Pixelated Images from Dream Sequence (NSFW Images)
Added 2023-08-09 00:11:15 +0000 UTC
Hey all. I hope you've been able to enjoy the latest update, but I also was troubleshooting something for someone on Patreon today and was horrified to find how pixelated some of the images from the dream sequence wound up being after compression into Ren'Py. I'm looking into how to fix this and will try to push an update out later this week.
For those who are wondering what I'm talking about, here is what one of the images looks like towards the opening of the sequence.
Here is what it looked like before compression:
Note in the second there is far less pixelation in the shadows and darker areas of the image. I'm testing some ways to fix this but so far every method of compression I've looked at winds up with heavy pixelation and degradation of the shadows. I'm probably going to have to go back to a larger PNG file format for these images. That won't be too bad for PC and Mac users, but will be a little painful for Android users -- but so far I haven't found a better alternative.
In the meantime, I wanted to apologize for this and let you know I'm looking at fixing it.
On a similar note, while I'm doing working on fixing that, I've also been made aware of a small bug for those on the Nick or Connor romance paths that results in the skipping of a transition back to Mayhew's tower. I'll have that fixed as well.
Comments
You should definitely do a collaboration with the creator of Freshmen: Physical Education with Mayhem as a Patron of 21CA teaching the students- especially Uriel - about Elders and were-creatures!
Norman Gugliotta
2023-08-09 22:40:42 +0000 UTCThere are some other images where it's much more noticeable, particularly closeups of the person in the throne, but this was the first image I started to work with and try to improve so it's what was easiest for me to share. I'll think about the black and white or another approach but I'm hopeful since this is just a relative handful of images it won't be too bad of a hit if they're all 1 MB.
Bound By Night
2023-08-09 01:17:54 +0000 UTCI had to download the images onto my computer (and convert the WEBP to PNG) to really see the difference. And, yes, the 2nd image is not as dark and you can see more in it. HOWEVER, since this IS a *dream* sequence — so perhaps you might consider doing something a bit avant-garde that would allow you to not have to deal with the compression issues as much. I really do NOT know enough to say what would actually work, but I have one suggestion that might be of help: Many people do NOT dream in color (or at least they don't remember it) -- maybe at most 30% do remember the color in their dreams. And if the rest of the dream is like what you show in *those* images, how about doing them in very contrasting *black-and-white*?! Or mostly black*white with maybe only the color red on certain objects or people? It would, to me, be appropriate and perhaps make it more powerful. (Did you ever see the movie "The Mist" based on the Stephen King novella? It was released in color, but the director had wanted to do it in black-and-white -- and there was a DVD set released with both versions. And the B&W one is definitely creepier and more horrific.) **
Tom Swift Sr.
2023-08-09 00:57:40 +0000 UTC
