Graphics Enhancement Mod (GEM) v2.4. Updated: December 22, 2012

[AstroCat]

Ok, I fixed all the planets and the cloud overlays except for the frozengasgiant and gasgiant. For those 2 sets I recommend just using vanilla.

My fixes might not be 100% perfect but I think they are a definite improvement over what we had before. Let me know what you think and maybe I can adjust them if needed.

VERSION 3 FIXED NAMING, PLANETS & OVERLAYS!
http://www.mediafire.com/download/dewj7 ... xed_v3.rar

I'll keep looking for other things that are "off". Let me know if anyone finds anything else that needs fixing.

[elliotg]

ORIGINAL: AstroCat

ORIGINAL: Mansen

The barren planets aren't the issue - Sets like the Continental and Desert are, because of the glow, Martian added. I was merely pointing out that they (no longer?) match with the game and causes issues even with the removed shadow file. I've been manually fixing planets for about an hour now since batch won't work.

I'm still curious what has changed - If vanilla planets used to be bigger in earlier expansions, or if the game has started scaling the images down rather than letting the larger dimensions stay.

Yeah I'm seeing the same issue, could we edit the shadow file?

Image size for planets should not matter - you can use any size, though don't go too big

In-game the planets and moons will be scaled to the appropriate size when drawn. The shadow overlay is also scaled when added over top of the planets, with a small allowance for a thin atmosphere, i.e. the shadow will be slightly smaller than the planet, the difference is around 0.67% smaller, thus a planet drawn 300 pixels wide will have a shadow overlay 298 pixels wide.

By the way, no changes to this area since probably Legends...

1.9.5.1 did force Windows DPI scaling to be turned off, that's the only thing that could possibly impact this.

Thanks
Elliot

[AstroCat]

Well I just checked out the stars and rays from GEM and those seem to be working fine. But, yeah for sure his planets and cloud overlays were rendering in-game way too small since I got DW:U. I resized and rescaled them to match the vanilla ones and now they for whatever the reason they render correctly.

It's odd because it seems, so far, all the other graphics are working. Maybe this is just limited to the planets and overlays?

DPI scaling, hmmm, maybe? I'm open to input, and thanks for the reply.

[necaradan666]

Thanks AstroCat glad this annoyed someone other than me, who also knows how to use editing software.

[Buio]

Thanks for the fixes.

[AstroCat]

No prob, let me know if you find any more images that are not rendering correctly. Right now it seems limited to planets and overlays.

[Tanaka]

Thanks for putting in the work to fix this great mod!

[Mansen]

Ah you took the easy way out, Astro. The outer glow is cut off on the sides. [:D]

I've been doing the manual cut and paste of most planets to make them fit in the original dimensions with the proper glow. It just takes forever to do on a per-planet basis. [:(]

[AstroCat]

Well if you finish them all the "hard" way that would be awesome!

What I did was resize the overall image to the vanilla size. Then, I used a scale transform to adjust the planet image to match the dimensions of the vanilla planets 1:1. I would A:B them to make sure they matched, because not all the planet types were the same. So the glow does moves off, but the planets line up and look ok in-game. I used the same technique for the overlays, but with no glow to worry about.

[Sokar408]

ORIGINAL: AstroCat

Well if you finish them all the "hard" way that would be awesome!

What I did was resize the overall image to the vanilla size. Then, I used a scale transform to adjust the planet image to match the dimensions of the vanilla planets 1:1. I would A:B them to make sure they matched, because not all the planet types were the same. So the glow does moves off, but the planets line up and look ok in-game. I used the same technique for the overlays, but with no glow to worry about.

I will admit that I haven't read all the pages going back, but it seems like you have taken over this mod and keep it updated. Do you have a compilation of fixes somewhere?

[pycco]

ORIGINAL: Sokar408

ORIGINAL: AstroCat

Well if you finish them all the "hard" way that would be awesome!

What I did was resize the overall image to the vanilla size. Then, I used a scale transform to adjust the planet image to match the dimensions of the vanilla planets 1:1. I would A:B them to make sure they matched, because not all the planet types were the same. So the glow does moves off, but the planets line up and look ok in-game. I used the same technique for the overlays, but with no glow to worry about.

I will admit that I haven't read all the pages going back, but it seems like you have taken over this mod and keep it updated. Do you have a compilation of fixes somewhere?

tm.asp?m=3616300

[necaradan666]

Just because Das Chrome has nicer cursors and UI buttons, doesn't make it a replacement. GEM does other things too, ship outlines and colours, easily visible planets, many landscape options.

Things to know about GEM: Gasgiants are base game, useless as a part of GEM. Shadow image is old, delete it from GEM when you download. Only the first few landscapes are read by the game, the rest in GEM are extras for you to pick favourites from. Some people say GEM star disc is buggy, I haven't seen it cause trouble though.

The planet fixes Astrocat did are linked only a few posts up if you care to scroll a little...

[pycco]

other mods also do planet and ruins and much more, not that anything is wrong with GEM under AstroCat he has done a great job its just dated is all and the OP is not updating the mod.
i use GEM myself for the ship out lines, but yes there is quite a bit "broken" with GEM it causes crashes for me for example, and some of the icons are not displaying properly and the sun thing as you said that is what i believe is causing the crash.

[Sirian]

While trying to find a fix for the planet / shadow problem in GEM (Universe version) I stumbled upon a bug concerning planet shadows in DW. See bug report

The good thing is, I did find a fix for the planet / shadow problem, but it is a lot of work to implement. So I will wait if the shadow issue is being adressed or not.

[AstroCat]

ORIGINAL: Sirian

While trying to find a fix for the planet / shadow problem in GEM (Universe version) I stumbled upon a bug concerning planet shadows in DW. See bug report

The good thing is, I did find a fix for the planet / shadow problem, but it is a lot of work to implement. So I will wait if the shadow issue is being adressed or not.

Yes this is the problem with the game scaling we now have. Your images have to be the same size as the original game or the game does not scale them correctly. This effects many, if not all of the game .png files. I fixed this for GEM, in a post above this one. I had to resize and rescale all the planets and overlays.

But it gets even more complicated when working with new shipsets, adding the engine exhausts and running lights. Often they have to be "offset" in the .png to appear correctly in game. And, even when you do get them correctly, on subsequent loads they might be shifted around by the game and appear out of align again, this especially happens with the engine exhaust .pngs.

It's a real pain, I really hope they fix this issue. It even effects things like the landscape images.

[Keston]

I love an attractive, sharp, efficient UI. The images on the first posts look good and are much more indicative than the standard version. I'll have to work backward to see if trying to use it in Universe defeats my simple replace-files skills, but it looks like Astrocat has kindly been plugging some holes. Thanks.

[rxnnxs]

It looks very good to me and i combined it with the DAS Icons.
Big Problem up to now was, that the shadow/eclipse thing did not work for me. Not even with the changed pictures astrocat provided kindly.
with the last patch from universe 1955 if figured out yesterday, that if you delete (or rename) the shading.png in the shadow-directory (and therefore the standard one is used), everyting looks good.

i just took the original data (removed shading.png as described above) provided from the GEM mod and VOILA, it works!

[Hikikomori]

Hello everyone.

Since i couldn't find G.E.M.s excellent ship markings for the races which were added through the DW:U Extended Mod(family 27-44), and neither for the pirate factions(family 22-26 i believe)i started doodling myself.
I am nowhere near the abilities of Martian, in fact this is my first attempt at image editing at all, but i believe as long the images are not scaled up too high they are at least tolerable.

But since i read somewhere here someone(my memory [8|]) mentioning he was interested in doing this himself, i thought i ask here if the work is even necessary.

//i59.tinypic.com/20gg12x.png (add a http:)

My borders are much fuzzier than martians, but since i am only doing this for myself at the moment i didn't care that much, first attempt and all.
I would be delighted if someone with actual motor skills and talent would do this though, or better already did. [:'(]


Test version of family 22, a pirate faction, you can test it ingame with the Akkdarians.

.dropbox.com/s/uvs745yrmaraoe9/family22.7z (i hope this works, never tried public before, add a www please, newly registered...)


EDIT: Oh yeah, and i fucked up the position lights on most, going to have to avoid those yellow dots i presume... [:D]


EDIT 2:
Ok there is an easy way to do this with selecting layers automatically, the results are much better und its done pretty fast.
Well, on it then...

//i61.tinypic.com/24whker.jpg (add http: , real image is in png)

[Hikikomori]

So, if anyone wants to test it, here is family22 revised, position lights working, no fuzzy borders, thats pretty much the best i can do i am afraid.

.dropbox.com/s/0mm35yf5i8kk87l/family22.zip (add www)

C/P in Distant Worlds Universe\Customization\DW Extended Universe\images\units\ships

To test it start a custom game as Ackdarian pirate with an appropriate techlevel and produce them.

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: AstroCat

ORIGINAL: Sirian

While trying to find a fix for the planet / shadow problem in GEM (Universe version) I stumbled upon a bug concerning planet shadows in DW. See bug report

The good thing is, I did find a fix for the planet / shadow problem, but it is a lot of work to implement. So I will wait if the shadow issue is being adressed or not.

Yes this is the problem with the game scaling we now have. Your images have to be the same size as the original game or the game does not scale them correctly. This effects many, if not all of the game .png files. I fixed this for GEM, in a post above this one. I had to resize and rescale all the planets and overlays.

But it gets even more complicated when working with new shipsets, adding the engine exhausts and running lights. Often they have to be "offset" in the .png to appear correctly in game. And, even when you do get them correctly, on subsequent loads they might be shifted around by the game and appear out of align again, this especially happens with the engine exhaust .pngs.

It's a real pain, I really hope they fix this issue. It even effects things like the landscape images.

Also looks like desert planet #30 is missing?