PNG support?

liquid_smoke · 08-20-2005, 05:03 PM

did a search but didnt turn up anything usefull.

Im assumeing already that png files are not supported, if im correct can we please have support for this image format guino?
Pretty please with sugar on top, lol.
Im not sure how hard or easy it is to add the format but it will make a lot of things a whole lot more sexy in the UI.
Im not really sure why everyone loves jpeg files anyway, they are not lossless and dont support transparency, the 2 main reasons why png files should be used. They are more lite on the system too.

CornFlake340 · 08-20-2005, 10:09 PM

more lite on the system? Not sure about that... I do like me some png files though

xBrady · 08-20-2005, 10:44 PM

I hate jpeg. Would take png any day.

guino · 08-21-2005, 07:10 PM

Well, PNG support is no longer necessary to support transparency on the images. You can use GIF (with or without transparency), BMP or JPG (JPG at 100% quality is lossless). You can use transparency with pretty much any image in RR by paiting the desired "transparent area" with PINK (Full Red, Full Blue, No Green color). Using this color allows you to make full color images with transparency, which means that the PNG format would not provide any extra benefits (but would likely be slower and requirea whole bunch of extra code+files).

liquid_smoke · 08-21-2005, 10:01 PM

well i dont know about GIF files they only support 256 colors!
I didnt know you could paint pink areas and that would be transparent, is anyone doing this? Ill give it a try tonite. Is there anything special i need to do other than paint the area pink? And what about different levels of transparency?

Thanks

foltster · 08-21-2005, 10:13 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by guino

Well, PNG support is no longer necessary to support transparency on the images. You can use GIF (with or without transparency), BMP or JPG (JPG at 100% quality is lossless). You can use transparency with pretty much any image in RR by paiting the desired "transparent area" with PINK (Full Red, Full Blue, No Green color). Using this color allows you to make full color images with transparency, which means that the PNG format would not provide any extra benefits (but would likely be slower and requirea whole bunch of extra code+files).

I'm personally fine using BMP for my personal skins, but JPEG, even at 100%, is still a lossy format. There is JPEG-LS (or something like that), but it is not used much at all. Granted, 100% quality JPEGs are indistinuguishable by the naked eye from the source file, but the format lossless. This is similar to an mp3 at max quality. While it sounds "perfect", the actual bits are not the same as the original source.

While PNG support would be ideal, I think this is a fairly "low" priority feature.

liquid_smoke · 08-22-2005, 01:08 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by guino

You can use transparency with pretty much any image in RR by paiting the desired "transparent area" with PINK (Full Red, Full Blue, No Green color)

not working for me

CornFlake340 · 08-22-2005, 10:38 AM

png supports alpha transparency, something that gif and the method of painting full pink does not. There is a huge difference in quality between the two.

guino · 08-23-2005, 10:33 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by liquid_smoke

not working for me

How are you doing your tests ?

liquid_smoke · 08-24-2005, 12:21 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by guino

How are you doing your tests ?

im testing it on my shutdown screen, it comes up as a window rather than a fullscreen menu and I painted the edges of the box so it would have round corners. When it test it I can see the pink that i painted.

guino · 08-24-2005, 09:39 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by liquid_smoke

im testing it on my shutdown screen, it comes up as a window rather than a fullscreen menu and I painted the edges of the box so it would have round corners. When it test it I can see the pink that i painted.

Transparency is for the defined area of the screen.. if you want to "cut" your window so it is round, you should use the clipping definitions (use as many as needed) ... I do intend to add support to defining the "cut" area using the empty image (at some point)...

liquid_smoke · 08-24-2005, 01:41 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by guino

Transparency is for the defined area of the screen.. if you want to "cut" your window so it is round, you should use the clipping definitions (use as many as needed) ... I do intend to add support to defining the "cut" area using the empty image (at some point)...

now im confused. I thought painting any part of the image pink would make it transparent? (like in winamp skins)
i also dont see how using the clipping function to make round corners, its a box?

guino · 08-25-2005, 12:09 AM

You can use many clipping definitions to make it look round... this may get difficult if you have a large round shape.. I will most likely add the PINK "clipping" support at some point (when I have time to look into it)...

liquid_smoke · 08-25-2005, 04:54 AM

dude your confuseing the hell out of me, lol.
Im sorry.
I dont understand what you mean by "use many clipping definitions to make it look round" what is a definition? do you just mean to use multiple clip region object types? Or is there some setting that says to make the corners round for this clip region. If you mean the first (multiple clips) thats just crazy, no way thats going to work with out getting a huge head ache.

Then you say " i will likely add the PINK clipping support" which makes me think that painting something pink right now does something totaly different than what i was expecting when i painted an area pink earlier.

Currently my idea of tranparency is for something to be either completely invisible and or have different levels of visibility.
The clipping region IMO is a type of transparency where the area is completly invisible, where there are only two options its either completely visibile or its not.
This is what i thought i was originaly going to get by painting areas of my image PINK in photoshop. This is simple transparency, on/off

Alpha transparency is using another channel in the image specificly for transparency RGBA and the transparency is controled by the alphachannel with 255 levels (greyscale)

Now i know RR currently dosent support alpha transparency (this is why i suggested png files)
Painting areas PINK is a good solution to get on/off transparency for image formats that only support 3 channels (jpeg files)
but this dosent seem to do that in RR, and from your last post, dosent seem like it was ment to do that.

So now i ask what does painting anything pink do?
you said to do this in the other thread too
http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=57957
but i dont see how this is the same thing as what we are talking about in this thread.

again im sorry if im not getting something thats super obvious, but it seems like we are talking about 2 maybe 3 completely different things.

guino · 08-25-2005, 10:24 AM

As I said.. it may be difficult to make a round area out of multiple clipping definitions ("Cxx,xxx..." lines in the .skin file).. so if you have a large round shape, I would not even suggest you try that.. but when you have small round shapes (like 10 pixels radius) you could acomplish this with about 15 clipping definitions.. it is a pain, YES I KNOW. That was not the original intent of this function.

Yes -- It is different from what you were thinking.. the PINK areas are currently for the DRAWING of buttons, indicators and such within the screens in RR.. it does not affect in any way the SHAPE of the screens/windows used for drawing -- Currently.

As I said, I will possibly implement support so PINK areas in the EMPTY screen could define the SHAPE of the window.

Alpha transparency is currently supported for the ENTIRE SCREEN only. Look at skin commands.txt... but this is somewhat useless when you're not in control of what's below it (Windows desktop etc..) -- even if I added PNG support, I do not believe I'd be able to load and draw the alpha channels from within the file.. but adding PINK area support like winamp does (to define the shape of the window) is possible.

The PINK area is only to prevent DRAWING on the PINK areas, for instance whey you have something inside of (or around) a button or indicator image that you do not want to draw over when the ON/OFF/DOWN images are drawn.. This basically allows for buttons that share some area of the screen with other buttons/indicators/etc but do not draw over those areas to prevent undesired effects (redrawing over another button, indicator or logo)..