NPC portrait mod?

[ericp07]

You don't lose quality with GIFs when the originals are 256 colours. It uses a lossless pixel mapping algorithm, unlike JPG which is not lossless.

 

OGGing WAV files is lossy too - I'm not sure I agree with it, but I'm not going to bog up a graphics thread with talk about audio.

 

True say. If your image begins as a .jpg, and you convert it to a .gif, you may lose some quality, depending on the content of the original. The other way around, I wouldn't expect a loss. This is the first time I've ever seen mention of a lossless algorithm for image files, but everything I've read about it has suggested that, of the two formats, .jpg is superior to .gif. My own experimentation has supported this notion.

 

Too bad the game doesn't use .aiff audio files, as the quaity there is (supposed to be) higher than with .wav files...but then we're limited to 8-bit mono files for the game...right?

 

- E

[Miloch]

If your image begins as a .jpg, and you convert it to a .gif, you may lose some quality, depending on the content of the original. The other way around, I wouldn't expect a loss. This is the first time I've ever seen mention of a lossless algorithm for image files, but everything I've read about it has suggested that, of the two formats, .jpg is superior to .gif. My own experimentation has supported this notion.

Heh. Well lemme see if I can get my poor orcish brain in this kinda mindset after hacking my way through the rainforest with a machete for a week or two (literally... well almost, but that's another story...).

 

There are basically two kinds of "loss" one might experience when trying to compress images. The first is colour reduction. Based on the size (in pixels) and type (e.g., photo vs. cartoon/drawing etc.) of your image, this "colour loss" may or may not be an issue. Basically what we're talking about is reducing full ("16 million") colour images down to 256 colours. And you might think "whoa - that's a lot of reduction!" But what we're talking about here is a bunch of 38x60 images, and it actually isn't much - usually isn't any reduction at all, for that size of image. I'm rubbish at math, but there are 2280 pixels in that image, any dozen of which are the same colour, or so close that your eye can't detect the difference. Most likely more than that. And 2280/12 = 190, so we're under the 256-colour limit there, using my primitive orcish math.

 

Now the other sort of compression involves quality loss without "colour loss." That's what the JPEG algorithm does. It retains your full 16-million colours in the image, but does so at the expense of clarity. And it does so at varying rates that you yourself can (usually) specify when you compress the image to JPEG format. Try it, for example, with a photo of yourself (or, especially in my case, a photo of the face of someone prettier than you) and save it as a .jpg at 1% and another at 10% another at 20% and so on. The more you compress it, the smaller the file, and the more the quality loss.

 

I'm neither a computer scientist nor a professional graphic designer, but the best I can explain this "loss" is due to the algorithm. At higher compressions, it maps higher proportions of pixels it considers to be of "similar" colours. For example, take a face that has peach skin and freckles that are slightly darker. At 1% compression (the lowest in JPEG as far as I know) you probably won't notice a difference between that an an uncompressed photo. At 10%, however, some of the freckles might fade away (perhaps a good thing if you don't like freckles). 15% or more on the other hand, might introduce freckles that weren't there originally - a phenomenon known as "JPEG artifacts." And the thing with that is, you never know where that "perfect ratio" might be, since it varies for each image due to its complexity.

 

Well enough of my rambling. If I sound like some sort of know-it-all - I'm not. I can't really even cite any sources for any of this information. It's just the result of a lot of guesswork over the years working with graphics. I'd welcome it if someone who knows more about this sort of thing can confirm or deny any of this. But the short story is for the purposes of this topic, going from JPG to GIF might experience loss of colour, and going from GIF to JPEG might experience loss of clarity. The only true "lossless" formats are BMP, TIFF and perhaps a few more that preserve both colour and clarity, but at the expense of (sometimes massive) file sizes. However, going from 256-colour BMPs (which all IE small portraits should be) to GIFs and vice-versa should have no loss whatsoever.

 

I guess I could give some examples from "photos from the ruins" in different formats, but eh... to get this thread back on track, I have a copy of Rabain's portrait mod and will be testing it and giving feedback... hopefully soonish. (Right after I get done uploading these photos from my gf's camera of her and her girlfriends swimming in jungle lakes "au naturel..." eh, nevermind... no one wants to see these...).

 

As for observations about "sound," well, I think I've sidetracked this topic enough in one post.

[ericp07]

Miloch, you're right on target with your explanations. They agree with everything I've read over the years about image file formats, compression, and quality. Given the choice, I choose clarity over color, and do everything possible to avoid (or at least minimize) those nasty JPEG artifacts.

 

I, too, will end this divergence from the main topic here

 

Thanks,

Eric

[dizzyorange]

Miloch, you're right on target with your explanations. They agree with everything I've read over the years about image file formats, compression, and quality. Given the choice, I choose clarity over color, and do everything possible to avoid (or at least minimize) those nasty JPEG artifacts.

 

I, too, will end this divergence from the main topic here

 

Thanks,

Eric

 

I've been using a beta version of the NPC portrait mod for about a week or so now, and I quite like it. I'd say about 80-90% of the portraits are right on target, although there are some that seem to contrast too sharply with the semi-realistic-hand-painted-fantasy art style of Bioware. I have not experience any type of slowdown after installing this mod. Overall great job Rabain!

[Rabain]

If you want to take note of any out of place portraits...please do and give me a list whenever you can.

 

Things can always be improved.

[ericp07]

If memory serves (as Yoshimo says), I was unable to install this mod on my Mac, though I don't recall why not. I'd like to know if it's possible to manually add the images to the Portraits folder (I've taken to placing all portraits there, rather than in the override folder, which now contains 12,226 items!).

 

Thanks,

Eric

[Rabain]

The mod installs all portraits to the portrait folder...it doesn't put them in the override.

 

However manually putting them in the portraits folder will do nothing unless the cre file has been patched to assign the portrait.

 

My Mac coding with weidu is non-existant. Is there a guide to being Mac friendly during coding?

[Steve]

I just installed BG2CPMv0.5 on my Mac with Install-mod so the problem ericp07 had isn't anything to do with your mod.

 

... My Mac coding with weidu is non-existant. Is there a guide to being Mac friendly during coding?

devSin has a message somewhere about that, but for your purposes there is nothing you need to change to be compatible with Macs. Mods that modify BGMain.exe will of course not work; it would be nice if those mods would wrap it in an "IF OSTYPE = Windows". Mods that run .BAT files need to have them be translated to .sh files, but that's the job of the converter program. Otherwise, WeiDU fixes up any differences between Mac and PC.

[Rabain]

Cool thanks.

[ericp07]

This mod is still in beta, right? Normally, I avoid anything beta like the plague, but I'm curious to try this one out. Only problem is that I can't find any download links. Little help?

 

Thanks,

Eric

[Steve]

http://www.borderkingdoms.net/index.php?action=tpmod;dl

[Rabain]

All it does is copy a bunch of cre files to your override and patch them with portraits.

 

It is beta because I want to make sure there isn't some odd conflict I've missed or some weird Mac issue as mentioned above.

 

I don't expect any issues...other than the "I don't like the portrait assigned to X" variety.

[Steve]

The only thing that's questionable is putting the .BMP's in the portrait directory. They all show up in the list if you create a character with a custom portrait.

[berelinde]

You say that like it's a bad thing.

 

Seriously, I love it when mod portraits are available to the PC. More choices is a good thing, and it certainly doesn't hurt the mod they came from if the portraits are used in this way. Of course, in the case of this mod, where 1800 small portraits are added, that's a lot of scrolling on the custom screen, but to me, that's a small price to pay for variety.

[Steve]

Normally I'd agree with you, but this mod only contains small (38x60) pictures. I suppose you could make a montage out of them for your normal size portrait.