Transcendence Picture thread

General discussion about anything related to Transcendence.
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0xABCDEF
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JohnBWatson wrote:
Sat Apr 29, 2017 6:17 am
That's pretty cool. Why not have it check, say, all four corner pixels? Might help alleviate the issue with certain sides not getting highlighted evenly.
Increasing the number of pixel checks does not seem to improve the detection quality for me; I believe that the main problem is that certain images have intense shadows, which can trick the algorithm into detecting an edge. For one, the lower right area of the Commonwealth Fortress is almost completely dark and the Manticore has a large shadow on the right side. So, the algorithm would work ideally if the shadows on the images were much lighter. I also need to find a balance between the frequency of dark pixels on detailed areas and on the edges.

Also, I have been playing around with color channel swapping (i.e. using GRB as the RGB value to swap red with green). Here are a purple Asterion and a green Scorpion.
Image
Image

Here are all the images after basic edge detection
Here are all the images after a red-green swap
shanejfilomena
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0xABCDEF wrote:
Sat Apr 29, 2017 7:29 am
JohnBWatson wrote:
Sat Apr 29, 2017 6:17 am
That's pretty cool. Why not have it check, say, all four corner pixels? Might help alleviate the issue with certain sides not getting highlighted evenly.
Increasing the number of pixel checks does not seem to improve the detection quality for me; I believe that the main problem is that certain images have intense shadows, which can trick the algorithm into detecting an edge. For one, the lower right area of the Commonwealth Fortress is almost completely dark and the Manticore has a large shadow on the right side. So, the algorithm would work ideally if the shadows on the images were much lighter. I also need to find a balance between the frequency of dark pixels on detailed areas and on the edges.

Also, I have been playing around with color channel swapping (i.e. using GRB as the RGB value to swap red with green). Here are a purple Asterion and a green Scorpion.
Image
Image

Here are all the images after basic edge detection
Here are all the images after a red-green swap
I always did like Ships with Flavor.....
these are perfect for the moody pilot..or just for dressing up the system.

Did you do an entire strip like this? woulds love to have them in my games.
Flying Irresponsibly In Eridani......

I don't like to kill pirates in cold blood ..I do it.. but I don't like it..
JohnBWatson
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Okay, a second proposal. Shadows alter brightness, but not overall color. Edges (can) alter overall color. Could checking for consistency in the ratio of R, G, and B values help differentiate shadows from edges? This would mean requiring a higher brightness difference to mark an edge when the RGB ratios of two pixels are similar.
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0xABCDEF
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JohnBWatson wrote:
Sun Apr 30, 2017 1:17 am
Okay, a second proposal. Shadows alter brightness, but not overall color. Edges (can) alter overall color. Could checking for consistency in the ratio of R, G, and B values help differentiate shadows from edges? This would mean requiring a higher brightness difference to mark an edge when the RGB ratios of two pixels are similar.
Darker pixels tend to have lower total color channel values and brighter pixels have higher total color channel values. I changed the algorithm so that it now takes the percent difference in total RGB between a pixel and three pixels to the right, lower right, and bottom. For instance, a pixel of RGB (50, 94, 73) and a pixel of RGB (102, 109, 125) have a difference (102%, 16%, 71%). If at least one of these percentages is greater than 60%, then the pixel becomes dark. I believe this has somewhat improved the results; for one, the Commonwealth Fortress is no longer completely missing its lower-right section. However, brighter sections will have be less likely to be drawn. I could probably add some absolute-difference-based edge detection to address that.

By the way, I have been working on making the edge detection images compatible with the core game. For some reason, the way that Java encodes JPG is incompatible with Transcendence and as a result the game cannot load the images. I have absolutely no idea why this is happening and it is very irritating. I found that one solution is to bulk-convert all the images from JPG to PNG, and back to JPG, though that probably cuts down the quality. Saving as JPG in [MS]Paint[.net] also works.

Image
Image
Last edited by 0xABCDEF on Tue May 02, 2017 2:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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0xABCDEF wrote:
Sun Apr 30, 2017 5:15 am
For some reason, the way that Java encodes JPG is incompatible with Transcendence and as a result the game cannot load the images. I have absolutely no idea why this is happening and it is very irritating.
This is usually caused by incorrect JPG headers. One way to correct this is by opening the image in Irfanview. It will analyze the file and tell you what's wrong with it. You can then save the corrected version without having to re-encode it.
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By the way, I have been working on making the edge detection images compatible with the core game. For some reason, the way that Java encodes JPG is incompatible with Transcendence and as a result the game cannot load the images. I have absolutely no idea why this is happening and it is very irritating. I found that one solution is to bulk-convert all the images from JPG to PNG, and back to JPG, though that probably cuts down the quality. Saving as JPG in [MS]Paint[.net] also works.
I now know why Transcendence reacts so strangely to images I provide it.
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0xABCDEF
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Ferdinand wrote:
Sun Apr 30, 2017 10:16 am
0xABCDEF wrote:
Sun Apr 30, 2017 5:15 am
For some reason, the way that Java encodes JPG is incompatible with Transcendence and as a result the game cannot load the images. I have absolutely no idea why this is happening and it is very irritating.
This is usually caused by incorrect JPG headers. One way to correct this is by opening the image in Irfanview. It will analyze the file and tell you what's wrong with it. You can then save the corrected version without having to re-encode it.
JohnBWatson wrote:
Sun Apr 30, 2017 11:56 pm
By the way, I have been working on making the edge detection images compatible with the core game. For some reason, the way that Java encodes JPG is incompatible with Transcendence and as a result the game cannot load the images. I have absolutely no idea why this is happening and it is very irritating. I found that one solution is to bulk-convert all the images from JPG to PNG, and back to JPG, though that probably cuts down the quality. Saving as JPG in [MS]Paint[.net] also works.
I now know why Transcendence reacts so strangely to images I provide it.
I believe that I have found a possible reason why the game is not accepting my Java-generated JPEG images: I generated all of them in 100% quality using Java's built-in ImageWriter class, but the default parameter for a JPEG image is 75% quality. The ImageIO class, which handles image read/write tasks in a more basic way, makes 75% quality JPEG images and the game seems to load them fine.

Also, I have released the Transcendence Image Generator and an improved version of The Sketches of the Pilgrim HD.
shanejfilomena
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Here is an "old ship" that was Featured ( one of three ) in Star Genesis 00 by RPC
The ship ( one of three ) was built by AutoHummer : slightly modified by me ( I still want to draw in the front guns a touch more )
I also edited a dedicated Slam Cannon ( from the stock Slam Cannon ) for it simply because I wasn't impressed with the one it had.

After I finish tinkering with this one I will look at the other two and see about where they could fit in the game and maybe get them for a future extension ( which, if it works out, I might suggest they be considered for placements in the Official game.....maybe )

EDIT EDIT EDIT : All three ships fire off the sides ( Except the Aciman Heavy Cruiser, which has a forward gun as well ) I moved & set all weapons to fire only Broadside.
Besides being a Nerf to the ship so it isn't over-powered, yet can still function, it fits the ships more to have the weapons to the sides.

All weapons are set as Secondary , so there's no real head strong attacks out of them

Image

Image
============================================
adding a second ship I completed today : the third I failed to get images of, but will do in a few :)

Image

Image

===================================================

Ok, here is the third ship :

Image

Image
Flying Irresponsibly In Eridani......

I don't like to kill pirates in cold blood ..I do it.. but I don't like it..
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Xephyr
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Working on a new kind of alien stargate

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Project Renegade (Beta) : "The Poor Man's Corporate Command!"
Real programmers count from 0. And sometimes I do, too.
Derakon
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It's neat, but I feel like the wavy tentacle things are at odds with the rest of the structure.
JohnBWatson
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Xephyr wrote:
Sun May 14, 2017 9:55 pm
Working on a new kind of alien stargate

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Nice.
Derakon
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The LOTOR may have out-of-date weaponry, but fights with them are at least dramatic-looking.

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Xephyr wrote:
Sun May 14, 2017 9:55 pm
Working on a new kind of alien stargate

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Awesome !
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Autohummer
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shanejfilomena wrote:
Fri May 05, 2017 2:28 pm
( I still want to draw in the front guns a touch more )
If you can tell me what you wanted to add to the ships I can do that for you in the 3d model and make a new render. I can even change the colour scheme if you want.
Has resurfaced!
shanejfilomena
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So, after seeing the colorized images a few pages back, I took to task two items that always bothered me...I am not very good, but see what you think..
before
Image

After
Image

I also did a touch on the Centauri Raider as an experiment before I tried the station.

( I want to see it in action more before I decide if I want to keep it. )
Flying Irresponsibly In Eridani......

I don't like to kill pirates in cold blood ..I do it.. but I don't like it..
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