Font Help

[deanej]

Could someone create a GameFont.tga file for me? I have a GameFont75.tga file for my Star Trek Mod, but whenever I try to make GameFont.tga, I mess the game up. The text in worldbuilder will use an improper font and/or the city bar icons will be messed up. I have attempted to make the file multiple times and have not succeeded. See the link to the Star Trek mod in my sig.

 

[deanej]

Can someone help? I'm pulling my hair out! I've tried re-doing the file many times and it still won't work - I need someone that has actual graphics skills!

 

[deanej]

Come on! Anyone? Please?

Like I've said, I've attempted and FAILED to do this myself. I don't want my mod to die because I couldn't get community support when/where I needed it...

 

[Refar]

From your comment, i think you might have tried to scale up the GameFont75 to get the bigger version... That does not work (I think, because scaling will make the little cyan dot have wrong color/position).

You need to do Gamefont.tga from scratch, repeating the same steps you made to create the _75 version.

Also for someone to do it, you would need to upload your icons and you _75 file (for reference)

 

[snipperrabbit!!]

Yes, you must provide your art and the reference for the order the new resources must be added ( must match the xml too ).

 

[deanej]

I am doing it from scratch. Simply resizing GameFont75.tga will cause a CTD. And as stated in the first post, they are for my Star Trek mod (link in sig!). I've also attached my GameFont75 file as well as the religion icons and a button for the plasma resource (replaces uranium, all other resources are from Final Frontier). Unfortunately, I don't have the original art for the plasma resource (I immediately put the button border around it and I didn't think that there was anything wrong with the fonts until I realized that I had unhappy/unhealthy cities and those icons were not displayed on the city bar).

 

[johny smith]

Do you have the correct order in the religioninfos.xml to match the Font files?

 

[deanej]

Yep. The correct religion icons are put for each religion - the problem is that the other icons on the city bar don't show up (at all). Also, the font is wrong in the worldbuilder but nowhere else. It's only the one that's causing problems. Like I said, GameFont75.tga is fine. There's something wrong with the process I use most likely, or possibly something seriously wrong with the mod that I can't detect (it gives a memory error on exit and code/XML values don't work as expected sometimes). Sometimes I think that the mod needs to be scrapped and redone from scratch, as I've had issues ever since converting to BtS/Final Frontier. However, as I've tested the fonts in Final Frontier and they don't work there either, it means that something's wrong with the file. I can only guess that DXTBMP is introducing errors to the file.

 

[deanej]

They are correct. I think GameFont75.tga may be bad too, as a bug in the mod was discovered where the research text on the scoreboard would overlap the trade/religion icons there. It's all probably bad files. The other (and original) problem is that the city bar icons are not displayed (with the mysterious exception of the religion icons, which show up just fine). The font in worldbuilder is also wrong.

I'm really not sure why I'm incapable of creating working font files. I follow the tutorial exactly, and they worked fine under Warlords (I think. I really don't remember, and I never thought to test for the city bar icons).

EDIT: sorry for the double post. It took forever for the last post to display and I needed to update it, and thought it never got posted for some reason.

 

[Refar]

Hmmm... I tried it to no avail for now... thats odd...

A somewhat related question - does someone know, where (in which screen) exactly which of the files are used ? Would make testing a lot easier...

 

[deanej]

GameFont.tga - World builder text, city bar icons
GameFont75.tga - city screen, diplomacy, all other text

At least as far as I know.

 

[CyberChrist]

This is actually a common enough problem people run into with the GameFont files (especially when using Anti-aliasing).

In your attached GameFont file the Alpha channel for the first 10 religion(?) icons extends 1 pixel too far both upwards and downwards.

Always make sure that the 'grid' around the icons (for both RGB and alpha channels) only use the deault colors for the 'grid'.

 

[deanej]

Well, I re-did the grid so that's probably not an issue (unless something changed outside of the area I modified). As for the alpha channels, I attempted to re-do them before and reduce the area... without much success. I use DXTBMP + Photoshop elements to do these files (and all other graphics). Should I be using GIMP instead? Or are more areas problematic? I'll try to reduce them again. DXTBMP has been known to have problems saving these files sometimes.

 

[deanej]

I re-did the alpha channels for both. I don't see any issues with the scoreboard, so I may have fixed GameFont75.tga. However, despite changing the alpha channel, I STILL have issues with GameFont.tga (the same issues). Also, whenever I try to remove the corporation buttons from GameFont.tga, I get LOTS of text issues (the traits in the "Play now" screens and the worldbuilder text is all wrong). I suspect either DXTBMP or Photoshop Elements is saving the files wrong (Photoshop Elements, especially, has a tendency to want to smooth the transition between colors).

I've attached the new files. Give a city an absurd amout of population in worldbuilder and notice how the unhappy/unhealthy icons never show up.

 

[zappara]

I've had lots of similar issues when I've been modifying font files for Rise of Mankind mod - it gets frustrating when font files seem to look ok but don't actually work correctly in game - all it takes is to have one little pixel at wrong place with wrong color. I'm now using only DXTBMP and Windows Paint to edit those files as it seems you get lots of more errors if you try more advanced graphic software to edit those files (the smoothing as you said happens on them) - I do use other graphic programs to check the alpha channels that they match icon positions but all editing is done in Paint. And still I'm having problems with those files after spending 100+ hours with them

Edit: Looked those font files and didn't see anything wrong but on religion/corporation icon row icons 19 and 20 are using similar colors that is used to identify different icons (the one pixel in border). Didn't see if there was any pixels with exact same color settings but I'm guessing this might be one cause for problems. So maybe try converting those icons to different colors?

 

[deanej]

Well, I got the issue fixed: it was the alpha channels, I just forgot to strip back the one for the plasma icon. Still can't figure out why the corporation icons can't be removed - any ideas?

For now on, I'm doing the alpha channels in Photoshop Elements without going through DXTBMP since I finally figured out how to do that. It will eliminate the guesswork.

 

[davidlallen]

This thread is recent enough that posting here is not a "necro".

I am having the same problem as deanej. No matter how carefully I edit gamefont.tga in photoshop, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I am viewing the alpha selection layer and changing it pixel by pixel. I am *positive* that photoshop is not showing any alpha selection outside the margins. I have been able to edit the RGB channels, and I can *subtract* from the alpha channel. But as soon as I add *anything* to the alpha channel, the fonts display incorrectly.

The problem is either off by one horizontally, or skipping a whole row vertically. So what should be icon N actually displays either icon N+1, or it displays the icon from two rows down.

In this link, I have put some example files. They all have the same RGB channels. I have edited the religion icons. In GameFont.tga, it works correctly. When I copy any of the other files to GameFont.tga, I get the display problem. I can see the display problem for sure, when I use WB to add a religion to a city. Instead of displaying my first religion icon, which is a red A in a black circle, it displays the icon for aluminum.

What should I do differently in photoshop to make sure I can edit the alpha correctly?

What tools can I use, other than photoshop, to double-check the alpha is correct?

I have written a checker for XML files (at this link) which seems pretty successful. If somebody can show me what is wrong, then I can probably enhance the checker to read gamefonts and do "something" to check it.

 

[xienwolf]

The quick/easy way IMO for checking your Alpha in Photoshop is to double click on the Alpha Layer.

Click on the "Color" box, and instead of selecting a color yourself, click on the background for Photoshop (a midrange grey if you haven't changed it yourself). Now set the Opacity to 100% and make sure it is still marked as "Color Indicates: Masked Area"


Click on the little eye icons for RGB and Alpha, so that both are visible at once. This will cause everything that is visible in the game to be all that is visible for you in Photoshop.

EDIT: Download finished: try7 was the only one which seemed to have the proper alpha layer settings for the new Circle icons. But I didn't see anything else which ought to be causing issues.

 

[davidlallen]

Thanks for the information. I am still not quite able to proceed. In game, all three of try7, try8, try9 fail to work; that is, the wrong icons are displayed when I add the religions in WB. So there is something wrong with all three.

I have photoshop elements 3; I don't follow what you mean by "double click on the alpha layer". The only way I know to display the alpha layer is to use the menu choice "select -> load selection", which displays the alpha channel as a selection (animated outlines). When I do this, all of the selections are well within the margins of the magenta lines.

 

[xienwolf]

Is it the wrong religion, or the wrong icon?

Change the order that they are entered in your ReligionInfos.xml. I remember one guy saying that he was unable to re-arrange them in the order he wanted because the graphics would remain linked to the entry order, not the actual religions.