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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Sprites Too Big For My Eyes


v3Bu

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Why does my game looks like this? (look at the file I attached) instead of this:

http://sourceforge.net/project/screenshots...?group_id=23295

 

I tryed to solve the problem by tweaking the configuration file, found this

 

# Scale battlescape image to make sprites larger (players coming from x-com should feel more comfortable)

F_SCALE2X = 1

 

Explanation seems to fit, but I tryed to give different values for that command, but It didnt help, so how can I make those sprites smaller.

post-6386-1172248162_thumb.png

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Why does my game looks like this? (look at the file I attached) instead of this:

http://sourceforge.net/project/screenshots...?group_id=23295

 

I tryed to solve the problem by tweaking the configuration file, found this

 

# Scale battlescape image to make sprites larger (players coming from x-com should feel more comfortable)

F_SCALE2X = 1

 

Explanation seems to fit, but I tryed to give different values for that command, but It didnt help, so how can I make those sprites smaller.

 

Try 0, or you could simply press numpad * in the battlescape.

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Why does my game looks like this? (look at the file I attached) instead of this:

http://sourceforge.net/project/screenshots...?group_id=23295

 

I tryed to solve the problem by tweaking the configuration file, found this

 

# Scale battlescape image to make sprites larger (players coming from x-com should feel more comfortable)

F_SCALE2X = 1

 

Explanation seems to fit, but I tryed to give different values for that command, but It didnt help, so how can I make those sprites smaller.

 

Try 0, or you could simply press numpad * in the battlescape.

 

it would be cool if the smaller sprites would be default. It took me a while to figure it out. I'll repost that in the requests section maybe.

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it would be cool if the smaller sprites would be default. It took me a while to figure it out. I'll repost that in the requests section maybe.

I don't mind making smaller sprites the default setting. But it would be a good idea to memorize the link to this topic. Guess why this scale2x mode was implemented at all, there were people who complained about the sprites being too small (smaller than in the original x-com at least) :)

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it would be cool if the smaller sprites would be default. It took me a while to figure it out. I'll repost that in the requests section maybe.

I don't mind making smaller sprites the default setting. But it would be a good idea to memorize the link to this topic. Guess why this scale2x mode was implemented at all, there were people who complained about the sprites being too small (smaller than in the original x-com at least) :)

 

There is no happy medium with this option. Either way somone is going to get upset over it.

 

Perhaps we need to do a big tacky add in the installer for Scale 2X like the cheesey Gamespy Arcade thing. "Scale 2X! it does this? do you want to enable it now?"

Edited by Sporb
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Rather than being concerned about someone getting upset, we should do the right thing and make non-scaled graphics the default. Scale2x is objectively ugly.

 

EDIT: This whole issue started when the default resolution was raised from 640x480 to 800x600... before that, the graphics were just the right size and no one complained. Now, what was the rationale behind upping the resolution again? I think we should seriously consider going back to 640x480.

Edited by nappes
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Rather than being concerned about someone getting upset, we should do the right thing and make non-scaled graphics the default. Scale2x is objectively ugly.

 

EDIT: This whole issue started when the default resolution was raised from 640x480 to 800x600... before that, the graphics were just the right size and no one complained. Now, what was the rationale behind upping the resolution again? I think we should seriously consider going back to 640x480.

 

Heres an idea! why not just set it back to 320X480! that'd be great!

 

No wait, it wouldnt ...

 

 

 

There is nothing wrong with the current resolution.

Edited by Sporb
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EDIT: This whole issue started when the default resolution was raised from 640x480 to 800x600... before that, the graphics were just the right size and no one complained. Now, what was the rationale behind upping the resolution again? I think we should seriously consider going back to 640x480.

Screen resolution was raised when we started using truetype fonts, they look ugly at low resolution. If we want to target handhelds, we want to keep 640x480 resolution support, if we want to support desktop PCs better, we would like to work nice with 1280x1024 (that's 640x512 doubled by the way, and quite close to 640x480). Current 800x600 is not the best choice for either of these targets.

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Actual sprite size? Whatever the creators of those sprites from X-Com originally intended, I doubt they had resolutions much higher than 320x200 in mind. I think we can pretty much discount their intentions.

 

Despite what resolution they had in those days, the sprites are rendered in actual size in relation to the monitor setups of today (800/600+). Not many people run in less that 1024X768. Ergo, sprites sizes are correct instead of scaled to fit. that means that when the game was created, they were still correct size, they just didnt have very high resolution monitors thus larger. I Much preferr the current resolution because it allows me to see more battlefield and plan ahead.

Edited by Sporb
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I Much preferr the current resolution because it allows me to see more battlefield and plan ahead.
I agree to the fullest extent, if my laptop could go above 1024x768, I would use that for the res, but I have to use 800x600 on account of the fact that I like to be able to window ufo2k, with parents and all... As far as I am concerned, more is better,and flexibility is even better, since everyone's comfort zone is probably different.
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Despite what resolution they had in those days, the sprites are rendered in actual size in relation to the monitor setups of today (800/600+). Not many people run in less that 1024X768. Ergo, sprites sizes are correct instead of scaled to fit. that means that when the game was created, they were still correct size, they just didnt have very high resolution monitors thus larger. I Much preferr the current resolution because it allows me to see more battlefield and plan ahead.

Yeah well, that's sprite size in relation to the pixel size, which obviously stays the same unless we use scaling. I was talking about sprite size in relation to the size of the (physical) screen, which becomes smaller, the larger screen resolution we use. Larger resolution = more of the map visible at a time, and sprites looking worse due to them appearing small and distant, since they were designed.for lower resolutions. Although it is true monitors nowadays tend to be also physically larger than they used to.

 

I was thinking default resolution 640x480 would be aesthetically more pleasing, but if it makes fonts look crappy, then I guess 800x600 is justified.

Edited by nappes
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Larger resolution = more of the map visible at a time, and sprites looking worse due to them appearing small and distant, since they were designed.for lower resolutions.
I agree, but everyone has different appeals. Those who cannot stand an ugly game experience may stay at 640x480, whereas people who are indifferent to aesthetics, or find the smaller figure fine to look at will prefer 1600x1200. Many will fall in the middle, I think 800x600 is excellent for a default if the "enlarged" option is off, there really is no nice way to settle this issue. Maybe a poll?
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Despite what resolution they had in those days, the sprites are rendered in actual size in relation to the monitor setups of today (800/600+). Not many people run in less that 1024X768. Ergo, sprites sizes are correct instead of scaled to fit. that means that when the game was created, they were still correct size, they just didnt have very high resolution monitors thus larger. I Much preferr the current resolution because it allows me to see more battlefield and plan ahead.

Yeah well, that's sprite size in relation to the pixel size, which obviously stays the same unless we use scaling. I was talking about sprite size in relation to the size of the (physical) screen, which becomes smaller, the larger screen resolution we use. Larger resolution = more of the map visible at a time, and sprites looking worse due to them appearing small and distant, since they were designed.for lower resolutions. Although it is true monitors nowadays tend to be also physically larger than they used to.

 

I was thinking default resolution 640x480 would be aesthetically more pleasing, but if it makes fonts look crappy, then I guess 800x600 is justified.

 

Sprites will appear smoother and nice too look at at range. When somthing is close togeather the eye blends them thus the colours will look more natural.

Edited by Sporb
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That's why we want larger, high resolution sprites. The best of two worlds.

 

We cant have larger better looking sprites if we step back to 640X480. Itd look terrible!

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The suggestion of setting 640x480 as default was intended as a temporary solution until we actually HAVE content that uses higher resolutions,

 

In any case, it has already been established that there's no going back (unless someone implements a font that looks good in 640x480), so there's no reason to keep arguing about it.

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To be perfectly honest 1024x768 would be a better resolution for the average PC.

don't be silly

I have 1680x1050 as many of my friends.

 

Some guys plays on a laptop qith 1920x1280 on a 17" or 15", 2x is useful when you have to be more precise, for other problems press KP_*

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The suggestion of setting 640x480 as default was intended as a temporary solution until we actually HAVE content that uses higher resolutions,

 

In any case, it has already been established that there's no going back (unless someone implements a font that looks good in 640x480), so there's no reason to keep arguing about it.

I just took another look at it. DejaVu font looks somewhat worse than the bitmap fonts from x-com at the same size, but it is tolerable (it is easy to set 640x480 resolution in ufo2000.ini so anyone can check it). My old concern about 640x480 resolution was that DejaVu had much lower quality for cyrillic letters some time ago and it looked really awful, but appears that the latest version of this font improved a lot.

 

So probably we can go back to 640x480 as the default setting and ensure that it always works. We may try to get the game running on various handhelds, so it would be very reasonable to keep support for this resolution. If we go to 640x480 as the default setting, scale2x can be disabled by default default and everyone should be happy :)

 

Another interesting resolution is 1280x1024, that's the native resolution for most budget LCD monitors (just for the record, I'm still using an old but still good trinitron CRT monitor at 1152x864, but I may upgrade it very soon :)). If we add special support for 1280x1024, we may scale everything on the screen exactly twice (including inventory images) keeping the same layout as with 640x480 but have higher quality sprites. This gives us the possibility to use some new graphics with exactly twice higher resolution. 2x upscaling and downscaling can be done with a relatively good quality, so mixing lowres and highres sprites on the same screen should be possible.

 

Sporb, Nachtwolf, please share your opinions regarding this.

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The suggestion of setting 640x480 as default was intended as a temporary solution until we actually HAVE content that uses higher resolutions,

 

In any case, it has already been established that there's no going back (unless someone implements a font that looks good in 640x480), so there's no reason to keep arguing about it.

I just took another look at it. DejaVu font looks somewhat worse than the bitmap fonts from x-com at the same size, but it is tolerable (it is easy to set 640x480 resolution in ufo2000.ini so anyone can check it). My old concern about 640x480 resolution was that DejaVu had much lower quality for cyrillic letters some time ago and it looked really awful, but appears that the latest version of this font improved a lot.

 

So probably we can go back to 640x480 as the default setting and ensure that it always works. We may try to get the game running on various handhelds, so it would be very reasonable to keep support for this resolution. If we go to 640x480 as the default setting, scale2x can be disabled by default default and everyone should be happy :)

 

Another interesting resolution is 1280x1024, that's the native resolution for most budget LCD monitors (just for the record, I'm still using an old but still good trinitron CRT monitor at 1152x864, but I may upgrade it very soon :)). If we add special support for 1280x1024, we may scale everything on the screen exactly twice (including inventory images) keeping the same layout as with 640x480 but have higher quality sprites. This gives us the possibility to use some new graphics with exactly twice higher resolution. 2x upscaling and downscaling can be done with a relatively good quality, so mixing lowres and highres sprites on the same screen should be possible.

 

Sporb, Nachtwolf, please share your opinions regarding this.

 

1280x1024 is much widespread now, but it would be better to ensure some backward compatiblity. 1024x768 is the most widespread low resolution at the moment.

 

As for the highres tilesets, It is slightly more complicated than making them twice as big.

 

Modifying the tile size is pretty much necessary if we go high res.

Why so? Because sprite graphics don't scale very well, what looks good at 32x40 will look distorted and squished at 64x80. It's simply because going up means more detail. The brain thus has more references to spots perspective and proportions problems.

 

Having tiles that are 64x100 is a much better option, giving the eye realistic proportions.

 

(example images - door - end of this post)

 

I was looking at having a fixed width (64) but a variable height (I.E. 80 or 100). It makes it possible to scale up without much problems since a unit or a weapon doesn't have to fill the whole height.

 

Mixing low res terrain and high res terrain is out of question anyway, it would look horrible.

 

The only problem at the moment comes from the cursor, but this could be fixed without much trouble

64x80.gif

64x100.gif

Edited by nachtwolf
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