Thus spake “David Neumann”:
J.
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Also in the Map Board properties is a “reversible” option. This allows you to rotate the board 180 degrees, but only when starting a new game.
rk
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there are only ever 4 boards displayed at a time with some edging sections…
totalling 4(average110kb)+180kb (edges)=approx. 600kb in total, then plus playing pieces (small sizes 20kb each)
total size of the mod is 27MB approx (though I’m not sure where half that has come from)
[edit: in fact it doesn’t seem to drop when I convert the images (+update the mod obviously), using the flip function(180*rotate) I can lose half the images (850kb) and yet it still 27.4mb as it was before… does the flip thing mean it stores those images anyway…?]
Anything with no alpha channel is jpeg, which is everything but pieces and one deck of cards (125kb each 29 images about 3mb)
I would have thought it would be more like 15MB altogether…
any idea where the baggage is coming from…?
How does 27MB look in terms of system performance? Runs fine on mine… but I have to get it as stream lined as possible for other users.
Thus spake “danjaman”:
You probably have some images in your module which are no longer being used.
I can’t tell from your description, since image file sizes aren’t relevant
for answer the question of how much memory a decoded image will occupy.
What is relevant are the dimensions of those images.
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J.
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I thought the idea was to phase out jpeg. Its really a format not suited for
this application.
Perhaps this should be set in the filechooser? For allowable/recognized
formats much like ADC importer or Sound file selection
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Thus spake “Tim McCaron”:
It’s not a great file format for most wargames, and I’d encourage everyone
to create new art as PNG or SVG. (Not GIF, as it’s obsolete.) JPEG could be
apropriate for something which uses a lot of photographic images, though.
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J.
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So you reckon its best to convert them back to png and have a 50MB module then? I noticed other modules with jpegs…
It seems to work ok, what will the jpegs do?
Board sections are 600 by 600 (4 visible in the complete 1200 by 1200 map)
Cards 200 by 300 (so you can read whats on them)
other cards 110 by 90 which i chopped down as they are simple rules.
Kind of annoying as they were all better quality to start with and I don’t have back ups of all originals, dang!
Thats really annoying
How would I go about removing them?
Or is it a lightning re-write scenario…?
If you browse to the folder with the .vmod file in it, and right click on it, you should see some option somewhere, with some archiver you have (winzip, winrar, 7zip, etc.) to open the archive. Then, unless you know all the pictures you are currently using, I would back all of them up into an external folder, then delete all the images and add back the ones that your module tells you it’s missing when you open it up the next time. Of course, that method would probably require going into every single map window, player hand, etc., you have programmed into your module and drawing every card… Maybe someone else knows a better way (I hope)…
P.S. even if you don’t have it now, I would suggest downloading 7zip. It’s free, it reads all zip and rar archives, and is a lot better at compressing files. But yeah, the .vmod is an archive of some kind.
You can get png files smaller than jpg, get yourself a good png editor and
save the files with 8 bit channels or less. The fewer colors in the image,
the fewer channels you need. I’m working with a module that my original png
files were 350K a piece when created, I used irfanview(free, does batch
processing) to reduce them to 8 bits and have them down to 20k each. I think
most editors default to 24 or even 32 bit images. PNG compresses pretty darn
good when you don’t need all the colors.
For your module size, are all the images contained being used? If you have
images that you had loaded at one time but aren’t using anymore, the module
file still contains those leftover images. Open the module with a zip file
tool and delete the redundant graphic files.
Chuck
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rk… I do not see this when editing a module under beta5? should there be a check box for it under the properties for each map board defintion or something?
There is (named ‘Reversible:’), but it does not appear unless you actually specify a board.
B.
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Thus spake “danjaman”:
There’s no advantage to converting them back, as you’ve alreday introduced
artefacts by converting them to JPEG. Presumably your PNGs weren’t saved
with maximum compression, so you could have had a smaller module.
Four of these as counters might not work that well.
I recommend setting up a version control system (e.g., Subversion, Git) for
doing work like this, as then you can make modifications and still retrieve
the originals if need be.
–
J.
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Thus spake “Chuck Parrott”:
I would strongly recommend against reducing the color depth of your images,
UNLESS you can do it without losing any colors. In all other cases, if you
reduce the color depth, your images will look worse than before.
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J.
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Provided those colors are used, maintaining color depth is necessary. If
they are scanned images, you make a good point, but with user created
graphics which I do more of, you can easily control the color palette size
and get away with channel reduction with no loss at all. I’ve even been able
to ‘clean up’ a poor image on occasion reducing color depths. My point was
that a lot of pixel level editors (especially ‘free’ ones) by default save
to color depths that are too high for the color palette used making the
image larger than it needs to be. A good bit of graphic legwork can save a
lot of space, memory and module size.
Great thing about a good image processor like irfanview is you can play with
the color depth settings and see the results immediately. If you don’t like
it, undo what you did. The other useful feature is that you can specify the
exact color depth, not chose from the common 8.16.24 bit options.
Chuck
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Thanks for all the help guys!
Its not really that bad a thing afterall, because I’ve mined the originals for many images (I did try an archiver, peazip, before and it didn’t work; but 7zip works fine and thanks for recommendation)
I have revamped the look of the thing and thankfully the vast majority of pieces were png anyway.
There are however some that have parts of jpegs in them but have been manipulated and saved within a larger png, in the boards for example. I do have a copy (2 in fact) of the game, but its in my mothers loft… so I’m stuck with jpegs for some things.
It all works fine on my machine; but will other users have problems because of the minimal jpeg influence?
Its down to 11.4MB, but when I add the new boards, probably about 15. Thats more like it!
Better verify that (plz)… I have a board specified and I see nothing like this show up. Beta5, the Strategos module v0.1 should be posted on the Vassal site now.
If it is there please let me know I need new glasses.
It’s not there because you do not have a board specified. You are using a ‘null’ board, which is just a rectangle of color. What is the point of reversing that?
Board reversal is just a reversal of the board image, not the counters on it.
I believe what you are after is REquest for enhancement #1604263 [Show different Map orientations to different players] (sourceforge.net/tracker2/?func= … tid=594234)
B.
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ahhhh… thanks for clarifying that Brent yes you are correct.
So any answer about rotating? Either 180 degrees w/ reversible option only? This only hits 2 of 4 rotations. Best solution add another 90 degree rotated map w/ reversible?
Also in the Map Board properties is a “reversible” option. This allows you to rotate the board 180 degrees, but only when starting a new game.