[Freeciv-Dev] Re: New tileset.

["Arturo Espinosa-Aldama" <arturoea@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: Jason Short <jshort@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: Arturo Espinosa-Aldama <arturoea@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> > application). The whole tileset can be rendered at any given resolution at 
> > build-time, and the corresponding tar file is generated automatically by 
> > using this only command, thanks to sodipodi and TheGIMP's command-line 
> > options.
> Cool.
>
> > Unfortunately, I can't find any current documentation on tile building, 
> > and although the spec file format is quite easy to figure out, I still 
> > have some doubts:
> Feel free to write some :-).
I'll do that as soon as I get done with the tileset, as part of the 
documentation for the thing.
> > Does freeciv support non-indexed PNG files?
> This depends on the client being used.  The XAW client only supports 
> indexed PNGs, but other clients should be fine with RGBA (or whatever).  
> This has not been particularly tested, however.
OK, it's good to know I have a chance of getting this working without 
modifications on the client code. I'm using the GTK2 version (1.14, no cvs).
> > How does it handle transparency? Is the alpha channel honored? Does alpha 
> > blending take place (I doubt so, but I'm still asking)?
> Same as above - it will probably work under some clients, but has not been 
> particularly tested.  I suspect the GTK and XAW clients will not work with 
> a transparency layer, but the GTK2, SDL, and Win32 clients probably will.
I'll try with the SDL version as well; it looks promising.

> > What is the function of the tx.fog tile? That's the only one that doesn't 
> > seem obvious to me, and the one that makes me think that freeciv requires 
> > indexed png files.
> This is used for non-iso tilesets only, I believe.  It is used to draw fog 
> onto the tiles.  For an iso tileset fog is not likely to work well with 
> alpha-layered sprites for any client except the SDL one (depending on what 
> sprites you use alpha-blending with).
What is bizarre here is that both macroisotrident and r-hires specify a 
tx.fog tile, but looking at how macroisotrident is rendered, I guess tx.fog 
is just ignored and foggy tiles are rendered either at runtime or during 
initialization.
> > adopting it would require some major re-engeneering of the map view to get 
> > it working.
> If there are problems, we should fix them as we find them.  Hopefully we 
> can do this without compromising things for non-alpha-blended tilesets.
> jason
OK, so I'll try to make this thing work with the client as it is first. 
Thanks for the reply! :)
Greetings,
Arturo

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