New for 2010 is a series of 12 splash screens - you know, the ones that say "Loading Arcanum...." - to replace the trio of stock ones. These have been thoroughly tested with various versions of the game and only A:WIP had even the slightest problem - 3 of the hacks' screens continue to be displayed. As a bonus - Saved games seemed uneffected by the screens' installation. So - Don't delay - get your copy today! http://www.multiupload.com/L1SP2CLY97 or look in the Download Section under Arcanum -> Hacks. Download the zip file and unpack. Follow the directions printed in the README and enjoy the results.
wow, its kool! finally something new... i like that idea to provide kit for making a splash screens, but it would be nice if you could provide some .psd template because those are much easier to edit, especially for a gfx beginners. anyway, thanks for sharing, have a nice day
Thank you both. Crypton: I can't provide .psd templates because I don't use them. Call me old-fashioned but I've always worked directly from and saved to the traditional formats - bmp, gif, and jpg.
Do not use .bmp, instead use .png. It's lossless as well, but is much more versatile. Plus it has lower filesize (approximately 2.5-3x less).
True - but Arcanum uses bmp, most of the pictures I find are in jpg, and I never have been able to make a transparent png. Oh well....
Editing and saving a jpeg, really degrades the picture quality quite a lot. So unless you need to have it in jpeg I would avoid it. You can save them to png.
The title says it all. One minor mistake I noticed - Nasrudin is spelled "Nazrudin" in the Shrouded Hills splash screen. The problem is non-existent as long as the proper program is used. For instance, in IrfanView, when saving a bitmap as a jpg, the program asks you to decide upon the quality of the pic. Check 100% and you get both the vast file size reduction and a jpg pic that has the exact same quality as the primary bitmap. IrfanView is also user-friendly when it goes for creating transparent png files.
Well, I'm consistant. There had to be at least one screw-up. :lol: Irfanview: Back when this first came out, the blasted thing seemed determined to hijack your computer and handle every picture coming and going - with mixed success. That's what turned me off on the program. Have the developers gotten away from that? Over the past 10 or so years, I've been using Photoshop, MSPaint, and Gimp (when I had it) to get things done. And - Don't underestimate MSPaint. It's quite good for cleaning up 8-bit BMP pictures.
I use irfanView as my default image browser, so I don't mind if it tries to open everything image-like and consumes a part of my computer's soul while it's at it. Nonetheless, if memory serves, during the installation IrfanView asks you which extensions would you like the program to handle. I wouldn't dare, there are simply asks which are best done with Paint, period. It can be a pain in the ass though - I'm not able to count how many times I worked pixel by pixel in the damn thing and then saved the file accidentally as a jpg, causing an irreversibly loss of quality destroying the whole work. Oh, what would I give for an working "undo" solution in those cases. It's all good since I've developed a habit of saving works done in Paint as 24-bit bitmaps and then saving those bitmaps as lossless jpgs in IrfanView, though.
At long last, here's an update for anyone who's interested. These are currently in PNG format so you'll need to convert to BMP. Just right-click, save picture as, and take it from there. Starting with the reworked template: And then, using up some art that was taking up space: Enjoy!
Most of them came from Renderocity and were collected over several years. BTW: If anyone's interested, I'm thinking about doing an "adult" series with the ones gleaned from places like Renderotica. Let me know.
