Unwanted Flashing Lights, Possible Cure!

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Unwanted Flashing Lights, Possible Cure!

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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Distant Worlds 1 Series >> Design and Modding >> Unwanted Flashing Lights, Possible Cure!

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Unwanted Flashing Lights, Possible Cure! - 1/4/2011 12:02:30 AM

WoodMan

Posts: 1345
Joined: 6/2/2010
From: Ol' Blighty
Status: offline

Hey all,

Other modders and I have experienced random flashing lights on ships where they are not meant to be. It's extremely annoying.

The ship below had unwanted flashing lights all over it, they are only supposed to appear where you place a pure yellow pixel, but sometimes the randomly appear elsewhere for no reason whatsoever. This particular ship had 6 extra flashing lights on it around the front end.

I took the ship and added a black background (create a new layer in your paint program, Photoshop or Gimp probably required) and fill it black. Then save your ship as a 32bit .bmp file instead of a .png

The result is that only two lights now show on the ship, exactly in the two spots they are meant to. The picture below is using a .bmp file instead of a png and it appears to function and look fine in the game.

Attachment (1)

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Post #: 1

RE: Unwanted Flashing Lights, Possible Cure! - 1/4/2011 12:06:00 AM

Shark7

Posts: 7937
Joined: 7/24/2007
From: The Big Nowhere
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: WoodMan

Hey all,

Other modders and I have experienced random flashing lights on ships where they are not meant to be. It's extremely annoying.

The ship below had unwanted flashing lights all over it, they are only supposed to appear where you place a pure yellow pixel, but sometimes the randomly appear elsewhere for no reason whatsoever. This particular ship had 6 extra flashing lights on it around the front end.

I took the ship and added a black background (create a new layer in your paint program, Photoshop or Gimp probably required) and fill it black. Then save your ship as a 32bit .bmp file instead of a .png

The result is that only two lights now show on the ship, exactly in the two spots they are meant to. The picture below is using a .bmp file instead of a png and it appears to function and look fine in the game.

I'm guessing that it treats the solid black as an alpha channel transperancy...much like a 3d transparency map treats pure black (0,0,0) as a transparent surface.

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Distant Worlds Fan

'When in doubt...attack!'

(in reply to WoodMan)

Post #: 2

RE: Unwanted Flashing Lights, Possible Cure! - 1/4/2011 12:45:48 AM

Igard

Posts: 2282
Joined: 3/29/2010
From: Scotland
Status: offline

Awesome, I'll try this next time I get the problem.

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Post #: 3

RE: Unwanted Flashing Lights, Possible Cure! - 1/4/2011 1:58:56 AM

Setekh

Posts: 178
Joined: 12/12/2010
From: Norfolk, England
Status: offline

Sweet, nice discovery!
I had some ships in my HW2 set that phantom lights appearing on them. I managed to fix them but it took much longer to figure out.

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