Posted By
MMS
on 2017-05-05
18:20:51
 |  Re: Lord Of The Rings Picture Show
Hello,
UPDATE: just added the pictures in the Description area of the PRG sheet below, if you do not want to check the first interlace pictures and by this you save an eye damage for youself :-)
I am happy to hear you liked it 
Most of the credits goes to Istvan, who coded not only the Plus4Emu and it's GFX converter with the GUI (it REALLY helps a lot), but also the roots of the slideshow.
The work I did was the GFX selection, download, converting to 1.6 scale format, decrease color depth to 128, and then play with the GUI setting picture format, dithering depth, dithering method. Somethimes the different is shocking, due to the fine details on the pictures now preferred more the IHFLI, despite it's vibration, but really almost VGA
Usually a proper picture needs 5-15 trials to get satisfactory results, the most annyoing part is the over-dithering (yeah, the first Gandalf picture is a little like this). The faster your CPU is the faster you get the final result. Usually HIRES pictures (including IHFLI) needs 50-70% less time to calculate, interlaced multicolor based FLI may take sometimes minutes, even with my Core2Duo 2.0GHz.
I usually save it in PRG with viewer, and paralelly doublecheck it in Plus4Emu with Display Quality3 setting, how it may(!) look on a real Plussy on full screen. The GUI helps a lot, but especially on HIRES, the end result may look too "harsh".
After checking with him the details on this Slideshow format, I could just select the proper picture format and compression. Without compression only very few picture may fit to one disc side.
I will give you some more details later on the GFX format this D64 accepts.
Shame on me, I was in a hurry and in a big delay on some other matters, so no readme or cover page made with message, next time I will be more informative 
To create your slideshow I give some hints, certainly only expresses my personal opinion:
Tools needed:
-Plus4Emu
-Plus4Emu GFX converter GUI
-Dirmaster
-Good picture editor, like Photoshop, but I prefer Irfanview :-) (fast and easy)
-Selecting and downloading GFX: no help needed for you. :-D
The only suggestion is to prefer pictures do not have too many details, though IHFLI may let it happen too on Plussy...
There are colors not so nice on Plussy, like orange and yellow, and there are a lot of good greens, blues and browns and lot of greys...
Depsite of that I could do a great Tuthankamon conversion:
http://my.opera.com/MMSZoli/albums/slideshow/?album=6789582&picture=102479672
-After selecting and cropping a picture to fit to the scale of 320x200 (1:1.6) you may reduce color depth.
Sometimes it helps, though Istvan's converter does a great job. Exception (sorry, my experience) is green color, it tends to easily turn to black, dunno why.
Some smart guys use Photoshop filters to convert PC picture to exact Plus/4 palette, this palette is available for download somewhere here.
I just usually decrese color depth to 64 or 128 colors with Irfanview.
When I wanna do a conversion to normal (editable) multicolor picture, then I may add a 2x1 pixelize effect on a 320x200 resized picture, then the GFX converter just have to to the color matching task, and the original picture looks very simialar to a Plussy multicolor picture. BTW, the newer Irfanviews just have 2x2, 3x3 pixelize effect, the older ones able to do 2x1 too (this is the only good one).
-Open the GUI, open the picture and let's play with the setting. There are tons of them! I just mention the most important ones.
Very first: usually I do not touch advanced settings, they are just too advanced for me :-)
Conversion type: self exlanatory. If you need help, refer to Plus4World Forum, check http://www.studiostyle.sk/dmagic/gallery/gfxmodes.htm , maybe look in Google for the training material PDF from DeeKay/Crest on the Commodore 64 graphics.
Generally speaking: HIRES gives you more details, Multicolor gives you more color by loosing fine details.
In case of HFLI you may have both, though a good selection of picture type needed. After some dozens of hours you will fell it yourself.
In the past I fully preferred multicolor format, but recently I found the benefits of Hires.
Example: Lord of the Rings logo: in multi (any format) the map just looked awful.
Scale, offset: you need to adjust if you did not touch your picture previously to set it to Plussy look.
Color Saturation: when I converted the faces to B/W, then I just reduced Mult to zero, then color picture became B/W. When you wanna make more colors, I usually play with Pow, if you reduce the value, you see more colors. I use it when I want to reduce some incidental color spots, then increase a little
Luminance Gamma: make your dark picture lighter or the opposite
Dither: important one: Sierra, Stucky, Jarvis2 I usually get the best results. Floyd Steinberg convertions look too "old fashioned", the other too gives various results.
Limit and Dither diffusion parameters: when you repeat a conversion, you will usually play with these ones the most.
For me in multicolor usually the very low dither diffusion gives the best result (with maximum multicolor quality), while in HIRES usually the maximum Limit and Dither diffusion gives the best results.
Output format:
When you save a RAW Multi or HIRES PRG, inserting it to a D64 (with Dirmaster) will let you directly edit in Multibotticelli or Botticelli programs via EMU to remove bad pixels. I usually save (as mentioned earlier) during work a version with viewer, just to check it quickly in fully screen, if I am not happy with the rusult, I just sich back to GUI, and finetune setting. Multitasking rules, whoooa!
Istvan's SLideshow accepts/recognises RAW PRG -m0 compression FLI and HFLI pictures and -m1 compressed pictures.
It may also manage pictures with viewer, but will not advance further, repeats the same pic again.
FLI and expecially interlaced GFX stores a lot of extra info extra to the bitmap and two color maps, so they are HUGE.
Without compression (-m0) they use a lot of space on D64. I do not remember exactly, maybe 160-180 blocks. Just too much for a slideshow...
So, there is a great option in IstvanV's GUI and Slideshow viewer to compress them to an acceptable level.
I usually set it to 1 at COMP setting, but now in LOTR I set it to 3 to get enough picture in one D64 file. They go down to 35-45 blocks.
IMAGE01, IMAGE02, etc are the filenames you may use.
Use the great DirMaster crosstool to copy your FLI/HFLI,IHFLI to the D64, rename to IMAGEXX, make your directory special with the built in editor
If you are not so lame and lazy as me (or just have more time), you may do a great Readme/message too with Legendwriter 5.0 or some other great tools...
Finally:
Thanks for all the people let such slideshows happen (tools, helps, support).
Special greetings to to Istvan Varga Master who made his fantastic emulator and the GFX converter tool !
I think more people should try out his tools to understand the level of details and professional work he put into those programs...
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