Questions about NewIcons...

[AmiGer]

Hi, I've just some questions about amiga newicons and I hope somebody can help me:
- what's the easiest/best way to convert WINUae screenshots to amiga newicons/normal icons ?
- is it normal that in whdload installs the newicons are designed for a resolution of 640x512 interlaced and not for 640x256 non-interlaced ?

Thanks !

[Codetapper]

Most of the WHDLoad authors settled on the AmigaIcons.info standard many moons ago. That website seemed to be one of that first that started churning out icons which were always a fixed size. They resized all the 320x256 screens down to 120x96, keeping the same proportion. We just use the normal screensize and if the icons look a bit warped on 640x256 screens - tough

NewIcons themselves are limited (in theory) to 93x93 pixels, but with the program Convert35Icon you can actually convert 120x96 OS3.5 icons with 32 colours in each frame to a newicon and they still display correctly. If you have too many colours, the program crashes. Therefore I always stick to 32 colours in the OS3.5 icon, then I can create the newicon and know it will be OK.

There is some brief info on my website about newicons aswell: http://whdloadrules.tripod.com/icons.html

[AmiGer]

Thanks for the answers. I gave your PPaint version a try and have still some problems:
- I still have a transparent background colour. I changed the colour 0 in PPaint as you described on your page but when copying the brush it is transparent again !?
- to what size do you resize 320x200 screenshots ?
- maybe you should comment on your page that the plugin pio_icon from aminet is needed to load/save icons in PPaint. I figured out that on myself...

[Frog]

- i quickly re-read Codetapper tuto and if you follow his example you shouldn't have the transparent color, could you describe step by step what you do exactly ?

- As an image of 320x200 pixel reduce to "glow standard" give 120x75 you can try to strech it to 80 pixel or something like that to see if it's still good.
you can try to cut unused border for example if it used only 240x200 you can simply reduce it by 50%. If you want to keep the proportionnality, only cutting the original image as describe above or adding black top and bottom border can keep them.

[AmiGer]

Here's my step by step, it really works great so far (except the transparency)

- screenshots from winuae
- in Paint Shop Pro/win32: resize 320x200 to 92x58 and copy "normal" and "selected" together with gap line (colour 0), height is 117 now, reduce to 256 colours
- save as 256 col amiga iff

so far so good, then on the miggy side:

- load in ppaint (looks good here)
- make colour 0 to weird colour (change palette)
- now the whole background has this colour, right ?
- selecting both icons, now the background colour of the brush is transparent again !?
- save brush with the right options etc.

[Frog]

when you cut the brush, you must select the weird color as background and then save

[AmiGer]

Well, the colour 0(=weird colour) >is< selected as background colour (=right mouse button) when I save the brush (how and why "cut" ? do you mean "select" ?). But this doesn't help.

I found an other way to do this:
When the image is loaded, before selecting the brush I call the menu function "Change Bkg to Fgr" and then it works... have a look at the screenshot. Looks great to me, or ? (not the upper one)

[Frog]

by "cut" i mean "select". i don't know why it don't work for you as describe in the tuto by Codetapper anyway you find a solution to solve your problem so it's cool

Have fun !

[Codetapper]

I think you missed the vital step - when you have a 256 colour image, you reduce the number of colours to 255 - then the final entry becomes a "free" colour not used in the image. Make this a unique colour like say purple or green. Therefore that colour will not be in the palette. Swap colour 0 with the purple/green and remap the pics, bingo - colour 0 now not used in the pic so no transparency issues. Save and you're done.

It's easier than the steps suggest...

[AmiGer]

I think calling the menu "Change Bkg to Fgr" is easier. It makes exactly the same, or ? In my case I had just 252 colours occupied that's why this works I think.
However I tried it your way and it also works great, thanks !

I will now try to create romicons, so I'll be back for more questions...
(Codetapper, I have problems downloading the RomIcons16.col. I always get some tripod html shit... !? EDIT: problem solved, cut the html at the end of the file with a hex editor)

I also would like to create OS 3.5 glowicons but I have OS 3.1 installed only. Is there a way to edit glowicons on my OS ? Can I use the OS 3.5 IconEdit with OS 3.1 ?

[Frog]

a new version of Scalos handle to display OS 3.5 icons on 3.1, i've not test it but perhaps it also handle to edit icons using PPaint.
OS 3.5 icon editor should use Reaction and others 3.5 specification and so it can't work on 3.1