An old discovery i had stumbled upon regarding city gfx

[tom2050]

It's tough to try to recreate something that was probably in GIMP, with all else completely unknown. The variables are enormous.

ability to save an image with a part of it hidden.

what exactly does that mean? Hide portions of an image?

i remember pasting a larger image onto one which only had civ3 size

You are saying that you pasted e.g. a 200x200 image into a 100x100 image, and that the whole 200x200 image showed in game even though the actual PCX dimensions was still only 100x100? I think something like that is impossible, the image data would not stay stored in the PCX file for the remainder of the 'hidden' pixels outside the 100x100 range.

The only possible thing I would think it could be, is if the PCX image size was enlarged.

Tom

 

[Takhisis]

yes and no. If you open a 100x100 file with GIMP, you can paste a 200x200 on it but would only see 100x100. Still the data remains, and you can select the layer and move it around. I don't know how that would work in-game, and I'm not that good at GIMP to know how to implement it.

 

[tom2050]

True, but the same in PSP and Photoshop, you can move images on a layer around, or even in an indexed PCX file... but once you save the file, I don't believe it saves the hidden data outside of the PCX file. PSP and PSD files (which stores layer data) does do that though; since after saving you can move it later (which is why those files can get so large).

That should be easy to test out.

Tom

 

[Takhisis]

An indexed PCX, huh? civ uses pcx files...

 

[Blue Monkey]

It probably has to do with Gimp, and its ability to save an image with a part of it hidden.
Not sure if i will try to recreate it since i do not really see the point in it, but others are welcome to try it. I guarantee that it happened though

I use GIMP, but your descriptions are a little too vague for me to try to reproduce the effect without spending an inordinate amount of time.

 

[Blue Monkey]

As to the layered pcx issue:

a quick test (make a 2 layered image in gimp, save it in pcx format, open in another application) shows that pcx cannot handle multi-layered images. So that can't be the solution to how it shows up in game.

 

[Takhisis]

Maybe it wa sjust a 200x200 file. I mean, if megaresources.zip exists, why shouldn't other files exist too?

 

[tom2050]

An indexed PCX, huh? civ uses pcx files...

Indexed pcx with a palette, not an pcx in RGB mode.

Maybe it wa sjust a 200x200 file. I mean, if megaresources.zip exists, why shouldn't other files exist too?

I agree, perhaps I'll make a larger image with certain placeholder images on the magneta background, solely to see where the cities show up (determine if it grabs them from the upper left corner, etc).

Tom

 

[Takhisis]

Well? I've already had a few interesting ideas on tactical and strategic development for this, so I've got ants in my pants .

 

[jewmpaloompa]

OK I figured it out!!! No hidden images... Just the size of the image... I doubled the size, and this is what happened:

Spoiler :

 

[Takhisis]

OH YESSSS!!!!!!
I've been thinking on how to do a siege map (one or two cities, with strong positions, lot's of static 'fortress' units and so on) and this might just be it. I could put in a LARGE city graphic, with suburbs, walls... Oh, oh, oh, I wuv it!! I just wuv it!!

 

[WildWeazel]

Very interesting. So it seems the game divides up the cities files according to their size, rather than by pixels?

 

[General 666]

In the Fallout Mod there is a terrain file used ,that has an oversize format. It causes extremely disturbing effects. It`s hiding units behind the terrain. Yeah ,the units just disappear behind it.

So I would say that you can forget about this phenomen.

 

[Takhisis]

Actually, it would be grand. I could hide units in ambushes...

 

[General 666]

It might be awesome for El Justos Vietnam scenario ...

 

[tom2050]

Does the oversized city graphic have the same issue of hiding units behind it?

Tom

 

[General 666]

Never tried ! But technically I can`t see why it should work differently.

 

[RedAlert]

OK I figured it out!!! No hidden images... Just the size of the image... I doubled the size, and this is what happened:

Spoiler :

Fantastic! Could you upload the city file you did that with?

 

[Kyriakos]

Glad to see that my lazyness did not hinder this discovery

However im not sure i will actually use this, since the rest of my cities don't have it and i want to keep things stable

 

[Pounder]

Is it just cities, does the game do the same thing with the other files, resources, terrain buildings, irrigation, pollution, terrain, etc.....