13-02-2000 06:36									#1
	New Background Textures vs Heralds Got spare money?

Those !#$@* heralds!

As part of my work on a graphics patch (HiRes ver2) I have been experimenting with changing the textures in ICONS.GIF - I have a new texture for window borders and another for window interiors (think of the status screen to the right of the map).

I have come up with some textures that I think are far better than the originals. My border looks like dark polished marble blocks, the interiors like hewn limestone or maybe rough parchment.

---> PROBLEM: the original textures are greyscale, mine use colors. They look great everywhere, except for the dialog boxes which appear with the animated heralds, These look horrible - the colors are all-remapped. Each herald has a different psychadelic color scheme, some are barely legible. NO OTHER dialog boxes are adversely affected anywhere.

If I convert my textures to greyscale, the problem vanishes. It's still an improvement, but nothing like the colored textures. Of course, turning off the heralds & the diplomacy screens solves the problem ;-> ... but I get the feeling that a lot of people like them! I suppose I could implement the colored textures and include the greyscales to be cut-n-pasted by herald-lovers.

The problem probably involves the video driver for the heralds, and I suspect there is no way around it, but in case anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them!


- Tim Smith