Crossfire Forum

Q: Is there a better format for the images-file I can download, so I can open them in a editor? (If I'm to update skins and pics for the different images?)
I'd like to have the pics in a working format like;*.bmp, *gif, *.jpeg or something similar.
Dunno what the format is today nor where they are in the src-win32_client-files...

Q: Is there a possibility to extract the sounds into some wav-file format, so I can combine some of the sounds into my own stuff, so we can have a database of sounds?
---
I might find some sound for you, since you are making quests and so.
Perhaps some sound-fx for items or happenings...

SuMo wrote:Is there a better format --

No. PNG is the best for this kind of use (as far as I know).

SuMo wrote:-- for the images-file I can download, so I can open them in a editor?

Most image editors can handle pngs without problems.

SuMo wrote:I'd like to have the pics in a working format like;*.bmp, *gif, *.jpeg or something similar.

Working format?

BMP - no compression (iirc)
GIF - very limited
JPEG - lossy compression
PNG - I'm not going to list good sides here. Check out http://www.webcolors.freeserve.co.uk/png/ for more information.

SuMo wrote:Q: Is there a better format for the images-file I can download, so I can open them in a editor? (If I'm to update skins and pics for the different images?)
I'd like to have the pics in a working format like;*.bmp, *gif, *.jpeg or something similar.

Well, PNG is a standard format. You can see it as a free replacement of GIF.
There are several reasons to choose PNG instead of others. Most importantly:

- BMP is an uncompressed format. It doesn't handle transparency in its standard version;
- GIF is ok, but not free of rights;
- JPEG is mostly aimed at bigger pictures (like photography or painting). It uses a destructive compression technique that doesn't work well with small sprites like the ones used in CF.

So the logical choice was PNG. If you need a PNG editor, you can download The Gimp in its Win32 version - it will provide everything you need to work on pictures.

Q: Is there a possibility to extract the sounds into some wav-file format, so I can combine some of the sounds into my own stuff, so we can have a database of sounds?

Well, a decent sound editor should be able to read them and convert them to a Waveaudio format.

hm. you both missunderstood me here...I wrote the text very clumbsy...sorry for that...

Where Can I find the pics? I can't find them in the client?
There must be some 100+ pics...there's none of them in my client...
so where can I download them all? all png-files...

SuMo wrote:hm. you both missunderstood me here...I wrote the text very clumbsy...sorry for that...

Where Can I find the pics? I can't find them in the client?
There must be some 100+ pics...there's none of them in my client...
so where can I download them all? all png-files...

There should be a .crossfire directory in your "home" directory (dunno where it goes under Windows - maybe in My Documents, but not sure)

Inside it, you have a subdirectory called crossfire/images. There you'll find the pictures your client downloaded.

Note that picture files do not have a .png extension... they are usually named with a .base.0 at the end.

Lauwenmark wrote:Note that picture files do not have a .png extension... they are usually named with a .base.0 at the end.

yes, that's correct.
I tried to view them with ACDSee. That prog can spot any gfx-file containing a known pic-format. I even tried to change the extension to .png. (with ACDsee you don't need to do that, but tried anyway)

I'm the only one around here using the lousy winXP-system?? (hahaha!)

Why is not the files stored in a normal *.png-extension?

They are not in png extension imo since extension is a old reminiscence of primitive systems.
The idea in unix systems is that file type is determinable by something other than his names (those things are called magic numbers). So there is no really need to put a unuseful 4 char long .png in the end of a file.
It still may be useful for occasions where you must distinguish same file types with different prouposes, like .c, .cpp, .h and so on.
But a png is a png you have not to distinguish the prouposes of an image. At least not me!
So forgot about the funny extension thing.

Why is not the files stored in a normal *.png-extension?

Fact is that they are stored with a normal .png extention. You don't see the .png because windows hides it by default.
You need to tell your windows OS to show you the extentions of well known file types. (not sure where it is in XP since I won't touch that software licence with a 10 foot pole - but in older windows you go to tools->folder options->view and uncheck all the stuff that hides files on you) you should do this anyway since this is a favorite virus trick (you get an email with a cute_puppy.jpg.exe and windows hides the .exe on you...)
Also you can have problems with some windows software if there are multiple extentions on a file such as image.base.111.png, since they won't deal with the extra extentions well. Be ready to rename stuff manually.

Also*much* windows software does not handle PNG correctly. Save yourself a hassle by finding out if yours does right away (I use Jasc paint shop pro when on Windows machines for crossfire PNGs...)

Oops, I misread your post. I thought you were referring to the actual images stored in CVS, not reading them out of the client cache. If you would really like to work with the images you should go download the arches package (find this on the sourceforge site)- all the images are there and stored as normal PNG files. I think the client cache is also regular png format (maybe without the extentions?), but since I never use these I can't say for sure.

My suggestion for program under windows is "The gimp" probably one of the best graphic programs around.
Files in client cache are normal png since I open them without problems. Maybe they are some other format, anyway I still open them.