aztcg7
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File: Transparency.zip (2.6 KB)
Downloaded 212 times.
License: Public Domain

Apparently due to the way that DROD deals with loading of .png files, if you leave sections of a mod transparent, the image below it comes through. This means that I can make a transparency mod without having to do any of the hard work of creating any tarstuffs. But as the final image displayed on the screen includes some (mostly) Caravel copyrighted imagery, I wonder, is this allowed? Attached is the tarstuff transparency mod, for use with TCB (includes Gel transparency).

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[Last edited by aztcg7 at 08-09-2007 10:49 PM]

Stefan
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What is displayed on the screen is irrelevant. It is the attachment you posted (and thus distributed) that matters.

In other words, you're good.

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Kwakstur
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That is not copyright. If your .png actually looked like what was on the screen, there would be issues, but that is not the case, here. Your work, the .png, is very clearly all your work.

I do find it interesting how the game is renderring 192x192x192 transparent; I thought that one of the rules was that 192x192x192 will only be transparent if a corner pixel was 192x192x192.
EDIT: Okay, I was looking at the wrong color; I thought the light one was 192x192x192, but it's the darker one on there. So I wonder what the darker color is that keeps the original stuff from GeneralTiles?
EDIT EDIT: And that gets really confusing to describe, since the "lighter color" turns black when viewed in Paint. Yeesh.

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[Last edited by Kwakstur at 08-09-2007 10:55 PM]

aztcg7
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Kwakstur wrote:
I do find it interesting how the game is renderring 192x192x192 transparent; I thought that one of the rules was that 192x192x192 will only be transparent if a corner pixel was 192x192x192.

Actually, 2 of the corners are, the upper and lower left.

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AlefBet
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Well, that sounds like an interesting hack. I hadn't thought of it working that way, but thinking on it, I guess it makes sense that it would.

Two comments I'd say on that, though:

1) I believe Caravel's position is that it is when you start offering content to people to use that copyright issues become significant. Since the material you distribute directly doesn't contain Caravel content, I don't think that would constitute any problem. (That's bolstered in my mind that the actual "mixing" of the content with official content is done by Caravel's program and not redistributed afterwards.)

2) Don't count on this always working. It's an undocumented feature and the program may someday be rewritten in a manner so that this won't work anymore. I don't think they'd do that on purpose to thwart this, but if (for example) someday they decide to use regular old PNG transparency rather than color map transparency, the tile loading system would probably have to be rewritten such that this "hack" wouldn't work anymore.

A note on #2, though: If lots of people started using this capability, I expect the Caravel team would be reluctant to break it, or would probably make some effort to offer similar functionality. (Of course, there would be no obligation for such, though....)

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Kwakstur
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How exactly do you do this?

192x192x192 is the color used to make the game display the color of the pixel from the Floor layer.

But you are using something else to make the game not display anything; as in, after it reads the line General=GeneralTiles and displays the tarstuff, it then reads the line General=Transparent . . . and when it does so, whatever this thing is that you're using, it's actually skipped when displaying so that, instead of another color (or the Floor image) appearing, the image from GeneralTiles stays.


I would like to guess that the mystery color here is Transparent, but, then again, transparent colors show up as white when viewed in Paint, not black. Hmmm . . . what color is skipped during display, and shows up as black in paint?

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aztcg7
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It's straight transparency. I think that when all the stuff gets loaded, General loads all tiles in generaltiles to specific names, and when they are then reloaded, transparency is simply treated as having whatever was in memory as the data. I don't know though, but it saved me alot of time trying to get tarstuff that looked good (it's surprisingly hard).

As to how I did it, I loaded up the gimp with a non-writable background of tar in the standard arrangement. I then created a layer on top of that, and did the spraying of 192^3, followed by removing the background for export to png.

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In other news, is a considerably more stylish way to express sarcasm than , because everybody uses and I am /indie/. INDIE, I TELL YOU.