spawncaptain Posted May 17, 2016 Share Posted May 17, 2016 (edited) Hey gents, I have been messing with the icon bitmaps, trying to use BFCs briefing icon templates to create NATO floating icons. However, my files saved in GIMP are not displaying correctly ingame. I have looked at existing icon mods. Black seems to be transparent in lieu of a real alpha channel. 32 bit bitmaps with a binary alpha channel result in only a black square shown in CMBS. My icons, saved as a 24 bit bitmap, show up but do not have any transparency. Now here comes the weird part: When I open in GIMP Ian Leslie's awesome CMRT icons that have working transparency and no alpha channel and save them as a 24 bit bitmap without any changes they have the same issue: The black parts around the round icon are not transparent. What are the exact bitmap properties necessary for CM? Edited May 17, 2016 by spawncaptain 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Canadian Cat Posted May 17, 2016 Share Posted May 17, 2016 32 BMP. That's a 24 bit file with an additional channel for transparency. It is not a case of colour X is considered transparent it actually has a full channel of 256 values for transparency so you can create a variety of transparency effects. I have had trouble with PhotoShop (never could figure out how to control the BMP format) in the past and PaintDotNet (only supports 24bit BMP files). So, I use ArtWeaver which is much more focused on icon sized image editing and supports the 32bit BMP format. A couple of notes. Did you know I have NATO floating icons? http://cmmodsiii.greenasjade.net/?p=2681 http://cmmodsiii.greenasjade.net/?p=2678 Also did you know that BFC released the briefing graphics templates for CMBS? http://cmmodsiii.greenasjade.net/?p=3811 Also if you are interested I actually used a font to create my icons (with permission) which you can find here: http://www.mapsymbs.com/ 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spawncaptain Posted May 17, 2016 Author Share Posted May 17, 2016 I have assumed that alpha channels do not work because the icon would show up completely black when I used a 32 bit bitmap. Might be GIMP's fault, I shall try ArtWeaver as suggested. I have seen your icons for CMBS but found them to be too small because of the semi transparent margin around the NATO symbol. I'm actually using BFC's templates for my own App-6a style symbols. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spawncaptain Posted May 17, 2016 Author Share Posted May 17, 2016 Okay, I found the solution. CM expects a Bitmap v3 header that is outdated and does not natively support an alpha layer. The only way I found to get an ARGB bitmap with a 14-byte file header and 40-byte info header is to use the command line program nconvert which retains transparency data but inserts the deprecated header. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Steppenwulf Posted May 17, 2016 Share Posted May 17, 2016 Pixelformer is an excellent little program which handles 32 bit image files. A bit tricky to get tasks done until you know how e.g. saving is export not save. Still, once learned it's really handy and something I use alongside my Paintshop to get some tasks completed where I feel that Pixelformer is more efficient to use. Really I couldn't recommend it enough; it's responsive, takes care of lots of varied tasks and is a tiny program package for what it does. Extremely useful tool! http://www.qualibyte.com/pixelformer/download.html 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Canadian Cat Posted May 17, 2016 Share Posted May 17, 2016 3 hours ago, spawncaptain said: CM expects a Bitmap v3 header that is outdated and does not natively support an alpha layer. The only way I found to get an ARGB bitmap with a 14-byte file header and 40-byte info header is to use the command line program nconvert which retains transparency data but inserts the deprecated header. Good to know. It is an odd thing given several editors cannot even produce 32bit BMP files and as you discovered some use one header and some another. Deprecated is as deprecated does(TM), meaning some standards body can call it deprecated and not use it for their files any more but if everyone else is still using it that doesn't really work. But that's not news and I am glad you have a solution. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Canadian Cat Posted May 17, 2016 Share Posted May 17, 2016 5 hours ago, spawncaptain said: I have seen your icons for CMBS but found them to be too small because of the semi transparent margin around the NATO symbol. I'm actually using BFC's templates for my own App-6a style symbols. Good - just making sure. Did you check out that font? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spawncaptain Posted May 17, 2016 Author Share Posted May 17, 2016 5 minutes ago, IanL said: Good - just making sure. Did you check out that font? Yup, a few months ago when I read the readme that came with your icons 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Canadian Cat Posted May 17, 2016 Share Posted May 17, 2016 Someone read the readme file - jump for joy 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kinophile Posted June 12, 2016 Share Posted June 12, 2016 On 17/05/2016 at 3:59 PM, IanL said: Good to know. It is an odd thing given several editors cannot even produce 32bit BMP files and as you discovered some use one header and some another. Deprecated is as deprecated does(TM), meaning some standards body can call it deprecated and not use it for their files any more but if everyone else is still using it that doesn't really work. But that's not news and I am glad you have a solution Photoshop opens and saves BMPs fine, 32bit down to 8bit. I use it all the time. If I need transparency I check the ALPHA channel box when saving and then select 32bit in the following pop up window. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kinophile Posted June 12, 2016 Share Posted June 12, 2016 @Haiduk IanL's link is superb. Is there an equivalent for the UA, of any kind? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haiduk Posted June 13, 2016 Share Posted June 13, 2016 On 12.06.2016 at 4:42 PM, kinophile said: @Haiduk IanL's link is superb. Is there an equivalent for the UA, of any kind? We have plans to change own symbol system to NATO as far as 2013, but even now staffs use both - Soviet type and NATO %) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kinophile Posted June 13, 2016 Share Posted June 13, 2016 (edited) Both... Mental! So if I was to use 'authentic' UKR symbols for a briefing for a battle set in 2017/18 then NATO symbols would be appropriate.... Edited June 13, 2016 by kinophile 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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