32 bit art for allegiance

Quia · Post by **Quia** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 1:34 am

Thanks YP.
I've now got 24bit versions of the four environments I have bmp's for... but Allegiance displays them exactly the same as the 16 bit versions. I've got zips for whoever wants to crack this one.

16bit versions for comparison
24bit versions

Both of the 32bit conversions crash Alleg as soon as you launch.

madpeople · Post by **madpeople** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 1:51 pm

does mdlc know what to do with 32bit .bmps - does it know how to read them.

in a pm from adaven, he said

adaven wrote:I had experimented with mdlc earlier and I kept getting buggy files (possibly because I was trying to use 32-bit bmp's in retrospect)

so the normal mdlc doesn't do 32bit files ether...

Quia · Post by **Quia** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 8:50 am

That's weird. I've been using 32bit BMPs since I started, and neither mdlc or MDLfx have given me any trouble converting them.

emene86 · Post by **emene86** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 4:09 pm

This may be in the wrong thread or at least way belated, but just to carry the though of alpha blending through. From what I understood (and correct me if im wrong) alpha blending is not made in the art files but in the code? If so it would be very interesting to see some alpha blending on cloaking ships. perhaps its a varying degree of transparency depending on the sig and scan range, as opposed to an abrupt show no show. Of course, to preserve the game balance, transparency would only work when you are eyed, but as you approach a low sig you fade away to nothing. Maybe it can even be implemented that you can't lock on a ship that is close to cloaking even though you might faintly see it.

Just throwing ideas out there, you are welcome to shoot them down, especially since I won't be helping with any coding /tongue.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":P" border="0" alt="tongue.gif" />

Dogbones · Post by **Dogbones** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 8:20 pm

Y_P and mdv know the graphics much better than I do. I am a little puzzled however why Y_P provided tools to generate 24 bit versions of the bmp.mdl files as Alleg runs in 16 bit color depth. You may have noticed that you cannot run Allegiance as a window unless your desktop color depth is 16 bit. You also may have noticed that if your desktop is set to a 32 bit color depth Allegiance runs full screen AND switches to a 16 bit color depth.

From reading other's posts (mdv's) it appears Allegiance has some assembly (hard coded) which only supports a 16 bit color depth. Until support is added for 24/32 bits it seems a moot point to be generating 24/32 bit images.

Perhaps Y_P's tool was in anticipation of such a change.

Dog