@captjosh, on Jun 14 2008, 01:49 PM, said in I need some help please:

Can the target generator create target picts in any color specified, or only in the red used by Nova's default scenario?

It can generate in any primary (RGB) or secondary (CMY) colour and plain grey, and it can be set add the scan-line effect while keeping the original colours. You can even turn off the automatic scaling to 128x64 if you want to use it for something other than target graphics.

Sometime I should update the stand-alone Target Generator to use the revised interface of the MissionComputer version, and make it a universal binary. To keep the tradition of releasing an absolutely pointless port (now that the Windows version no longer meets that purpose), perhaps I should also make a Linux version.

I should have asked if it can also take an existing target pict and change its color too. I need to know that for fixing the colors of the Clavius Target picts because with the exception of the Neutronic Kestrel, they're all classic EV green target picts and they need to be a light blue like the rest of the rEVisited ones.

@captjosh, on Jun 14 2008, 01:58 PM, said in I need some help please:

I should have asked if it can also take an existing target pict and change its color too. I need to know that for fixing the colors of the Clavius Target picts because with the exception of the Neutronic Kestrel, they're all classic EV green target picts and they need to be a light blue like the rest of the rEVisited ones.

I don't know what Revisited's graphics look like. Nova Target Generator's function is to add scan-lines like the graphics used by the default scenario, so if the Revisited style is light blue with scan-lines, then it may produce the result you want when set to Cyan. If it's a different effect, then you'll need to do it yourself in Photoshop.

Normal usage of Nova Target Generator is to paste in a 3/4 view of the ship (like the shipyard pictures, but without the gradient background), and get a target picture like the ones in EV Nova.

I don't use photoshop. I hate it. The tool groupings are nonsensical. It's light blue with scan lines, but not quite cyan. More like a sky blue. Sounds like I should be able to do this.

@david-arthur, on Jun 14 2008, 10:55 AM, said in I need some help please:

It can generate in any primary (RGB) or secondary (CMY) colour and plain grey, and it can be set add the scan-line effect while keeping the original colours. You can even turn off the automatic scaling to 128x64 if you want to use it for something other than target graphics.

Sometime I should update the stand-alone Target Generator to use the revised interface of the MissionComputer version, and make it a universal binary. To keep the tradition of releasing an absolutely pointless port (now that the Windows version no longer meets that purpose), perhaps I should also make a Linux version.

Yes, I'd appreciate a new version.
In the current version (at least for Windows), the link to the Dev Boards is broken: http://www.ambrosiasw.com/forums/?action=t...er|APO|s+corner
Some thoughts:
Currently, it is unclear that the options under "Create Image" are applied when you get the image from the clipboard. Although this is easy to adapt to, it'd make more sense to have those as options that could be changed after the image has been acquired. (Was this to save memory?)
Should be able to scale the final to something other than 128*64, just in case there's a plug that modifies the intf.
An open-file and a save-file dialog would be really nice. (but would complicate things)
A command-line version is a must, for batch conversion. (Or you could build that in, but why bother?)
Custom colors? (May cause issues with very bright or very dark colors)

I am having trouble with this program (on mac) as well. When I push the button "create image from clipboard" it just makes a picture that is all red lines. I can't see the ship at all...... I dunno what I'm doing wrong.

I wasn't having trouble, but let's see:
Does the image have sufficient contrast that anything would show?
Try changing the color before creating the image from the clipboard.

uh my ship is mostly dark green and the background is black.

That would explain why you can't see anything. I don't know how the generator works, but try the other colors (particularly gray and cyan) to see if you can see anything.

still not working... what file type should it be? I'm currently using PNG

Sorry to cut the chat short, but I have a couple new questions (even though the boom resource was never really answered, thats alright I'm on my way to figuring it out).

Most importantly, can I stipulate that an outfit can not be purchased until it's counterpart has?

Can I limit outfits to a certain type of ship (eg: new vellos outfits to vellos ships only)?

And last of all, can I bind two weapons to the same secondary weapon? I haven't figured out how to do this. Say I have a beam I want to be a planet killer. I obviously can't hurt any non-planet type ships with it. And conversely, a normal pulse laser doesn't hurt planets. So is there a way to make a secondary weapon that somehow triggers both weapons simultaneously or is this just simply not possible with any ammount of clever coding?

Contribute/require bit pairs will handle the first part.

Not exactly. Vellos ships actually LACK a contribute bit that most Nova outfits require. That's why you can't buy most outfits when you're using a Vellos ship.

Finally, I'm pretty sure you can only make one weap per outfit. But you could have a dummy outfit that grants two weapons outfits, which you would then switch between.

Put an Oxxx in the Availability field.
Use Contribute/Require bits
No.

Back to Eirikr: are you trying to actually copy the file? The program can't handle that. You have to open the file in some application and copy it to that clipboard, which Windows will internally convert to a bitmap for the program to read. It outputs the same way.

@eirikr, on Jun 14 2008, 06:05 PM, said in I need some help please:

I am having trouble with this program (on mac) as well. When I push the button "create image from clipboard" it just makes a picture that is all red lines. I can't see the ship at all...... I dunno what I'm doing wrong.

When generating targets, click "Colour" and then change it to "Keep original colours". That will make it so that it's the shipyard picture, except with lines, so that it looks like a target.

@eirikr, on Jun 14 2008, 09:27 PM, said in I need some help please:

uh my ship is mostly dark green and the background is black.

Very dark images can sometimes be hard to see once the effect has been applied, which is why I added the Lighten/Darken bar. Try adjusting it, and see if that helps.

I'd like to add a new stellar object to an unoccupied system north of fed space. I have the rled for the station, and nova already has the neutron star rled. How do I place it? I tried and it was still uninhabited...

@match, on Jun 15 2008, 01:10 PM, said in I need some help please:

I'd like to add a new stellar object to an unoccupied system north of fed space. I have the rled for the station, and nova already has the neutron star rled. How do I place it? I tried and it was still uninhabited...

To place the station, create a new spöb resource, and modify the existing s˙st resource to list your new spöb as one of its NavDefaults. To give the planet a custom graphic, you'll need to create a spďn resource which refers to your rlëD, and then reference that spďn in the spöb's Type field.

As for the comments about Nova Target Generator, how does this look?
5_target_generator.jpg (61.71K)
Number of downloads: 14
It'll show up in MissionComputer 4 first, and then when it's had some testing and feedback, I'll back-port it to be a stand-alone application again.

Looks nice. The only question is, how does the color interact with the brightness? For if a color is listed as HSL, it becomes obvious that color includes brightness on its own. Perhaps it would make more sense to have a minimum-color, maximum-color, and gamma ramp, and convert the grayscale of the input to match that.

@nonconventionally-creative, on Jun 15 2008, 04:03 PM, said in I need some help please:

The only question is, how does the color interact with the brightness?

As the numbers along the side suggest, the tint is applied first (at the same time as the scan lines), then the brightness is adjusted. I thought about leaving out the brightness slider, since most of the same effects could be achieved just by adjusting the colour, but I found its presence makes the programme easier to use.

Any chance of making this capable of working from pict resources within a plug as well?