Anyone got the Darksea mod running?

[rookie]

Please tell me what i'm doing wrong since the coastline files don't seem to appear................

[MadJeff]

You did install Duece's terrain before this mod, correct?

[Nightshade/PR]

:?

I use this mod.

I have Deuce's terrain installed, and then I overlaid the Darksea files 1 at a time over the corresponding files. Works like a charm for me. Looks great at 1024x768 and 32bit color.

Hope this helps.

[rookie]

I don't understand,did you just recently download them?

I used the same method over and over but no luck?

Found out that the size of the modded(not all..) files were smaller(256kb orig.-192kb mod.) because of the missing alphachannel........so i figured that's because they show up as white tiles...........

Nightshade could you maybe look for me if the size of your Darksea files are all 256kb?

[+Deuces]

rookie--where did you d/l these tiles? I'll have a look at them. You are correct in that the shore tiles or any .tga in the game would be 256k which is a 32bit tga w/an alpha channel. Looks like what you have is 24bit tga's which have no alpha.

[rookie]

Deuces, i downloaded them several times at Marcfighters site;

http://www.marcfighters.hpg.ig.com.br/page15.htm

Every time with the same problem?

[+Deuces]

Hmm, can't seem to hit his site. Then again I always have problems hittin it. Anyway. is it that you guys want to use this particular shade of sea in the Euro set? If so I would be happy to release the proper tga's with this color. I have a all in layered PS format. If someone wants to send me the SEA1.tga only via email, it would be a simple task.

deuces@comcast.net

[+Deuces]

Ok rookie--Try these files.Just unzip it to your deuces terrain. Uncheck the use folder names when you unzip it cause I didn't zip it from my terrain folder. Let me know if it works for you.

http://www.max-gs.com/files/dsea.zip

[rookie]

WHoohoo......that looks great!

It works,thanks very much for your help!!!

You must tell me sometime how you did that,cause with PSP 7 it should be possible (your probably using Photoshop?)but i coudn't figure it out?

Thanks again Deuces,really appriciate it!

[+Deuces]

Yes I do use Photoshop. Is there any other program? :D

The only thing I had to do was take the SEA1 tile and replace my original sea layer in the Photoshop files I have from the Euro creation. They already have the alphas created from my previous work. Then save as 32bit tgas... Voila. Glad it works for you.

[rookie]

Well,probably that's why i couldn't get it working;PSP7 offers only 3 formats of .tga's 8,16 or 24bits...........no 32bit.

I have experience with working with layers but i still don't really understand what the function of an alphachannel is?(must do some more studying..........)

[+Deuces]

In a nut shell-

In graphics, a portion of each pixel's data that is reserved for transparency information. 32-bit graphics systems contain four channels -- three 8-bit channels for red, green, and blue (RGB) and one 8-bit alpha channel. The alpha channel is really a mask -- it specifies how the pixel's colors should be merged with another pixel when the two are overlaid, one on top of the other. Once you have created your alpha channel, it works off black/white or grayscale. Any part of the graphic that is covered in black in the alpha channel will be hidden, anything cover in white will be visible. In the case of the tga files for the terrain, they do nothing to the actual tile image but rather the color or noise image that is overlayed on any tile that contains water. You could in actuality place an all black alpha channel in you shore tga's and it would work just fine.

As a practice lesson you can use the same method for replacing the trees in Sfighters. Find a tree you want to use, open it and make sure the mode is set to RGB, create an alpha channel, fill the alpha with black. Turn on one of your other channels to see you image , select the alpha channel and paint the tree white. Export as a 32bit tga w/alpha to your particular terrain folder and you'll have new trees. To change back just drag out the file or delete it. Sfighters will then use the default file conatined in the .cat file.

Try it out.

[rookie]

Thanks Deuces for the lesson,the way you describe it is easier to understand than in the manual!