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Apocalypse section at the X-COM wiki


Hobbes

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Hey all,

 

The section about Apocalypse at the UFOPaedia is under a process of renovation with plenty of pages being created/updated.

 

I'd invite all Apoc players to check it out, maybe you'll find there some interesting info or perhaps you'll have some battle experience to share. See ya there ;)

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  • 2 months later...

While I'm not hacker/coder, and therefore couldn't pull the info directly from the code; would there be any interest in my copying data from the in-game Ufopaedia to fill in some of the gaps?

I'm thinking the little things like the pictures that are missing, the number stats that aren't there, etc.

 

I'm not sure I'm qualified to muck about with the pages themselves, but I'm more than willing to plant things in the discussion pages if that'd help...

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Well I'll certaintly give it a shot then!

 

I think what I'll focus on first will be some of the research stubs I've stumbled acrossed, then filling in some of the holes of the stats list for the alien weapons. After that I'll probably work on getting some more maps of the down'd ufos, since I've only seen one for the Transporter.

 

That or stumble around blindly, EITHER OR. :D

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  • 2 weeks later...

Okay, so I just got done flooding the Recent Changes list with a bunch of UFOPaedia images for the Vehicle Weapons section.

 

Right now I only uploaded most of the images (I still haven't gotten some of those, I know.) and put 'em in a box ala https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Disruptor_Gun

 

I intend, later, to go back and try to mock it up more like these: https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Megapol_Lawpistol with the stats and all. Decided to stop now so I could go play some more, and so I can see if I'm even doing this the way I'm supposed to or not. :D

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Looking good. However, I'd suggest using PNGs instead of jpegs as the image quality is better. Then blow up the pic by a factor of 2 and run it through PNG Gauntlet (found in our files section). Upload, and we're good to go. :D

 

- Zombie

 

 

Hrrm. I had already done everything in .png, but I hadn't seen that PNG Gauntlet thing, so I'll be sure to re-upload the pictures later.

 

I did have a question though, you suggested I double the picture size? I'm fine with that if you are, I had just checked the pixal by pixal for the Disruptor Gun picture and tried to base it off that. (Read: crop the orginal picture as close to the objects as I could, then resize it down to about 150 pixals wide using Fireworks' little option that auto-resized the height.)

 

Thought they came out pretty good, but if you want larger pictures I'm all for it. :) I'll wait for a reply before I start on it though.

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The bigger, the better Sunflash. :D Even with doubling the dimensions, the file size will still probably be smaller than a jpeg. Run it through PNGGauntlet and it'll be a lot smaller. I'd aim for a minimum of double dimensions. Triple is fine too. The standard screenshot sizes are pretty small so it's good to have a bigger pic to show the "texture" so to speak. The wiki has plenty of bandwidth to spare so don't be afraid up uploading bigger pics. :)

 

- Zombie

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In my experience, doubling the dimensions of a PNG file won't affect the file size by any noticeable amount, so long as you do a vanilla re-size.

 

But in this case, doing that'd make the images take up nearly a good quarter of my browser window. :D Personally I think they look good as they are, but feel free to experiment.

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...Okay, so I've been messing with the pictures again.

 

First I tried taking the ones I had already put on the wiki, and tried to double the image via Fireworks. That...didn't come out all that great. I mean, you could still tell what it was easily and all, but made me twitch to much.

 

So I spent the next fifteen mins taking the orignal screenshots and taking a straight crop from there to the wiki. The orignal batch had been resized down to about half or so of what the screenshots were, so I figured it would be a goo place to start and whatnot.

 

So I compressed everything, checked the images afterwards. Still looked good. Uploaded the Bolter 4K image: https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=I...ter_4K_Apoc.png

 

 

And that looks FAR more blurry than what I have on my computer. At first I thought the wiki was just blowing the picture up for that particular page or something, but it's like even on the wiki-page it's linked to.

 

Any idea what I did wrong? D:

 

Materials: One screenshot of the UFOPaedia filies from the game, Fireworks MX 2004, and PNGGauntlet

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One thing comes to mind: Did you refresh your browser's cache? It might have been recycling the original image you put up, but it was attempting to draw it at the new image's dimensions. Shift+Reload/Refresh in IE/Firefox or which ever method is used by your browser. This happens to me all the time when I update my avatar to something with different dimensions - it stretches or compresses the previous avatar image to the dimensions of the new avatar until I force a refresh.

 

By the way, rather than do screenshots, you can directly access the .pcx files for all the ufopaedia screens from the game's own files. Working directly from the source, as it were.

 

- NKF

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By the way, rather than do screenshots, you can directly access the .pcx files for all the ufopaedia screens from the game's own files. Working directly from the source, as it were.

A very nice thing about PNGGauntlet is that it is able to convert the pcx images in the UFOPAEDI folder directly into png format (and optimize the file size in one fell swoop). In the past I used IrfanView which was fine for viewing those pcx files, but not very convenient for converting them into a format which was usable by most image editing applications. :D

 

- Zombie

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Actually, you might find that Irfanview has quite an extensive number of common formats that it can export images to. Even has a batch conversion function that you can use to convert a bundle of images into other formats. Even works with the pngout plugin - though I'd advise not using it with transparency active as you'll have to pick the transparency for each of the files one at a time.

 

edit: Speaking of transparencies though, looking at the double sized png linked above, it might be worth manually erasing the backgrounds to get clean images of the vehicle weapons. Not too many of the other ufopaedia categories have a rather clear image of the items in question like that.

 

- NKF

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I hate IE some days, I really do. Got on this morning to check the forum, saw NKF's post. Went to check the wiki, and yeeeueuuupp, the pic was properly updated. >.<

 

Also, thanks for the tip with PNGGauntlet and those .pcx files. I had tried briefly to open 'em, but decided it wasn't worth the effort. Now I know what I'll be amusing myself with when I get home. :D

 

As far as possibly erasing the backgrounds go, I assume you mean the blue and leave the wire-frame alone? Otherwise having the rest of it there just floating would look kinda silly to me. >.>

 

I mean I can go either way, just tell me which direction to start marching. xD

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Trying to edit out the wire image just to leave the finished product would be a lot of work. My suggestion is to keep it the way it is (after cropping of course). :D

 

I really wish the programmers didn't put part of the image underneath the semi-transparent text box. Otherwise it would have been cake to get a full, proper image of the thing in question. :)

 

- Zombie

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I've spent more than my share of time messing around with sprites (I WAS YOUNG AND NEEDED THE MON...), so tedious editing doesn't deter me. :D

 

Doesn't mean that'd be my first suggestion, but I'm not OPPOSED to it if that's what you'd guys like. >.>

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  • 3 weeks later...

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