Re: [glob2-devel] www.globulation2.org look updated

[Andrew Sayers]

Well, I wasn't sure whether I liked the skin even as I was writing it,
and at any rate, if I wasn't big enough to take some criticism, I
wouldn't be posting here :)

Looking at it again, I agree that putting sand in the text boxes doesn't
work.  Personally, I rather like the bright green, although from the
comments on here and on IRC, I think it's a colour that splits the
community down the middle.

It seems to me that the grass colour would be the best solution if it
worked.  As such, the solution to the website is to make better grass
(and preferably sand) images for the game.  I've worked out a rough
procedure for making quite nice grass tiles in the GIMP.  I'll lay it
out here and show my results.  I'd invite people to try playing with the
recipe to try and make better grass.

1) create a new 128x128 image (it's important that it be this size).

2) Fill the image with grey.  How bright you make the grey will affect
how bright your final results are.

3) Go to filters->noise->scatter RGB.  Deselect "independant RGB" and
click OK.

4) Go to layer->colours->curves.  Set the maximum value on the red and
blue channels to 50%.  Leave the green channel alone.  On the value
channel, add a 3rd point in the middle of the curve at about 30% height.
Hit OK.

5) Go to filters->blur->gaussian blur.  Set the blur radius to 2 on both
the horizontal and vertical axis.  Hit OK.

5) Split the image into 16 segments.  Since this is quite hard to do
manually, I've hacked (and I do mean hacked) a little bit of script-fu
together.  In the main GIMP window (not the image window), go to
Xtns->Script Fu->Script Fu console.  In the "current command" text box,
paste the following lines:

(define (my-copy-square x y from base) (gimp-rect-select 1 (* x 32) (* y 32) 32 
32 2 0 0) (gimp-edit-copy (car (gimp-image-get-active-drawable 1))) (let* 
((image (car (gimp-image-new 32 32 RGB))) (layer (car (gimp-layer-new image 32 
32 RGB-IMAGE "foobar" 100 NORMAL-MODE))) (filename (string-append "terrain" 
(string-append (number->string (+ base (+ x (* 4 y)))) ".png")))) 
(gimp-image-add-layer image layer 0) (gimp-display-new image) (gimp-rect-select 
image 0 0 32 32 0 0 0) (gimp-edit-paste (car (gimp-image-get-active-drawable 
image)) 0) (gimp-image-flatten image) (file-png-save 1 image (car 
(gimp-image-get-active-drawable image)) filename filename 0 9 0 0 0 1 1) 
(gimp-display-delete image) (print filename) ))

(define (my-copy-row y from base) (my-copy-square 0 y from base) 
(my-copy-square 1 y from base) (my-copy-square 2 y from base) (my-copy-square 3 
y from base) )

(define (my-copy-all from base) (my-copy-row 0 from base) (my-copy-row 1 from 
base) (my-copy-row 2 from base) (my-copy-row 3 from base) )


Each image is referred to by a number internally by the GIMP.  There's
probably a clever way of finding the number of the image, but I don't
know what that clever way is.  If the image you're cutting up is the
first one you created when you started the GIMP, your image number is 1.
Assuming yours is image number 1, you can split up your files by doing:

(my-copy-all 1 0)

This will save each 32x32 section of your image in a file called
terrain0.png, terrain1.png, and so on.

6) Copy the files into your ~/.glob2/data/gfx directory (which you'll
probably have to create) and start glob2.  You can now play a game with
your new tiles.


Going through this procedure myself, I got some grass that I rather
like.  It's available for now at
http://www.globulation2.org/terrain.tar.bz2

Personally, I love these tiles for the game - they look luscious and
grassy, rather than dreary like the old tiles.  Although, having started
this whole post on the premise that what looks good in the game will
look good on the website, I've now updated glob2test and the same tiles
just look pixely and unpleasant.  So you can either agree with me that
I'm no good at graphical design, or disagree and say that I am -
whatever you say now, I'm happy :)

        - Andrew