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Originally posted by pipeline:
**Actually, I'm not sure. Andrew Welch at least part-owns the LASIK procedure, since it was his idea in the first place.:)

All I own of that procedure is just that; the fine details of how I implemented the idea in Photoshop. ClearScale?, Andrew's final implementation of LASIK, is a trademark of Ambrosia Software Inc.**

I don't know how staunchly moki guards his trade secrets, but this is as far as I can tell, this is basically the most he has ever revealed about the technique (on a public board anyway).

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Originally posted by andrew:
**Essentially, 3D rendering programs, no matter the quality, tend to do a very poor job rendering complex models at the relatively small sizes used in games like EV Nova.

So we came up with a way to work around this. In a nutshell, everything was rendered at 2x the in-game size, then the Unsharp Mask filter was judiciously applied to the rendered sprites (actually, it was slightly over-applied), then the sprites were scaled down to the in-game size, smoothing out the edges of the sharpened render.

It ended up giving EV Nova a very crisp, unique look to the in-game graphics. I'm quite pleased with how it came out.**

I would assume it's more complicated than that, but all this talk of renders and photoshop leaves me confused anyway.

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I need a Vespa.

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Originally posted by Myriad:
I would assume it's more complicated than that, but all this talk of renders and photoshop leaves me confused anyway.

Actually, that's about all it is. I have some special values for a few of those operations that are unique to ATMOS, and there are one or two intermediate steps for the actual render output and a little image preprocessing that happens beforehand... but by and large you can get pretty damn close with those steps Andrew outlined.

all the best,

Dave @ ATMOS

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Co-creator of EV Nova

Ok, I've finished up my first set of Nova pict sprites, which would be my Banshee fighter. I have the standard sprite and both of the banking sprites in one pict file, all of the masks for the same sprites in another seperate file, the engine glows for all the sprites and masks for them (so I have four seperate pict files).

Now, what to do next? It seems as though I would use EnRLE now, but I've got no clue what I'm doing. I've located all four of the pict files in a single folder and selected this folder in EnRLE, but there's many options that are over my head. I've been messing around with them and all I get is a blank white page every time I hit OK.

I guess I'm confused as to what order Nova sprites need to be done in. First I churn out the sprite animations from the 3D program (which I've done), and I now have them saved in .pict format. Now what is my next goal? To get these sprite files into movie format again?

Ugh, I'm obviously not getting the idea about any of this. But so far I haven't had any luck locating a step-by-step guide on the net for converting sprites over to Nova-recognizable files... :rolleyes:

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Dreamwave Studios - The graphics galore™ and resource zone for EV/O/N development
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Quote

Originally posted by Skyblade86:
**Ugh, I'm obviously not getting the idea about any of this.:p But so far I haven't had any luck locating a step-by-step guide on the net for converting sprites over to Nova-recognizable files... :rolleyes:
**

Okay, so you have your rendered movie. Drag it onto m2v by w00tware, and it converts it into a sprite layout. Take the layout into Photoshop, run it through LASIK, select all, copy, paste into plugin. Make mask, and paste into plugin. Make shän. Drop plugin into EnRLE. Replace shäns to represent the rlëD compression. Tada, you're done.

Matrix

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"Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool."
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Quote

Originally posted by what_is_the_matrix:
**Okay, so you have your rendered movie. Drag it onto m2v by w00tware, and it converts it into a sprite layout. Take the layout into Photoshop, run it through LASIK, select all, copy, paste into plugin. Make mask, and paste into plugin. Make shän. Drop plugin into EnRLE. Replace shäns to represent the rlëD compression. Tada, you're done.

Matrix

**

Heh, I just figured that out myself after finally digging up the page I had been looking for all day: (url="http://"http://www.oxy-web.com/evnep/tutorials/_LASIK/lasik.html")http://www.oxy-web.c...ASIK/lasik.html(/url). I played around with the ideas and tested out the results in Nova - it looked wonderful. I wasn't expecting it to work since it was my first attempt.

Thanks for all the help. I owe you one.

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Dreamwave Studios - The graphics galore™ and resource zone for EV/O/N development
(url="http://"http://www.evula.com")EVula's Lair(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.hyperiums.com")Hyperiums(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.apple.com")Apple Computer(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.homestarrunner.com")Homestar Runner(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by Skyblade86:
**Heh, I just figured that out myself after finally digging up the page I had been looking for all day:http://www.oxy-web.c...SIK/lasik.html. I played around with the ideas and tested out the results in Nova - it looked wonderful. I wasn't expecting it to work since it was my first attempt.

Thanks for all the help. I owe you one.

**

Hey, cool, I lost those pictures a long time ago...

There's an updated version of that tutorial (sans piccies currently) available (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/monster/lasik.html")here(/url), which clears a few things up and adds reference material.

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