16-bit sprites in the work

from Stardock Forums
I'm working on adding 16-bit sprites support in the sprite editor. On one hand it will make it more convenient for modders who aren't used to deal with palettes and well, it IS 16 bit colors. This mean higher quality graphics but the trade off is that it's almost exactly 2x the size of sprites using 8 bit graphics.

You'll now be able to edit those few 16-bit graphics in galciv and if IIRC TurgotZ had encoded a lot of ships using 16-bit, so there ya go TurgotZ.

It's still not done, I first have to finish hacking the 16 bit file format but I'd say 80% of that work is done now.
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Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
I for one really appreciate the effort.since i lost all of my original flim strips for those ship, i've not been able to edit them outside with Mulit. Anyone that has used that program knows its a bit unruly. So thanks in advance.

~SDC~
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Adding 16 bit support lead me to get a better look at font files and the only thing I can say is that it's a real mess. I've identified a new type of font, new intricacies in the palette usage and more weird things.

-Not happy
[Message Edited]
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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Ok, new update, version 1.6 is done.

-It now support 16 bit sprites.
-A major strip import bug has been fixed. Any image sequence you imported using the strip import didn't use error diffusion as it's dithering method but instead always used the closest color dithering method. That and the images you saw until you saved didn't correspong to the closest color dithered versions.
-A very minor bug in the palette editor has been fixed. When reloading a new palette, the color being currently edited stayed the same if you were editing the color index 0.

Ok, as for the future a new update may or may not be close because I'm going on a two weeks vacation soon. Because of this, I've released it even if 16 bit support hasn't been tested as much as I'd have liked to. Of course, as far as I can tell it's working perfectly. The update assuming there's no bug will be a menu to switch the color depth from 8 bit to 16 bit or 16 bit to 8 bit. Oh yeah, I might even get my ass in gear and get that movie import working.

As usual, get it from http://graphix.galciv.org
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
I am such a happy modder :CONGRAT:
I'll start giving this version a thorough work out this weekend and post anything i find is amiss.
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Had sometime to give this version a try here is what i have found.

the spirit editor will:
Encode spirits without a palatte file
It displays the import graphic correctly in the editor
Save and open spirits created with the editor

what i have found that the editor can not do sofar:

Will not open spirits encoded with the ship encoder those i created or the original deathknight
Spirits encoded at 16 bit display in Mutil corrupted. the graphic is sort of elongated across the screen. do to this the file does not work in game.

Excellent work so far, i look forward to the next release.