Topic: Always check the file format when saving a map!

[TerraEsperZ]

Sorry for this thread, but I really felt like bitching because I just lost about 8 hours of work because I stupidly saved a map I was working on as a fricking JPEG! I won't bore you with all the details, but I probably hit just the wrong keys on my keyboard while saving under a new name to change the format (thus corrupting the whole thing). And THEN, I changed a few things and saved that version under its original name, thereby corrupting that version as well. You see, MS Paint doesn't just keep the opened map intact in memory after saving it as a JPEG, oh no, you end up with what was saved.

8 fucking hours, a 3704 x 4096 pixels isometric map that I have to completely redo...

[Maxim]

You see, MS Paint

There's the problem right there.

Personally, I generally work in a layered format (which basically restricts you to lossless formats) until I save as PNG later, as I know I'll want to make a bunch of edits as I go and layers makes it hugely easier to change the labels/arrows/room placement/etc. Saving me from this sort of thing is a huge advantage too

If it was a sufficiently low-end system, you might be able to salvage it by mapping it back onto the original system palette - the JPEG artefacts might not be strong enough to distort the colours. 16-bit or higher and that probably won't work.

[TerraEsperZ]

The thing is that I still kind of work with layers, except that I'm managing them instead of having the program do it for me. I know I keep ranting about how much easier MS Paint is to use for me, but it's become so comfortable over the years.I Have Paint Shop Pro just waiting to be used, but I hate everything about it, from the complicated keyboard shortcuts to do simple things to how the color selection tool works, to how it centers pasted selections on the screen instead of aligning its top-left corner with the screen's, etc. It's also much slower to use and I'm not convinced that it's not more limited in terms of how large an image I can work on if the program has a larger memory overhead, unless it's smart enough to let you work on images larger than your memory would technically allows.

*sigh* I really should give Paint Shop Pro a serious try sometimes. The only instances I ever touch it is when I'm in desperate need of transparencies and I get out of there as soon as I can.

...I'm an old fart, aren't I?

[Peardian]

And that's why I always save first before doing a Save As.


It may be confusing, but it will definitely be worth the effort to learn. I'm so glad I learned how to properly use Fireworks, because I can't imagine doing stuff without it. And the thing is, you don't have to stop using Paint, either. In fact, together they make a great combination. Instant bitmap manipulation in Paint, copy over to Fireworks (or Paint Shop Pro) to manage in layers. That's how I do all of my maps now!


You should give Fireworks a try if Paint Shop Pro doesn't work out for you.

[JonLeung]

...I'm an old fart, aren't I?

Not as old as I.  I still regularly use Paint Shop Pro 3.12 on the machines that I have that are running Windows XP.  Considering that v3.11 introduced the ability to have more than just 8-character filenames with 3-character extensions, you know that's ancient.  This is from the Windows 95 days...  And unlike you, I do everything except transparencies in Paint Shop Pro, which I run to GIMP or Photoshop for, the latter which I think I should spend more time on, because that can actually be put on a resume.  I tried to use later versions of Paint Shop Pro, but they did some weird anti-aliasing crap I couldn't figure out how to disable, and when selecting areas, the "square" always seemed to be off a little bit, like it is (in my opinion) in MS Paint.

If the JPEG is saved at a high enough quality, and the image you're working on has 256 colours or less, you may be able to load a palette which would force the JPEG-compression-distorted colours back into their original ones.

If you can't do that, you could greyscale or invert the colours in the now-JPEG image and use it as a guide, and reconstruct your image directly on top of it.  At the very least it should save time with placement/arrangement.

[Revned]

My productivity is way higher in Photoshop than it would be otherwise. Things like the tile grid, layers and the magic wand tool have been indispensable. I see the attractiveness of the lightweight footprint and simplicity, but once you learn where everything is and how to do what you want, the extra few seconds of loading is well worth it.

[TerraEsperZ]

It turns out that Paint wasn't the culprit, but I was. Oops! Let's just say that for very technical and *justified* reasons, I have to use screen captures of the emulator's window with Alt+PrintScreen instead of emulator screenshots (Visualboy Advance always pauses in the middle of the screen refreshing, which is disastrous when there's scrolling involved). Since I'm playing at 3 times the original resolution to be able to see anything, I have to resize said screen captures every time. And because I changed the option in Irfanview from "resize" to "resample" for something else and it stuck, I spent several hours messing up every screenshot I took before even assembling the whole thing. Suddenly having trouble with color replacement with no tolerance where the simplest sprites suddenly sported hundreds of similar colors should have been a clue...

[Troy Lundin]

I made a program that makes VBA-based cartography so simple anyone can do it. It doesn't require separate screen captures or anything. Everything is handled by the program.
I can create entire maps in, literally, seconds.

If I can get it out of it's perpetual alpha stage of development, I'd be willing to share it. If people are interested, I can put some extra work into it and get it into a release stage faster.

[Peardian]

I've often thought about such a program and how very useful it would be, especially for platformers.


I'm guessing it uses the loaded map data with the assumption that the tiles are loaded in more or less fixed position that wraps around the side of the map space? When it's done, I'd be curious to see how you handle games like Mario Party Advance!

[Troy Lundin]

I don't wish to derail this topic anymore than I have. This will be my last reply on the subject in this thread.

I got a copy of Mario Party Advance. Not sure what map you are talking about with this game. I played it for about 10 minutes and the only real map I saw was the main map that you move your character around on.
If this is what you meant, here you go: http://www.4shared.com/file/Ah4tuDfi/MarioPartyAdvanceMapCreation.html

[Peardian]

Well, well! I'm glad to see your tool is more versatile than I previously thought. I'm definitely looking forward to it!


The resizing issue is why I usually keep my emulator windows at even size ratios and have filters off. When I first did my Yoshi's Island maps, it was all through using print screen on the emulator in full screen. (At the time, my computer caused ZSNES's screenshots to end up washed out for some reason.)

[Ryan Ferneau]

Since I'm playing at 3 times the original resolution to be able to see anything, I have to resize said screen captures every time. And because I changed the option in Irfanview from "resize" to "resample" for something else and it stuck, I spent several hours messing up every screenshot I took before even assembling the whole thing.

That reminds me of a tip for using Microsoft Paint that should be shared if it hasn't been already: When you use the Stretch/Skew feature to squash or stretch an entire image, Paint will apply that same sort of "resample" effect, adding in-between colors to smooth out diagonal edges or to merge shrunken color boundaries.  But if you use Stretch on a selection, even if it's a selection of the entire image (hit Ctrl+A), it will simply drop rows/columns of pixels when resizing smaller or double up on them when resizing larger.  I think I figured this out when I took screenshots of FCEUX's PPU Viewer, which displays all tiles at double size, and later wondered why the NES fonts I had extracted contained an extra shade of white that was barely distinguishable from the main shade of white when I went to recolor them.