Icon and Screen Pixel Dimension Reference

[codefreak5]

I believe building icons need to have a 32-pixel size. When I removed the icon for my mod's UB from the 32-pixel atlas after looking at your chart to determine which icons I didn't need, the icon disappeared from the city's production menu and the Technology research selector, in the area where the units, buildings, improvements, and other bonuses are displayed. Could you update your chart to reflect this?
Also, thanks for posting the icon sizes - there's less black space around my icons in-game now. I was having trouble determining the exact sizes they needed to be, but you did that for me, so, thanks.

 

[FramedArchitect]

And on a related topic. Are there preferred compression formats (DXT1/BC1, DXT3/BC2, DXT5/BC3, RGBA8) for the various images (DoM, LeaderHead, etc - not the icons) or does it solely depend on the alpha gradients/transitions (see table here)

I have used DTX5 (ARGB, interpolated alpha) for the all screens except Ideology Tab and CS Background. It is good balance between quality and image size and allows you to use the edge-masking alpha. The Ideology Tab and CS Background Screens are not div4 so must be saved with different format (or just resized...). I used 8.8.8 RGB (16 Colors).

Side note, we used 8.8.8.8 ARGB (unsigned) format for our Andean Civs and Leaders icons. They looked fantastic, but even a 4x4 (256 pixel) atlas will exceed 4MB.

I believe building icons need to have a 32-pixel size. When I removed the icon for my mod's UB from the 32-pixel atlas after looking at your chart to determine which icons I didn't need, the icon disappeared from the city's production menu and the Technology research selector, in the area where the units, buildings, improvements, and other bonuses are displayed. Could you update your chart to reflect this?

I've been using these icon sizes in many projects for many years now, and I've never had the issue you describe above. I haven't looked at CityView.lua in a while, but TechTree.lua requires a 45 texture for the small icons.

-- add the small pictures and their tooltips
AddSmallButtonsToTechButton( thisTechButtonInstance, tech, maxSmallButtons, 45 );

Perhaps you had inadvertently saved a dds with a wrong name? Or there is a mistake in your Atlas definitions? Hard to say with so little to go on...

 

[PawelS]

The original building atlases don't contain size 32 icons, so I don't think they are needed.

The original civ alpha atlases (in BNW) contain sizes 16, 24, 32, 48, 64, 128. Are you sure that 16 and 128 aren't used anywhere?

 

[codefreak5]

I've been using these icon sizes in many projects for many years now, and I've never had the issue you describe above. I haven't looked at CityView.lua in a while, but TechTree.lua requires a 45 texture for the small icons.

-- add the small pictures and their tooltips
AddSmallButtonsToTechButton( thisTechButtonInstance, tech, maxSmallButtons, 45 );

Perhaps you had inadvertently saved a dds with a wrong name? Or there is a mistake in your Atlas definitions? Hard to say with so little to go on...

The original building atlases don't contain size 32 icons, so I don't think they are needed.

Well, all I know is the icon isn't showing up for me. I'll provide pictures and details if necessary (in a separate thread in the main C&C forum, as to not clutter this one up) when I'm not busy.
EDIT: I had forgotten that there's a bit of white space around the icon itself, so while they look 32x32, they're actually 45x45. My mistake.
Problem isn't fixed, but I've made a thread addressing it. Sorry to waste everyone's time.

 

[whoward69]

Correction for porthole sizes

256 --> 172
128 --> 86
64 --> 43

 

[Harald B]

Does anyone know what sizes are needed for improvements? I'm trying to replace the Ancient Ruins icon and I can get it to show up in the civilopedia but not in the message sidebar icon.

 

[whoward69]

Does anyone know what sizes are needed for improvements?

64 and 256 for the improvement, 45 and 64 if it has an associated "build". New improvements also need an SV icon.

 

[Harald B]

64 and 256 for the improvement, 45 and 64 if it has an associated "build". New improvements also need an SV icon.

Thank you, but that doesn't quite do it for me. I have those sizes, I switched out the SV icon and turned on Reload Landmark System and it still won't show in that sidebar. I'll post this question in the main forum to not derail things here.

 

[FramedArchitect]

Does anyone know what sizes are needed for improvements? I'm trying to replace the Ancient Ruins icon and I can get it to show up in the civilopedia but not in the message sidebar icon.

I updated the Excel file and screenshots to include the Improvements and Unit Actions dimensions. Unit action icons generally use the alpha to mask everything but the actual icon.

EDIT
A small project that adds a new Improvement and associated Unit Action available here.

 

[DWrightMets07]

For the leader icons(256, 128) what do I type them in as in my XML portions?

 

[FramedArchitect]

For the leader icons(256, 128) what do I type them in as in my XML portions?

I'm not sure what you mean... In the xml (database) part of your mod you only reference the Icon Atlas, which defines all the icon sizes needed and the associated dds files.

I think there are some good tutorials on icon creation on this website that would better explain this than I can here!

 

[SirGerakul]

Hello guys, I've been trying to edit flags for Civilizations and, even though it worked, the problem is that the icon displayed, which it should be round it looks like it loads a square (with black background). I don't know why it happens.

Here are some pics: the grid in photoshop and the flag in-game

Spoiler :

Also in the XML I did this:

Spoiler :

<IconTextureAtlases> (did this with all sizes of course)
<Row>
<Atlas>IconAtlasAragon</Atlas>
<IconSize>256</IconSize>
<Filename>IconAtlasAragon256.dds</Filename>
<IconsPerRow>8</IconsPerRow>
<IconsPerColumn>8</IconsPerColumn>
</Row>
</IconTextureAtlases>

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
And I changed the Netherlands flag to the one I created

<Civilizations>
<Update>
<Where Type="CIVILIZATION_NETHERLANDS"/>
<Set PortraitIndex="0"/>
</Update>
<Update>
<Where Type="CIVILIZATION_NETHERLANDS"/>
<Set IconAtlas="IconAtlasAragon"/>
</Update>
</Civilizations>

Thanks guys.

 

[Pouakai]

It looks like the alpha around the icon hasn't set up properly. It usually just does it for me using the photoshop dds plugin and having a transparent background, I'm not sure how to manually add it in.

 

[SirGerakul]

I started using Paint.Net, faster and easier. It works perfectly now : D

 

[nordicmaker]

Thanks very much, this is a very usefull facts

 

[pineappledan]

A bit of a necro, but is there a resource which can tell me specifically what each size of icon is used for? ie. I know the 64x64 is used in the leader pick screen, but is it used anywhere in the game itself?

The reason I ask is we have been forced to create a unique worker in order to implement a UI, but the UI's icon would be more informative for the leader select screen. We could substitute the worker's icon art for that of the improvement's at the 64 pixel size, but that would backfire if that icon art is used elsewhere in the game

 

[LeeS]

If you have BNW you don't need a unique worker to implement a unique improvement. If you don't have BNW then you're really figthing an uphill battle against the game's normal systems.

 

[pineappledan]

We wanted to make a UI which could be built/improve luxuries. The AI builds it, then immediately destroys it to build a plantation, then back and forth.

We fixed the AI behaviour at any rate