that could cause this...

Praise the Gods! It's working!

Thank you so much guys. I will make sure to put you guys in the credits... if I ever release it :^)

Artisanix said:

@COF
Actually when I think about it, that original PS template DarkScythe mentioned, and is probably used here, already has proper alpha channel.
So the black icons may also be caused by imporper settings for icon atlases in xml/sql code of your mod. You may want to post code here, and icon file as an attachement - it may be much quicker to inspect it and come up with a fix, than to try to guess any possible issue that could cause this...

Click to expand...

Nah, the xml was perfectly fine. I made sure plenty of times

Glad you got it working. For future reference, what was the issue?

The Alpha channel thing. Those things were just white with nothing on them.

Ah, gotcha. Though, the alpha channel is supposed to be white on top of black.