Today I uploaded 1st high
(highest, actually) quality item picture done by me. The first I began with is Pixie Harness (M), and I'll upload rest Pixie parts and maybe few more in a moment and I'll be uploading some images from time to time.
I ensured that the picture is the highest lossless quality possible, same as seen in game, having at the same time lowest possible filesize with that quality. As the image storage format, I'm using PNG (supported by virtually any browser this time w/o any problems) with 1-bit transparency (and pitch-black (#000000h) as a transparency color - rarely improves compression a bit and it's also a color of ad screen itself).
I'm using few tweaks and 3 programs to do so: GIMP (to cut item from background precisely and to get rid of first unneeded data), IrfanView with pngout.dll plug-in (to add transparency and get rid all of the unneeded PNG chunks, also doing first real optimizations) and then pngslim script, combining 6 PNG optimizing programs to get rid few more bytes (but that stage takes the most of processing time).
As Witte said, I'm using empty black screen to do a screenshot. However, I found out that the player-owned signs/screens/displays aren't exactly black, as they have some form of lightning/dithering/whatever implemented. Therefore I used the in-game Ad-Screens with black backgrounds, by enabling "Disable Ads" option in launcher
(do not use it while normal playing though, as it will lower your loot, according to MA and in-game message!).
When making a screenshot, I'm running EU on a window, in 1024x720 pixels resolution (lowest possible windowed mode resolution), 32 bit color depth (which is actually 24 bit + 8 bit alpha channel, desktop depth being 24 bit), maximum visual quality, maximum terrain quality & wind
disabled (though both have no effect on screenshots, because there is no terrain visible at the item screenshot), but both anti-aliasing (plus other NVIDIA's DirectX/Direct3D forms of AA enhancements - transparency AA and gamma AA) and anisotropic filtering
disabled, both in-game and through Nvidia driver settings (RivaTuner). The reason for the latter two is that without that, the screen looks the most natural (as it is no processed further after rendering) and it's the only way of assuring that the bacground will be cut properly. Note that anti-aliasing can be added to the item screenshot after that too.
I have v-sync disabled all the time.
I'm using an Ad Screen near PA TP, in the outer wall of the mobile center.
PS. I know that all the "documentation" isn't needed at all, but I struggled to write it
. I also know that the item look might be changed when CE2 will be implemented, but it still doesn't makes me not wonting to do it
. Plus, if it'll be still possible, I may do it another time, when the CE2 comes. It's a valuable experience for me to working such way with that screens, after all xD.
Faalagorn (talk) - 24-04-2024 04:30:59 One more thing I can suggest is to use the magic want and enable anti alias, or smoothing. Not sure if its available in gimp (I really hate that interface) but if you do that with transparent background you can get nice smooth edges.
BTW, note that the images in the infopages are all jpeg compressed, with a dynamic algorithm, so any quality improvement will likely be lost. I made that some time ago to reduce bandwidth, but I may remove it.
Witte (talk) - 24-04-2024 04:30:59 Well, even when they are being compressed down to the JPEGs, it's better to compress from lossless PNG than to compress from already compressed JPEG.
There is a wand tool in GIMP, and it works flawlessly, but I pefer not using anti-aliasing while taking screenshots, what I mentioned above
. Beside, if I would be using the wand tool, there is always a possibility that some dark colors from the item itself will be made transparent too xD.
... And it's quicker to not use the tool but just make black background transparent, especially when it comes to gloves - because they have a small dark areas between fingers
.
Faalagorn (talk) - 24-04-2024 04:30:59