VGMaps

General Boards => Maps In Progress => Topic started by: Peardian on December 26, 2008, 11:56:05 pm

Title: RE: Paper Mario maps: .PNG to .JPG?
Post by: Peardian on December 26, 2008, 11:56:05 pm
After finishing my latest Paper Mario map, Raccoon Sam put to me the suggestion of using .JPG for my Paper Mario maps (and at the same time, maps of all 3D games). Obviously, small rips like PM's 320x320 map screen would remain .PNG, since they're tiny enough.



PNG

+Lossless compression, and thus perfect quality of map and text.

+Format used for very many maps already.

-File size increases significantly with complexity and size. Most of the Paper Mario maps are several megabytes in size.



JPG

+Compresses to a much smaller size than PNG. Estimated to reduce the size of the mapset by 90%.

-Lossy compression would dull the text and finer details of the map, taking away all crispness.



I'm sure you all already knew the pros and cons of the filetypes already, but I just wanted to list them as a reminder. What do you guys think? Should I keep my maps of 3D games in .PNG, or switch over to .JPG? Right now I'm leaning towards staying .PNG, but I want to get your opinions first.



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YTT (34%) - WL4 (60%) - PM (34%)
Title: RE: Paper Mario maps: .PNG to .JPG?
Post by: TerraEsperZ on December 27, 2008, 12:06:29 am
Personally, I'm always in favour of aesthetics regardless of file size, and would rather never submit a map if I couldn't do it losslessly. Please keep using PNGs.



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Current projects: Bucky O'Hare (NES), Metal Storm (NES), Clock Tower (SNES), Ristar-The Shooting Star (Gen), Sonic The Hedgehog (Gen), Sonic CD (Sega CD), Mega Man Zero (GBA), Battletoads (NES)
Title: RE: Paper Mario maps: .PNG to .JPG?
Post by: Revned on December 27, 2008, 12:18:30 am
I don't think lossless-ness is as important with 3D games. The image you would be submitting isn't exactly like something you'd ever see in the game anyway. Just use the maximum quality setting when saving the JPG. Huge PNG files aren't always easy to view.
Title: RE: Paper Mario maps: .PNG to .JPG?
Post by: Maxim on December 27, 2008, 03:41:58 am
Maximum quality JPGs are pretty big.



Try disabling colour subsampling when saving (not all software can do it, Irfanview can; some label it as "4:4:4"). JPEG actually stores the colour at half resolution which adds a lot to the blurriness.
Title: RE: Paper Mario maps: .PNG to .JPG?
Post by: Raccoon Sam on December 27, 2008, 08:51:05 am
Glad you brought this up. It's great to see some good discussion.

But yeah, when comparing maximum quality JPEGs and optimized-to-hell PNGs, I'm pretty sure that when we're going with Paper Mario, which is a 3D game, JPEG will be the optimal choice.

I do not wish to wait for several minutes to see a map load, for I can get the same visual result with a slightly lossy format.



I mentioned this in our MSN conversation too, but I'm pretty sure a 10 000 x 10 000 px 90%-quality JPEG would be even smaller than a 5000 x 5000 PNG. <--assumption.



Or, you could include both. JPEGs as the primary ones, and the PNGs RAR'd or 7z'd to a package available for download.
Title: RE: Paper Mario maps: .PNG to .JPG?
Post by: JonLeung on December 27, 2008, 10:34:53 am
As I mentioned in my email to you, Peardian, my preference is for PNG.



I understand that it may seem "less important" for pixel-perfection when mapping 3D games but I still prefer PNG, as the faster loading isn't worth even the slightest image degradation, in my opinion.
Title: RE: Paper Mario maps: .PNG to .JPG?
Post by: Maxim on December 27, 2008, 12:19:58 pm
Well, why not try it? Here's some (small lossless PNG) cutout parts of Toad Town. Open in tabs and switch between them to compare.



1. PNG (10501KB)



http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/2372/papermariotoadtownzx3.png



2. Maximum-quality full-colour-resolution JPG (11542KB = 110%)



http://img396.imageshack.us/img396/7689/444100vo4.png



3. 80% quality (ie. near maximum) full-colour-resolution JPG (2494KB = 24%)



http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/3006/44480sk0.png



4. 80% quality blurry-colour-channel JPG (1812KB = 17%)



http://img387.imageshack.us/img387/7660/42080dv7.png



Personally, I can't see any difference between any of them.



For technical reasons, PNG performs badly on wide images. It is based on GZip compression, which is based off the Zip Deflate algorithm. It has a window size of 32KB, meaning that's the furthest it looks back for similar data when compressing. If the image is 3000px across, 32KB is only ~3.6 rows of pixels at 24bpp, not really far enough (you'd hope for at least 8 rows, preferably a lot more). So to maximise compression you need to save as BMP or lossless PNG and then 7z with maximal settings.
Title: RE: Paper Mario maps: .PNG to .JPG?
Post by: TerraEsperZ on December 27, 2008, 12:40:40 pm
Well, I stand corrected. I guess it helps that the N64 uses low-resolution textures with lots of blurriness which hides the drop in picture quality.



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Current projects: Bucky O'Hare (NES), Metal Storm (NES), Clock Tower (SNES), Ristar-The Shooting Star (Gen), Sonic The Hedgehog (Gen), Sonic CD (Sega CD), Mega Man Zero (GBA), Battletoads (NES)
Title: RE: Paper Mario maps: .PNG to .JPG?
Post by: RT 55J on December 27, 2008, 02:16:53 pm
Personally, if I was mapping the game, I'd send in JPEGs but keep the PNGs on my hard drive.

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"its a good day to do what has to be done by me and help my brother to defeat the enemys" - John Freeman
Title: RE: Paper Mario maps: .PNG to .JPG?
Post by: Peardian on December 27, 2008, 10:39:14 pm
Yeah, even if I switch to .JPG, I will still keep the raw .PNG files that I made the map with. Now THOSE are large. With all the layer and vector and text data, some of them are upwards of 25MB.



I still haven't decided, so I'm going to let this topic go on longer to see if it helps. As for the blurriness of the textures, I've actually been leaving them pixelly because the program I use can't emulate the bluriness the same way, and it screws up certain objects' tiling (leaving blurry pieces around the edges for objects with alpha transparency). However, it does get blurred a tad when I reize it from the render to the size used for the map.

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YTT (34%) - WL4 (60%) - PM (34%)
Title: RE: Paper Mario maps: .PNG to .JPG?
Post by: Raccoon Sam on December 29, 2008, 09:38:52 am
Wait, you're resizing the renders?

Are you sure that's a good idea?
Title: RE: Paper Mario maps: .PNG to .JPG?
Post by: Tropicon on December 29, 2008, 11:24:37 am
Ouch look at those maps.  Peardian man you are hot stuff.  You're doing that with camera manipulation right?  I've been doing the same with other N64 games but my results are not nearly as nice.  Could you give me a consult?



As far as the image format is concerned I never use JPEG under any circumstances.  At best it makes images look like they were sent through a 10 year old scanner.
Title: RE: Paper Mario maps: .PNG to .JPG?
Post by: Raccoon Sam on December 29, 2008, 06:29:47 pm
Tropicon Said:
Ouch look at those maps.  Peardian man you are hot stuff.  You're doing that with camera manipulation right?  I've been doing the same with other N64 games but my results are not nearly as nice.  Could you give me a consult?



As far as the image format is concerned I never use JPEG under any circumstances.  At best it makes images look like they were sent through a 10 year old scanner.

Yeah, with the lowest settings they will.

JPEGs can look great, too. It's just that too many of us got taught that JPEG equals all evil in this world in sprite school.



And these maps are ripped with the N64 emulator's VMRL dump feature.

Title: RE: Paper Mario maps: .PNG to .JPG?
Post by: Tropicon on January 11, 2009, 10:06:13 am
Which N64 emulator?
Title: RE: Paper Mario maps: .PNG to .JPG?
Post by: Peardian on January 18, 2009, 03:11:16 pm
I use 1964. I know other emulators support a VRML dump feature, but this one is the easiest to use.



However, after the VRML is dumped, it still requires quite a bit of work to get it to look like it's supposed to, let alone presentable.

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YTT (34%) - WL4 (60%) - PM (36%)
Title: RE: Paper Mario maps: .PNG to .JPG?
Post by: Tropicon on January 18, 2009, 09:06:45 pm
This may sound like a stupid question but where is the dump feature in 1964?  I can't seem to find a reference to it in the help files.
Title: RE: Paper Mario maps: .PNG to .JPG?
Post by: Revned on January 18, 2009, 10:35:00 pm
It's not part of the emulator, it's the graphics plugin. I forget the name, but I'm pretty sure it works in Project64 and Nemu64 as well.
Title: Paper Mario maps: .PNG to .JPG?
Post by: Tropicon on January 19, 2009, 12:20:37 pm
..... It works! This is awesome.  And I see what you meant by quite a bit of work.

Heh heh, does this look familiar to anyone?  You guys seem to love this series around here.

http://www.vgmapper.com/sysN64/CVexample.png

Title: RE: Paper Mario maps: .PNG to .JPG?
Post by: Peardian on January 20, 2009, 11:32:59 am
I'm afraid I don't recognize that game at all. :(





By the way, as I'm ripping this stuff, do any of you have 3D programs and/or would like the model files? It would be best if you had Cinema 4D since that's what I use (and it seems .3ds files exported from C4D can't support things like alpha channel, seamless tiling (for half-textures), multiple textures on one object, and other stuff to make the object look like it does in-game. Without C4D, the variety of models I can give you becomes pretty limited.



I can give you anything used in my Paper Mario maps so far, as well as some stuff from the beginning of a few other N64 games:

-Majora's Mask

-Space Station Silicon Valley

-Super Smash Bros.

-Tetrisphere

-Star Fox 64

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YTT (34%) - WL4 (60%) - PM (36%)
Title: RE: Paper Mario maps: .PNG to .JPG?
Post by: Tropicon on January 20, 2009, 03:16:47 pm
Oh come on, it's Castlevania 64!  That's Carrie at the beginning of the first level.



I made that with Cosmo Player.  It's the first thing I found when I looked for VRML viewers.  I'll look up Cinema 4D.  TR64 OpenGL sure is picky about it's "uCode", I still can't load Turok 3 because of it.  As for other games I lean more towards the odd ones.  I tried out Castlevania 64, Shadow Man, Aidyn Chronicles, Banjo-Kazooie (works great), Duke Nukem Zero Hour, and a bunch of others.



I did try out Majoras Mask and it worked fine but when I do Zelda maps I do them off the original in game maps not off screen captures.  I've already done some of Majoras Mask and Twilight Princess this way this way and all of Link to the Past.



Speaking of textures I can't seem to rip them, the thing just crashes.  What file extension would they be called anyway?  Also I don't know if Cosmo Player will like texture injections.  But I did just get it after all so I don't know that much about it yet.  I'll keep experimenting.
Title: RE: Paper Mario maps: .PNG to .JPG?
Post by: Peardian on January 23, 2009, 10:41:37 am
Oh, I've never played any Castlevania games. Not really my taste.



C4D is an expensive program, but if you can get it, it's very powerful. It's a full-fledged professional modeling/animation program. And, because of that, it's not the easiest thing to just pick up and make maps with. I've had it for almost a year now and am still learning stuff.



Depending on which emulator you used to dump the VRML, the textures will either be named with a large hex value or a number, but either way the color and alpha channels will be separate.



Just to let you know, I do have my sights set on mapping both 64 Zelda games, but I won't stop you if you get to mapping them before me.

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YTT (34%) - WL4 (60%) - PM (36%)
Title: RE: Paper Mario maps: .PNG to .JPG?
Post by: JonLeung on January 23, 2009, 12:07:46 pm
Peardian Said:
Oh, I've never played any Castlevania games. Not really my taste.


GASP.



Though, while such a statement is typically inexcusable, I won't fault you for not recognizing the N64 game.  Actually, there's two.  You can pretty much skip those ones if you ever do decide to play them.  >_>
Title: RE: Paper Mario maps: .PNG to .JPG?
Post by: Peardian on January 23, 2009, 03:09:08 pm
JonLeung Said:
Peardian Said:
Oh, I've never played any Castlevania games. Not really my taste.


GASP.



Though, while such a statement is typically inexcusable, I won't fault you for not recognizing the N64 game.  Actually, there's two.  You can pretty much skip those ones if you ever do decide to play them.  >_>

I love Metroid and games like it, but uh I'm a tad squeamish and really don't like rotting corpses, bloody ghouls, buildings made out of skulls, humanoid monsters and the like. It's not the gameplay, it's the subject.

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YTT (34%) - WL4 (60%) - PM (36%)
Title: RE: Paper Mario maps: .PNG to .JPG?
Post by: Tropicon on January 23, 2009, 05:37:11 pm
Don't think I ready to go as far as a new program.  I can't really do Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask until I finish my Twilight Princess work, and that will take forever so I'll probably never get back to it.



Why does everybody hate the N64 Castlevanias?  I liked them.  How else are you gonna do a 3D Castlevania?



If you don't like gore I bet you stay far away from games like Doom.
Title: RE: Paper Mario maps: .PNG to .JPG?
Post by: TerraEsperZ on January 23, 2009, 06:25:06 pm
Add another vote to the N64 Castlevanias. Legacy Of Darkness more so than Castlevania since it's a much more polished game, but I like them both, and they feel closer to the universe of the old NES and SNES games than all the newer 3D games which are way too Japanese in style to my liking.



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Current projects: Bucky O'Hare (NES), Metal Storm (NES), Clock Tower (SNES), Ristar-The Shooting Star (Gen), Sonic The Hedgehog (Gen), Sonic CD (Sega CD), Mega Man Zero (GBA), Battletoads (NES)
Title: RE: Paper Mario maps: .PNG to .JPG?
Post by: JonLeung on January 23, 2009, 06:52:25 pm
Well, to each their own, Peardian.  But I don't really consider Castlevania games horror games.  They don't really try to be scary.  I certainly don't think so.  The games just happen to have classic and mythological monsters.



And after playing Konami's true horror franchise, Silent Hill, I don't even find Resident Evil scary at all.



If you want to talk about crappy Castlevania games, there's Judgment, which I played recently.  But at least find the soundtrack...it's rocksome!  It's like official remixes of tunes from the various Castlevania games.  Also, Legacy Of Darkness fans should be happy that Cornell is in this game and is actually pretty cool.



But, now we're really off-topic.  We can debate whether or not we like Castlevania, but that's all opinion.  I say it's FACT that .PNG is better than .JPG.  :P



And it sounds like I should at least be a bit more familiar with this VRML stuff.  I don't know that we will ever map all of the 2D games there are, but we will reach a point where we would've mapped all the ones that anyone cares to map, and then we'll have more 3D maps, or at least more interest in them, I'm sure of it.  There will come a day when people who grew up in the N64 and PSX era will become nostalgic and more interest will be there...if there isn't already.  Boy, I feel old, when people talk about N64 "classics".  I still think Pok?mon is a "new" Nintendo franchise but it's already over ten years old...  o_0