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Serious question about screen shots.
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 Re: Serious question about screen shots.
Posted by Orpheus on Sat Jan 8th at 11:20am 2005

As you may have noticed, I recently did a full critique for Leps competition map. All those screens that I posted are directly from the HL2DM screenshot folder. NO OPTIMIZATION AT ALL was done to them.

My question is 2 fold really.

1) Is my machine so pathetic that the screenshots posted are an indicator?

2) Are people whom post screenshots upward of 300k deliberately inflating the shots?

the screens i posted are 800x600, but that was on purpose, they fit the snarkpit, but otherwise i didn't do anything to make them come out the way they are.

now this is a serious inquiry, because I truly think something is wrong. My machine is not bottom rung nasty.

before you ask, I have seen 800x600 at well over 200k and the shots looked no better/worse than mine.

[addsig]



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 Re: Serious question about screen shots.
Posted by Myrk- on Sat Jan 8th at 11:51am 2005

I think you have a nice program that does some good optimization automatically. Plus the level is quite low in colour variation, so it's gunna have a small file size. [addsig]



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 Re: Serious question about screen shots.
Posted by Orpheus on Sat Jan 8th at 12:02pm 2005

no myrk, this wasn't about XAT, it was about my PC. I didn't alter the screenshots at all.

what i need some people to do is, take some screenshots, and post the stats of them for me, along with your PC stats. I wanna do an unofficial test on this.

those screens i posted in the critique were 100% pure. i wanna know why they are so small.

[addsig]



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 Re: Serious question about screen shots.
Posted by Myrk- on Sat Jan 8th at 12:03pm 2005

? quoting Orpheus

The screens i posted are 800x600, but that was on purpose, they fit the snarkpit, but otherwise i didn't do anything to make them come out the way they are.

You changed the size, therefore compressed.

So you want us to take a screenshot of a map and post the stats? We will all have to take a picture of the exact same view otherwise the file sizes are gunna be all different.

[addsig]



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 Re: Serious question about screen shots.
Posted by Andrei on Sat Jan 8th at 12:21pm 2005

Well, i've noticed that all screenshots I take on one of my testmaps come out black with blurry rectangles on them. Does anyone know why? [addsig]



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 Re: Serious question about screen shots.
Posted by Orpheus on Sat Jan 8th at 12:26pm 2005

? quoting Myrk-

You changed the size, therefore compressed.

So you want us to take a screenshot of a map and post the stats? We will all have to take a picture of the exact same view otherwise the file sizes are gunna be all different.

the screens were unaltered.. i run the game at 800x600 myrk

as for the map the screens are of, all i am interested in is, are the screens small due to resolution of the game, which is due to my poor hardware stats.

what i am finding difficult to accept is, how can there be a difference of 60k to 300k. if my machine 5 times less.

anywho's, i dunno what i mean but on the plus side, HL2 seems to take screens in .jpg now instead of .bmp like it used to. :/

[addsig]



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 Re: Serious question about screen shots.
Posted by Junkyard God on Sat Jan 8th at 12:37pm 2005

Well i have the same problem, my screenshots look like crap yoo.

But i have a verry old pc.
Most people here have these fast pcs where maps automaticaly look better on sceenshots becouse it renders everthing properly.
Mine renders everything in range of 2 meters and all that that is rendered looks awfull

[addsig]



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 Re: Serious question about screen shots.
Posted by Junkyard God on Sat Jan 8th at 12:38pm 2005

(my screenshots are small too ) [addsig]



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 Re: Serious question about screen shots.
Posted by Forceflow on Sat Jan 8th at 1:08pm 2005

What's the problem.

Factor 1: Quality settings

You can have a 800*600 screenshot with JPEG quality set to 100 %, resulting in 300 kb.
You can have a 800*600 screenshot with JPEG quality set to 80 %, resulting in 100 kb.

It's all about the quality settings, really. Quality set to 10 % will result in a very blurry box with mixed colors in it. I advise to use quality settings between 50 % and 80%, but take a look at the other factors too.

Factor 2: Repeating colors

Like every other compressor, Jpeg compresses file by recognizing repeating patterns. Fire up paint or any other program, draw a 1600*1200 black box, and save it as Jpeg with 100 % quality. Still 8 kb or something.

Now, do the same, but fill every pixel you've got with a different color.. There you have your 1.2 Mb Jpeg file, you might aswell save it as a BMP, because there just isn't any pattern or repeating color in it, and so ... no compression.

Likewise, screenshots of maps which show not a lot of color variety, or maps which are very dark overall, or very light overall will have a smaller size.

Factor 3: Jpeg Version

I noticed that compressing with a recent Jpeg compressor is much better. MSPaint uses an older compressor, so likewise the compressed files are sometimes poor quality ones, and pretty big too. Download Irfanview or Xat, they use Jpeg compressors with better recognition algorithms and stuff.

My best guess is, HL2 uses a pretty new Jpeg compressor, with quality set to 100%.

Update: found it:

? quote:
To change the quality or compression factor for future JPEG screenshots, use the command jpeg_quality 90 where 90 represents the default compression of 10%. This means your picture will still maintain a quality level of 90, this is a very decent JPEG with minimal loss of quality. To take an unaltered TARGA (*.tga) screenshot, you would use the screenshot command, similar to the snapshot command from Half-Life 1.

So, if you want full control over your screenies, save them in targa, then compress them to your likings by using a program like Irfanview or XAT.

Do you guys think I should write a tut about it ? Including how to compress screenshots ? Could be a lot of help for people getting the "huge screens ! argh !" comments.

[addsig]



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 Re: Serious question about screen shots.
Posted by Myrk- on Sat Jan 8th at 2:10pm 2005

Why do you use such a low screen resolution Orph? Whats your PC specs? You should have a radeon 9800 Pro - 9600XT or equivalent by now or else I'd say you need a better GFX card, and probably a better PC full stop. [addsig]



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 Re: Serious question about screen shots.
Posted by Orpheus on Sat Jan 8th at 3:26pm 2005

? quoting Forceflow

Do you guys think I should write a tut about it ? Including how to compress screenshots ? Could be a lot of help for people getting the "huge screens ! argh !" comments.

i requested to do this tut months ago, i was denied. you better not get to do it.

as for the experiment, i suppose you answered it bud. thanx.

you know my fixation on screenshot sizes, you think for a second, i would NOT have wanted to make a tutorial on this? :/

[addsig]



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 Re: Serious question about screen shots.
Posted by Forceflow on Sat Jan 8th at 4:02pm 2005

Why were you denied ? I think - looking at most of the newly submitted maps - it's bloody needed.



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 Re: Serious question about screen shots.
Posted by Orpheus on Sat Jan 8th at 4:03pm 2005

? quoting Myrk-
Why do you use such a low screen resolution Orph?

as you well know, i have done quite a few critiques. i learned ages ago, if you set the resolution of the game to 800x600 you don't need to resize all those screenshots by hand. so i preset it to 800x600 in advance.

XAT can optimize better than any other program, but if the screenshot is 1024x768 before its optimized, it will remain so afterward. it does nothing about resizing.

anywho's, thats in answer to your question.

as i said however, i have seen 800x600 screenshots weighing in at a hefty 200 plus. i still am unclear how.

[addsig]



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 Re: Serious question about screen shots.
Posted by Orpheus on Sat Jan 8th at 4:06pm 2005

? quoting Forceflow
Why were you denied ? I think - looking at most of the newly submitted maps - it's bloody needed.

i was not turned down, i submitted nothing. i asked, the answer was no. end of story.

contrary to popular belief, i do not argue with "NO"

my answer was blue force flow, if you can do it, go ahead, just you better include some screenshots of XAT in action

[addsig]



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 Re: Serious question about screen shots.
Posted by Forceflow on Sat Jan 8th at 4:48pm 2005

? quote:
as i said however, i have seen 800x600 screenshots weighing in at a hefty 200 plus. i still am unclear how.



I did explain it clearly, no ?

It's a combination of compression settings, compressing library and repeating-ness of the image.
[addsig]



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 Re: Serious question about screen shots.
Posted by Orpheus on Sat Jan 8th at 5:08pm 2005

? quoting Forceflow


I did explain it clearly, no ?

It's a combination of compression settings, compressing library and repeating-ness of the image.

lets assume something a second.. i collected a screenshot, it was 65k, and i set nothing, it was default

person B collects a screenshot, same size but its 200k.. they obviously increased the file size, why?

HL2 has changed their screenshots from BMP to JPG thats good, but why would anyone deliberately inflate the image file size? we all know what a high res screen looks like, it doesn't really make a map look better/worse to post a screenshot at default.

but still, i think its my machine. HL2 scanned it and set it by my hardware. perhaps its 65k cause it thinks its supposed to be.

somehow though, i still think people are deliberately changing the default some. :/

[addsig]



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 Re: Serious question about screen shots.
Posted by Forceflow on Sat Jan 8th at 6:01pm 2005

? quote:
? quoting Forceflow


I did explain it clearly, no ?

It's a combination of compression settings, compressing library and repeating-ness of the image.

lets assume something a second.. i collected a screenshot, it was 65k, and i set nothing, it was default

person B collects a screenshot, same size but its 200k.. they obviously increased the file size, why?



Perfectly possible.

Maybe the other person is taking a screenshot of a more varied scene. Maybe there's a difference in the in-game brightness and contrast settings, which makes the color differences more or less.

Here's the difference. Both images taken with the same settings.

Image 1: Pretty dark, not much color variation. 53 kb



Image 2: Light, a lot of color variation (different shades of brown in the water). 141 kb



As you can see, image size just doubled, even with the same settings and compression.
 [addsig]



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 Re: Serious question about screen shots.
Posted by Orpheus on Sat Jan 8th at 6:14pm 2005

so it might not be my hardware?

coolness...i think we might put this on hold till i do a couple more critiques then.

lets see how my critiques of Reno and Omegas map go.

thanx force

[addsig]



Quote
 Re: Serious question about screen shots.
Posted by Orpheus on Sat Jan 8th at 7:32pm 2005

I just had a look see at Reno's competition map. I took 11 screenshots. sizes ranged from 91k to 181k. so i reckon you were 100% dead on Force.

thanx ol man.

BTW Duncan's entry?

[edit] For the record, the critique was a private one, so you guys will have to take my word for its ecellence

also, Xat reduced the images successfully. with no degredation. anyone posting screens over 85k is being deliberately rude.

[addsig]



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 Re: Serious question about screen shots.
Posted by Captain P on Sat Jan 8th at 10:59pm 2005

Ehm, I'm just jumping in here, but...

I understand not putting any effort in your screenshots shows off bad. But at the other hand... I'm a mapper, not a .jpg specialist. I do save my screenshots as .jpg's but that's generally as far as I go. Why would I need to delve into it? Nearly all people are satisfied by these .jpg's, and there's only very few that complain about these filesizes. You being one of them...
Sure, saving as .bmp's would be just too bad, but you can also go too far. When an expert mapper shows off his map, I'm not going to hit him because his screenshots were a bit over 85k or such. I think it's not important in such a case since it's about the map, not about the screenshots size.

My 2 cents...
[addsig]




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