I’m experiencing a bizarre graphical glitch with the engine glow on a particular ship. Rather than trying to explain it, I’ll just show you:

See that BIG FREAKISH WHITE LINE? It only shows up when you’re facing at certain angles, and it doesn’t fade out like the rest of the glow. I have no idea what’s causing it. I’ve looked over both the mask, and the color map countless times before RLE*ing them, and I have absolutely no idea what is ailing my little sprite here. It’s 232 x 232 pixles, 72 frames, 198012 bites, res ID 1522.

In the hundreds of sprites I’ve made for Nova, I never seen anything like this, and I’m stumped as to what’s causing it. And I would appreciate it much if someone could help me out here.

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Quote

Originally posted by Trigger-Happy Slig:
**I’m experiencing a bizarre graphical glitch with the engine glow on a particular ship. Rather than trying to explain it, I’ll just show you:

See that BIG FREAKISH WHITE LINE? It only shows up when you’re facing at certain angles, and it doesn’t fade out like the rest of the glow. I have no idea what’s causing it. I’ve looked over both the mask, and the color map countless times before RLE*ing them, and I have absolutely no idea what is ailing my little sprite here. It’s 232 x 232 pixles, 72 frames, 198012 bites, res ID 1522.

In the hundreds of sprites I’ve made for Nova, I never seen anything like this, and I’m stumped as to what’s causing it. And I would appreciate it much if someone could help me out here.

**

Does it look wierd like this when you view it in novatools? or just in nova? If the former, i would point a withering glare at EnRLE, if the latter, i would direct said glare at the nova engine.
-Az

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Originally posted by Azratax2:
**Does it look wierd like this when you view it in novatools? or just in nova? If the former, i would point a withering glare at EnRLE, if the latter, i would direct said glare at the nova engine.
-Az

**

It looks fine and dandy in novatools, only in Nova do I see a problem.

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That's a pretty big sprite. It could be the size is freaking Nova out. Does it happen consistantly regardless of how many other ships are in the system? Otherwise, perhaps throw it through EnRLE again or even resave the movie.

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Originally posted by Kame:
That's a pretty big sprite. It could be the size is freaking Nova out.

The size did cross my mind, but then again I've seen (made?) much larger sprites than this. An Easter egg in a certain alpha build of a certain TC based on a TV show comes to mind.

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Originally posted by Kame: **
Does it happen consistantly regardless of how many other ships are in the system? Otherwise, perhaps throw it through EnRLE again or even resave the movie.**

Doesn't matter how many ships, and I've re RLE*d it several times (and modified it in photoshop) and I have the same problem.

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(This message has been edited by Trigger-Happy Slig (edited 12-08-2003).)

Quote

Originally posted by Trigger-Happy Slig:
**I’m experiencing a bizarre graphical glitch with the engine glow on a particular ship. Rather than trying to explain it, I’ll just show you:

See that BIG FREAKISH WHITE LINE? It only shows up when you’re facing at certain angles, and it doesn’t fade out like the rest of the glow. I have no idea what’s causing it. I’ve looked over both the mask, and the color map countless times before RLE*ing them, and I have absolutely no idea what is ailing my little sprite here. It’s 232 x 232 pixles, 72 frames, 198012 bites, res ID 1522.

In the hundreds of sprites I’ve made for Nova, I never seen anything like this, and I’m stumped as to what’s causing it. And I would appreciate it much if someone could help me out here.

**

Check the mask again- I'm fairly sure that is what causing it- some kind of overlap.

_bomb

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Quote

Check the mask again- I'm fairly sure that is what causing it- some kind of overlap.

I'm pretty sure it's not the mask because the sprite looks fine in novatools. What do you mean by overlap?

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(This message has been edited by Trigger-Happy Slig (edited 12-08-2003).)

Quote

Originally posted by Trigger-Happy Slig:
The size did cross my mind, but then again I've seen (made?) much larger sprites than this. An Easter egg in a certain alpha build of a certain TC based on a TV show comes to mind.

You actually got that to work? How? I can't even get the freakin' mission—it just says 'your crew dies around you' or something to that effect, without even getting to face the six Cruisers and having to rescue the Kob—target ship... :rolleyes:

</off topic>

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Originally posted by orcaloverbri9:
You actually got that to work? How?

Nah, I cheated.

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I've seen this problem before, Slig. Make sure your mask has been saved as a bitmap, ie. a pict resource with only 2 values of colour depth; black or white (1 bit colour). If it's not a bitmap, you stand a good chance of getting errors like this.

Dave @ ATMOS

I've redone the engine glow sprites, and I made sure the mask was a bit map, and the glitch is still there in all of its glory...

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Quote

Originally posted by Trigger-Happy Slig:
I've redone the engine glow sprites, and I made sure the mask was a bit map, and the glitch is still there in all of its glory...

Mail me the image, mask and the shän and I'll compile it/test it here.

Dave @ ATMOS

Quote

Originally posted by pipeline:
Mail me the image, mask and the shän and I'll compile it/test it here.

Done.

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Quote

Originally posted by Trigger-Happy Slig:
**I'm pretty sure it's not the mask because the sprite looks fine in novatools. What do you mean by overlap?

**

I've seen errors before (and I believe this is what Dave is alluding to) in which the contrast of the mask is done improperly and little bits of the mask seem to pop through and overlap into the sprite. I could be wrong- I was dabbling in the engine and had similar problems, so I went back and re-did the masks and made sure it was a bitmap (as in only white and black) and it worked fine thereafter.

My graphical skills suck though, so I'd imagine it could still be any number of things..

_bomb

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(This message has been edited by Bomb (edited 12-10-2003).)

Okay the problem has been solved. Following pipeline’s advice, I’ve re-rendered the color portion of the sprites to have less continuous areas of white. It seems like Nova, the poor baby, can’t digest solid food properly... i.e. it doesn’t do well with continuous areas of solid color (blue, yellow, or in this case white).

All is repaired, you can go back to your homes now, there’s nothing more to see.

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Hmm, if I had to guess, I'd say that Nova doesn't like the 0x04 opcode, which is a run of solid color of 8 pixels or more. I don't know what the standards are on the RLE format, but it's basically a sequence of opcode/counter double-words and data. Each opcode/counter is composed of a 1-byte opcode and a 3-byte counter. The 0x00 opcode means "start a new frame," the 0x01 opcode means "start a new scan line in the current frame," the 0x02 opcode means "draw the next counter pixels byte-for-byte," and the 0x03 opcode means "draw the next counter bytes as transparent pixels." The non-standard 0x04 opcode means "draw the next counter bytes as copies of the following 4 data bytes." So, the moral of the story is, Nova doesn't like a 8 or more of the exact same colored pixel in a row. However, I will tell you that EVNEW doesn't use the 0x04 opcode, so my guess is that you wouldn't have the same problem in Windows Nova.

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Quote

Originally posted by Aprosenf:
Hmm, if I had to guess, I'd say that Nova doesn't like the 0x04 opcode, which is a run of solid color of 8 pixels or more. I don't know what the standards are on the RLE format, but it's basically a sequence of opcode/counter double-words and data. Each opcode/counter is composed of a 1-byte opcode and a 3-byte counter. The 0x00 opcode means "start a new frame," the 0x01 opcode means "start a new scan line in the current frame," the 0x02 opcode means "draw the next counter pixels byte-for-byte," and the 0x03 opcode means "draw the next counter bytes as transparent pixels." The non-standard 0x04 opcode means "draw the next counter bytes as copies of the following 4 data bytes." So, the moral of the story is, Nova doesn't like a 8 or more of the exact same colored pixel in a row. However, I will tell you that EVNEW doesn't use the 0x04 opcode, so my guess is that you wouldn't have the same problem in Windows Nova.

Well, there you go.

Dave @ ATMOS

Less portions of continuous white?
If I have the same problem, just with black lines, doesn that mean I have too much portions of continuous black? Or red? Or blue? I can't make my engine glows colorful like a rainbow.

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Quote

Originally posted by Arion:
**Less portions of continuous white?
If I have the same problem, just with black lines, doesn that mean I have too much portions of continuous black? Or red? Or blue? I can't make my engine glows colorful like a rainbow.

**

You shouldn need much of a in color to keep this from happening.
My understanding is that even an almost imperceptable change in color across the glow or ship would prevent this.
-Az

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Sounds like a difference of a single degree would...so you could, for instance, alternate between two colors you can't tell apart anyway.

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