True-Color PNG support for Hexen Startup

[StrikerMan780]

I'd like to know how feasible it would be to add support for 640x480 true-color PNGs for the Hexen startup type, and *maybe* PNGs of the appropriate sizes for notch/netnotch as well. Reason I ask, is I want to make a nice startup screen for one of my mods, that simply doesn't look presentable with only 16 colors.

[Kinsie]

I wanna say that this has been bought up in the past, but that it's not a trivial addition (which is why it hasn't happened yet).

Nothing wrong with bringing it up again, though. It'd be a very welcome addition, and it would have saved a lot of swearing on my part when I was messing around with this stuff.

[Graf Zahl]

The main reason nothing has happened yet is because the startup code is not a clean part of the actual engine but a Windows-only add-on that consists of highly system-dependent code.
Unless someone ports this to Mac and Linux (which I cannot do myself because I do not own such systems) I feel no motivation to change it.

[StrikerMan780]

Would moving the drawing of Heretic/Hexen/Strife load screens and ENDOOM screens into the engine, where they'd be drawn with the user's selected renderer be the best route in this case?

[Kinsie]

Would moving the drawing of Heretic/Hexen/Strife load screens and ENDOOM screens into the engine, where they'd be drawn with the user's selected renderer be the best route in this case?

I believe those screens are shown while the engine is initializing and such, which would make this unfeasible unless you showed these screens after loading the game as like an artificial load screen... which would kill the point.

[Graf Zahl]

Correct. But the main issue with those screens is that the code to handle them has hard Windows dependencies instead of trying to set up a system independent context in which to draw. Someone with some platform experience will have to port it to Max and Linux.

[ibm5155]

I'd like to know how feasible it would be to add support for 640x480 true-color PNGs for the Hexen startup type, and *maybe* PNGs of the appropriate sizes for notch/netnotch as well. Reason I ask, is I want to make a nice startup screen for one of my mods, that simply doesn't look presentable with only 16 colors.

It's not that 16 colors are too bad, but the Hexen Startup Palette colors are quite bad for any kind of startup picture

[StrikerMan780]

I'd like to know how feasible it would be to add support for 640x480 true-color PNGs for the Hexen startup type, and *maybe* PNGs of the appropriate sizes for notch/netnotch as well. Reason I ask, is I want to make a nice startup screen for one of my mods, that simply doesn't look presentable with only 16 colors.

It's not that 16 colors are too bad, but the Hexen Startup Palette colors are quite bad for any kind of startup picture

Incorrect. 16 colors aren't enough for an image that only looks good with far more.

Anyhow, shame G/QZDoom doesn't make use of SDL, I'd be able to make a functional replacement fairly easily.

[ibm5155]

There's no need for SDL for that kind of feature.
And, even not being many colors, those small amount of colors at least can do some good art since the range of the colors is 16bits or something near

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[wildweasel]

There's no need for SDL for that kind of feature.

Well, considering the startup window code still needs to be ported to all the other OSes...

[Rachael]

Well, considering the startup window code still needs to be ported to all the other OSes...

This is true, however, with GZDoom, SDL is not in use whatsoever on Mac and Windows.

Windows just uses the default GDI and is programmed using WinForms, and the Mac OS version uses Cocoa.

[Graf Zahl]

Since I had been investing some work here over the last few days, let's just state that with the current code not much can be done here.
Until yesterday the Hexen startup was limited to 16 colors - now it is limited to 256 colors but still uses a palette. So getting more out of this a far more substantial rewrite will be needed-

[Enjay]

It's much easier to get a nice looking image from 256 colours than it is from 16. So thank you for this increase even if full true colour PNGs can't be done at the moment.

Are the rules for the lump formats still basically the same except for the 16 to 256 colour change?

[Graf Zahl]

I only have changed the internal handling. You cannot use different formats so far. Before new formats can be used it needs to handle true color.
The point here is to make the code that creates the graphical start screens platform independent, and 4 bit surfaces had to go for that - this was a textbook pointless optimization. All it did was restrict the future options.

[Enjay]

OK, so the STARTUP image is still its own custom format, but now supports 256 colours, the palette is contained in that image, and rhe notches are still raw images that use the palette from the STARTUP image?