ulillillia: try to play with the compression factor if you are using jpg images. Another idea would be to use gif files (this works best if the size of the image is really small).
Anakin_Skywalker: the new layout will surprise you in Aum51. I'll continue to "use the source"

I tried playing with the compression factor. Even at JPG quality of 50, it not only looks bad, but it's still 200-something KB! GIF files won't work as the colors are seriously messed up, even worse than JPG.... It also seems like I might have to rewrite certain parts of the tutorial due to the fact that I didn't know that it was the width and height of a texture that were limited and not only by memory. It uses 4096x256 which won't run on my video card, but hey, there's actually an advantage to this - learning how to make texture modifications, something that I haven't covered yet. And using a really small image isn't likely. The screenshots are 1600x1200 at full size. The thumbnails are 400x300 and are a different file. It's the gouraud shading that's causing this and I don't know how to disable it short of having to make heavy edits to the images to remove this (the best way in terms of compression and quality) or use color reduction (the fastest way, but won't look as good and might not compress as good either.

I would make the screenshots smaller; something like 1024x768 or 800x600 should do the trick. Of course that it all depends on the level of detail (not LOD ) that you want to obtain. Gif files work well for small images; they reduce the number of colors to 256, so they might not look that well if you have many different colors in your pictures.

O I want to see it now... *g*
I hope it will make life easier... new layout, new tips, new understanding, better game!
Or as master Joda tells ya:
Fear you mustn´t have, new layout leads to new tips, new tips leads to understanding, understanding leads to a better game, a better game leads to suffering, dieing!!!


XD

I don't like running at 1024x768. I got the big monitor so I can run at 1600x1200 (and now I'm wanting to go higher, but don't see anything that can go much higher). I don't know about 800x600 for the size but making the conversion. 256 colors is too few which is why GIF won't work. It's the gouraud shading in MED that really causes problems and I don't know how to disable it (to get true color which would compress a lot better).

I'm pretty sure that Med has an option that allows you to see the models without gouraud shading (only "textured" or so).

Even having it as "textured" still has this gouraud shading (change the angle of the camera and you'll see it), but it's not as intense though. The best I'm going to be able to do is to apply a color reduction to help with compression, getting the equivelent of 16-bit color which is acceptable for most cases (especially without dithering). GIMP isn't working for me right now so I can't test it. It simply won't even start or it takes 15 to 40 minutes just to get it to load frequently having to use the "end task" feature to retry after failing. I've submitted a bug report, but haven't gotten anywhere yet. I also need it for my 2D game as I have big changes that need to be done and can't as I don't have any useful software (stuff 4 years old lacking features is not acceptable).

Still, it shouldn't be too much of a problem. Many of the other large screenshots aren't bad in terms of file size, usually not much more than 120 KB each. Screenshots 31 (major), 36 (minor), 39 (moderate), 40 (minor), 42 (moderate), 43 (moderate), 45 (severe - 550 KB in PNG), 46 (severe), 47 (severe), and 48 (moderate) are the worst. Note how these are only the later ones. 200 KB and above I declare as "hazardous". Though I'm not sure if it's 46 or 47, but one of them, in PNG format, was over 1 MB which I'd declare as super severe and color reduction is practically required. It's the 1 MB PNG file with the 200 KB size at JPG quality of 50. Either that, or I could use the 5.6 MB bitmap image....

It looks like you could use high(er) quality jpg files instead of png. Keep an eye on the size (in pixels) though...

There is no need to use 1600x1200 screnehsots as most people don't run this resolution anyway. Also it does not fit to a website.

Make your screenshots smaller instead of sorting them according to severity.
It can't be THAT difficult...

Hey George,

Suggestion for future issues. I like snow and there have been a lot of questions and some scripts regarding it. How about some coverage of every aspect of this -a snow mega pack. Maybe over multiple issues as you did with the game with a complete interactive collection of scripts that covers all aspects by the end of the series. Some have been touched on and might be variations of stuff you've done before.

-Snow fall script, blizzard/whiteout, light/heavy etc
-Foot prints/puffs of snow when walking
-Snow accumulation (maybe using growing meshes, switching textures or even deforming mesh as in this past issue).
-Growing icicles
-Freezing water effect (like small pond)
-Snow on tree
-Vapor from breathing
-Snow drifts (http://www.coniserver.net/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB3&Number=547583&Searchpage=1&Main=520698&Words=snow&topic=&Search=true#Post547583)
-Driving snow - in an interview of flight simulator I believe someone discussed a way to create the illusion of snow streaking towards the camera against forward motion of plane. The users two overlapping cone models with the wide end at the camera lens and each had an animated snow texture so it looked like snow was blowing past on either side fast.
-etc

Thanks for your wonderful work.