Angled building icons

David boutwell · Post by **David boutwell** » Sat Apr 05, 2003 1:48 am

Harry, Warhorse and Tracer,

Do you guys have any experience with editing angled building icons? I'm presently converting all SPWAW icons to 18th and 19th century American architectural styles, such as Greek revival, Italianate, Federal, Adams, Saltbox, etc., and I'd like to be able to edit/create new buidlings that are angled. However, using Paintshop Pro, I find it very difficult to edit/create angeld buildings. I've tried to rotate horizontal buildings, but they become blurry. The only fix that I've found is to "enhance edges" on the blurred buildings after rotating them. This corrects them somewhat, but they are still not as clear as they were before I rotated them.

Any ideas on how to fix this?

Regards,

David Boutwell

tracer · Post by **tracer** » Sun Apr 06, 2003 2:47 am

Oh boy do I know what you mean!

If you do a 90, 180 or 270 degree rotation the resolution stays crisp, but anything else and the edges get jagged. The solution I found is to start with buildings that were 'natively' diagonal; they can also be rotated 90-180-270 to achieve the 4 diagonal 'facings' without any loss of edge detail.

Also try experimenting with anti-aliasing on and off.

RockinHarry · Post by **RockinHarry** » Sun Apr 06, 2003 8:28 pm

yes, the 30 and 60° stuff is somewhat difficult to get good looking!

In paintshop pro I rotate them against a green or medium brown background and the final result then is somewhat modified by "sharpen" and similar tools. Generally my results don´t look too blurred, but are not as sharp as the original off course. I can live with it.

more detailed: "magic wand" the pink background, modify selection-->select similar, invert selection, copy to clipboard, paste floating selection into new file with green of brown background, rotate selection 30 or 60° clock- or counter clockwise (don´t forget orientation of shadows on roof! ect.), unselect, use magic wand on brown or green background, selection-->select similar..if needed, delete selection with background color set to transparent pink. On occasions the edges need to be refined in high zoom and single pixel corrected or added.

When it comes to resizing to z3 to z1, I keep it rather simple: Image-->resize in "pixel resize" mode to 80, 60 and 35% from z4 size. I also use the same exact 80, 60 and 35% resize for the crosshair/centering values in Shape Editor. Works all of the time and I don´t need to check the centering visually in SPWAW map editor.

tracer · Post by **tracer** » Mon Apr 07, 2003 1:01 am

That green/brown backround trick sounds like a great idea. When editing (rotating/resizing) on a pink or white backround, the edge pixels of the icons get 'averaged' with the adjacent, lighter pixels, resulting in a rougher edge.

I had been using the 'single pixel correct/add' method you mentioned...very tedious! Thanks for the tip.

David boutwell · Post by **David boutwell** » Tue Apr 08, 2003 4:22 am

Thanks for the input, guys. In addition to modifying the houses (porches, extensions, correct fireplace placement and rooflines, etc.). I'm working on churches, courthouses, industrial buildings, rail buildings and grist mills. All new icons will be renditions of actual historic buildings that I've researched (many of the buildings in future Gettysburg scenarios, for example, will be the actual buildings).

I have used the "sharpen" tool after rotating, and it does improve the blurred image to one that is useable.

I'll try your other suggestions.

Regards,

David Boutwell

tracer · Post by **tracer** » Sat Apr 12, 2003 5:00 am

Originally posted by RockinHarry
yes, the 30 and 60° stuff is somewhat difficult to get good looking! In paintshop pro I rotate them against a green or medium brown background

Harry, your idea works great! I tried it with the locomotive icon which had blurred significantly before; now the 30 and 60 degree rotations look as sharp as the original...no touch-up necessary. I used a backround color which was almost as dark as the icon, and set magic wand tolerance to '1'...perfect results every time.

I made an additional 5 railroad structures in the time it took me to complete 1 before.

Big thanks

RockinHarry · Post by **RockinHarry** » Sat Apr 12, 2003 2:40 pm

Originally posted by tracer
Harry, your idea works great! I tried it with the locomotive icon which had blurred significantly before; now the 30 and 60 degree rotations look as sharp as the original...no touch-up necessary. I used a backround color which was almost as dark as the icon, and set magic wand tolerance to '1'...perfect results every time.

I made an additional 5 railroad structures in the time it took me to complete 1 before.

Big thanks

glad it works for you Jim!

I found out this procedure after considerable experimenting and trial and error methods!