Erik Springelkamp Posted April 10, 2011 Share Posted April 10, 2011 In CM Afghanistan I came along the small floating icons mod of Bill Lockton. I liked them very much, because they are much less intrusive when you are watching the action replay. For CMSF Bill had made a previous version, but that one didn't include the later modules, and I liked the Afghan ones better. So I tried to adapt the Afghan mod by changing the colours and saving them under different names. Doing so I discovered that I needed a bmp editor with alpha channel, and so I used Gimp. Generally it works well, but for instance the HQ cross icons now show a small white border-line from some points of view. I guess it has something to do with anti-alias and partial transparency, but I can't figure out what to do in Gimp to get it right. So what extra technique do I need to edit those icons with Gimp (I am not planning to spend money on Photoshop or use pirated software). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulMG Posted April 10, 2011 Share Posted April 10, 2011 I use Paint.Net for png and things that need alpha. It's free. Never used Gimp so I can't help you with that. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongLeftFlank Posted April 10, 2011 Share Posted April 10, 2011 Gimp ought to be able to do everything Photoshop can as far as transparency but I'm not expert on either. Mord modded the icons recently to create greater FOW, but I notice he hasn't been doing much posting lately. Have you considered simply toggling the icons off when you don't want to look at them? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erik Springelkamp Posted April 10, 2011 Author Share Posted April 10, 2011 Gimp ought to be able to do everything Photoshop can as far as transparency but I'm not expert on either. Mord modded the icons recently to create greater FOW, but I notice he hasn't been doing much posting lately. Have you considered simply toggling the icons off when you don't want to look at them? More important is that I don't know what to do exactly to avoid these borders. I noticed that they occur when the icon gets smaller because of distance. But for the time being I have just used the Afghan icons and copied them onto all the existing icons. Consequence is that red uses Russian symbols, but that may well be appropriate for Syria. I did do a lot of toggling, but when the icons are off, you miss information, like the flash of a casualty, or the presence of a distant enemy. The Afghan icons of Bill are a very good compromise, as they are modest, so you can ignore them or notice them at your choice. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billy_sp Posted April 12, 2011 Share Posted April 12, 2011 Hello mate. Tried to post a reply to your message in the Repository but couldn't handle the technology- or it couldn't handle me. I just posted some CMSF icons I made a while ago in different colours for different nations. I think the problem you had was you had a hold of an earlier Icon mod I made with some GUI changes. The new RAR should be called ICONS and not Billy_sp Icons. As for white lines, I don't notice them that much, might be a graphic card thing, but could also just be sloppy workmanship... Feel free to adapt or improve anything I've posted at the Repository. With GIMP I sometimes have problems with saving Alpha channels in .bmp format- the alpha sometimes seems to "leak" a bit. So I often save as a .gbr (GimpBrush) file and later save that as a .bmp. Haven't a clue what for and why but it seems to work. But that's the only issue I have with GIMP. Cheers 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erik Springelkamp Posted April 12, 2011 Author Share Posted April 12, 2011 Hello mate. Tried to post a reply to your message in the Repository but couldn't handle the technology- or it couldn't handle me. I just posted some CMSF icons I made a while ago in different colours for different nations. I think the problem you had was you had a hold of an earlier Icon mod I made with some GUI changes. The new RAR should be called ICONS and not Billy_sp Icons. Great. Now I have a complete set. I love to use them, because now the 3D figures get much more attention during replay. As for white lines, I don't notice them that much, might be a graphic card thing, but could also just be sloppy workmanship... Feel free to adapt or improve anything I've posted at the Repository. I don't know what it is. From your previous small icons for CMSF, the rectangular vehicle icons all suffered from the same effect on my screen - but the borders were black instead of white. Probably something with the card, by I am curious what is the root cause, and why the Afghan icons don't show it when I don't edit them. I noticed that when I changed the grey filling colour of the headquarters cross to solid blue, and saved again, it showed the white borders, but the original didn't. I will have to do some research when I find the time. With GIMP I sometimes have problems with saving Alpha channels in .bmp format- the alpha sometimes seems to "leak" a bit. So I often save as a .gbr (GimpBrush) file and later save that as a .bmp. Haven't a clue what for and why but it seems to work. But that's the only issue I have with GIMP. Cheers I haven't yet succeeded in creating partial transparency with GIMP. The documentation is very sketchy. But for now my modding needs are satisfied. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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