Page 1 of 1

Having some problems with bitmaps...

Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2016 10:43 pm
by rooboty
I usually don't like to ask people questions until I am sure that there isn't anything that can help me... yeah :(

So I have almost made some track, almost everything is done (Hmap,actual track,objects) and I want to make some changes to the Lmap to make it more natural, good looking. I export the Lmap of the track and open that bitmap in paint. I only use the 16 colour palette that I have. I spruce up the Lmap and save it. When I see the bitmap the grass is just gray, the mud is a darker shade of gray, the only proper thing is the yellow colour on the kerb/edge of tarmac#1/yellow line. I put it in the Trackmaker and the grass, that turned gray becomes snow, the yellow turns into red and just looks all types of wrong.

If somebody asks, yes I do use the 16-bit bitmap when I'm saving it. I use the >>>>32BIT<<<<Windows 7 version of paint also. I did try to use a different image editing software called Paint.NET, but that only has the option for 8-bit and 24-bit bitmaps so that didn't work. I did hear that paint works for bitmaps so I really don't know whats the problem. I did not find anything about this on the forums, or on Youtube... :weep:

Can somebody please help me with this? I wouldn't be able to express my nice feelings to a person who can help me with this. :worried:

BTW here are some pictures related to the problem:
2016-04-09_013709.png
2016-04-09_013814.png
2016-04-09_013831.png
2016-04-09_013850.png
2016-04-09_013909.png

Re: Having some problems with bitmaps...

Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2016 6:28 am
by Marco
I don't know why, but win7 paint doesn't work with this :shrug: . I recommend to download XP Paint. It works perfectly :bg:

Re: Having some problems with bitmaps...

Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2016 10:48 am
by zgr
marinator wrote:I don't know why, but win7 paint doesn't work with this :shrug: . I recommend to download XP Paint. It works perfectly :bg:
True, had the same problem :P Just use XP Paint OR iDraw (I used the iDraw download from pgr.de, I couldn't find it here)
With iDraw you already have all the colours in a palette, you can use in-game :bg:

to admins:
If it's wrong to use the pgr.de, please remove the link or tell me, then I will remove it :shy:

Re: Having some problems with bitmaps...

Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2016 1:15 pm
by rooboty
Yeah, thanks to all of you that helped me! :goal:

Everything is okay now I am using PaintXP and everything works great. :mrgreen:

Re: Having some problems with bitmaps...

Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2016 2:38 pm
by Marco
@rooboty: Your welcome :)

@zgr: Thanks for the i Draw link, because I haven't heard of that program 'till now :cool2:

Re: Having some problems with bitmaps...

Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2017 7:51 pm
by Santana 2.0
Downloaded the XP Paint and it worked majorly. BUT, for the track that was initially affected by this problem, it won't work, and I've dumbely saved the track before noting the first time. I still have the right land, but the editor always make the conversion. Any ideas?

Re: Having some problems with bitmaps...

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2017 2:56 pm
by RudyOosterndijk
Santana 2.0 wrote:Downloaded the XP Paint and it worked majorly. BUT, for the track that was initially affected by this problem, it won't work, and I've dumbely saved the track before noting the first time. I still have the right land, but the editor always make the conversion. Any ideas?
Changing the color palette in your graphics program (not the GR palettes) will help. That's how I usually color the LMAP when I want to convert a track in to a wet weather version.
However, in your example image both the grass green and the brown of the "I" have turned into the same tarmac gray. This is a problem because you won't be able to reconstruct the shape of the "I".

And if the editor keeps on loading the wrong color scheme, try export any working LMAP of any track and copy paste the new LMAP image into this bitmap file and save it (CTRL+S) without changing the bitmap format. I guess, it is quicker and easier than fiddling with color depths.

Re: Having some problems with bitmaps...

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2017 3:47 pm
by Santana 2.0
RudyOosterndijk wrote:And if the editor keeps on loading the wrong color scheme, try export any working LMAP of any track and copy paste the new LMAP image into this bitmap file and save it (CTRL+S) without changing the bitmap format. I guess, it is quicker and easier than fiddling with color depths.
By doing this I will lose the Lmap with the right colors and thereby will have to re-do it? Because it is looking like this...

Re: Having some problems with bitmaps...

Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2017 12:54 am
by RudyOosterndijk
Santana 2.0 wrote:I still have the right land, but the editor always make the conversion. Any ideas?
To me that sounds like a problem with the bitmap file. For LMAP and HMAP files the track editor requires a specific color depth. Otherwise the editor will mess up the colors of your LMAP when imported - even if you picked the right colors while drawing the map in the first place.
So my idea was to use the track editor in order to export a LMAP - this may be the LMAP of one of the original tracks or the default grass map or any track that works ingame. By creating such a template of a bitmap file you make sure that the bitmap and its color depth are compatible with the editor. You could now open your template bitmap file and copy paste the LMAP that you actually want to import. Then save the old template file and the LMAP should work in the track editor.

Don't use "save file as..." because then you are required to pick the very file format that is compatible with the game, which is what I tried to avoid using my workaround.

If it still doesn't work, make sure that you really "have the right land". The map must be drawn using the few exact colors that the editor allows you to use - from grass green to ice light blue. The color palette function of Paint might help checking.
Santana 2.0 wrote:By doing this I will lose the Lmap with the right colors and thereby will have to re-do it? Because it is looking like this...
As you still have "the right land" there is no need to redo anything by hand. I was only suggesting that if in Paint your only saved LMAP looks like this instead of what it is supposed to look like, the palette function of your graphics program can help you to re-color the map more quickly.