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DarkBASIC Professional Discussion / Solved! Change your ugly, buggy icons to 32-bit True Color beauties in XP!

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Rus
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Posted: 16th Jul 2009 11:15 Edited at: 16th Jul 2009 11:40
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I'm developing a commercial casual game in DBPro and needed to get my icons looking as nice as possible. After digging around on the net and in the forums for hours, and after nearly losing hope, I think I've hit upon the solution!

I'd like to share this with the DBPro community as it's an important piece of polish for a commercial game. This should really be a lot easier, as many games will judged by the quality of their icons.

First,

The problem:
The default DBPro icon that gets generated when you compile an exe, has only 256 colors or 8-bit, and only a 1-bit mask. That's not nice. Most Windows icons are 16.8 millions colors, 24-bit with a 8-bit mask. Much better! So naturally, you'd want to use these.

This is my solution. Please let me know if this works for you:

What you'll need:

1. Codesurge IDE (this may work on the other IDEs, but I used Codesurge)

2. Resource Hacker ( available at http://www.angusj.com/resourcehacker/ )

3. An icon editor. I use photoshop, but IcoFX is a fantastic freeware icon editor. ( http://icofx.ro/ )


Steps:

1. Make an icon file (.ico) with two images in it: These are
- a true color 32-bit 32x32 image
- a true color 32-bit 16x16 image

2. In Codesurge, add this icon file to your project. (Under project menu, choose add icons.)

3. Compile your project!

4. Now, when you run your project the icon in the windows taskbar and the icon program title bar will be correct. Halfway there! However the .exe icon will still look nasty.

5. Run Resource Hacker.

6. Load your .exe

7. In the menu bar click on action, and choose "Replace Icon"

8. Choose the same .ico file you created at the beginning of this process.

9. Save.

10. Your icons may have updated and already look great. For me however, a restart was required. So restart your computer!

11. After your restart your icons should look great! Enjoy!

Custom 3D art for games, interactive applications and video.
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Scraggle
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Posted: 16th Jul 2009 11:44 Edited at: 16th Jul 2009 11:48
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Quote: "many games will judged by the quality of their icons"


Can anyone say 'book' and 'cover'?

I was in the shop yesterday trying to find a decent game to buy. 'Fallout 3' sounded fantastic and the demo they were showing in store looked amazing ... but that icon! urgh! I just couldn't bring myself to part with my hard earned cash for a game with an icon like that!



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Rus
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Posted: 16th Jul 2009 12:09
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Also, it's a pity that with such a powerful set of tools, DBPro icons are stuck at 256 color with 1-bit transparency.

@Scraggle
If this is a problem you face too, do try out my solution and let me know if it works! Cheers!

Custom 3D art for games, interactive applications and video.
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bobbel
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Posted: 16th Jul 2009 12:29
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I always iuse this program: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?zjtyjizhnig

i've got it from these forums somewhere

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Rus
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Posted: 16th Jul 2009 12:47
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@bobbel

Thanks for the link! I'm curious though, does this program only support 32x32 16-color icons?

Custom 3D art for games, interactive applications and video.
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bobbel
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Posted: 16th Jul 2009 13:01 Edited at: 16th Jul 2009 13:02
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Not sure, you have to test a little bit

It says at the start 32x32x16 only

Oh No, there's too much blood in my caffeine system!
Stack Overflow: Too many pancakes...
The programmer's national anthem is 'AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH'. -Weinberg, p.152
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Mobiius
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Posted: 16th Jul 2009 14:02
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Quote: "If this is a problem you face too, do try out my solution and let me know if it works! Cheers!"

You need to replace the batteries in your sarcasm detector. lol

Your signature has been erased by a mod because it is way too awesome!
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draknir_
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Posted: 16th Jul 2009 14:17
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Thanks for posting, I like collecting tips like this in my bookmarks
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Rus
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Posted: 16th Jul 2009 16:45
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@draknir_
Cheers! My pleasure. Hope it works for you! This bothered me for a long time.

Custom 3D art for games, interactive applications and video.
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tiresius
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Posted: 16th Jul 2009 17:57
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Good steps to follow. Good icon support should be fixed in the software, imo.

I'm not a real programmer but I play one with DBPro!
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Rus
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Posted: 16th Jul 2009 20:38
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@tiresius
That was all I was going for actually! In the past I've managed to some how get the icon's replaced, but could never repeat the steps until I set out to test all the possible ways one could do it. Do let me know if it works for you (or if it doesn't!).

Does anyone know what TGC's plans are regarding the icon support? As far as I can tell it's been like this (or at one point even worse) since I started using DBPro, some 5 years ago now.

Custom 3D art for games, interactive applications and video.
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calcyman
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Posted: 16th Jul 2009 21:50
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Quote: "You need to replace the batteries in your sarcasm detector. lol"


It's somewhat surprising how contageous that phrase of mine has become!

The optimist's right, The pessimist's right.
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Mobiius
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Posted: 17th Jul 2009 09:12 Edited at: 17th Jul 2009 09:12
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Really, I thought I'd just made it up. I guess originality IS dead.

Your signature has been erased by a mod because it is way too awesome!
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calcyman
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Posted: 17th Jul 2009 17:52
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Quote: "Really, I thought I'd just made it up."



You acknowledged it on:

http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=139700&b=1

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NeX the Fairly Fast Ferret
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Posted: 17th Jul 2009 18:01 Edited at: 17th Jul 2009 18:01
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@Scraggle

Oddly, nowadays, it seems open-source software often has better icons than professional software. The Unreal3 icon looks nasty, like they chose the wrong resize option. The G.E.C.K. is one colour on a transparent background and so blends in nicely with Green Hill Zone. Oblivion's icon has harsh edges. FL Studio's icon'd be quite nice if the 7 which looks nothing like a 7 wasn't so tacked on. SwishMAX has an icon obviously made in Paint. PSP4 has an excuse, it's older than the operating system.

But I'll think you'll agree, the nicest icon there is Firefox, followed by Pidgin, then Code::Blocks, then Fallout 3.



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Scraggle
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Posted: 17th Jul 2009 20:59
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Why have you targeted that at me?

My post sarcastically (although that was clearly missed by some people) points out that games are not EVER judged by the quality of their icons.

That said, this thread does contain a handy hint for providing better icons for your DBP productions ... just don't expect anybody to judge the quality of your game by the quality of your icon!



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Grog Grueslayer
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Posted: 17th Jul 2009 22:42
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I think he just said that because you jokingly said you didn't buy Fallout 3 because of it's ugly icon... and it's in his top 5 favorite icons.

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Mobiius
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Posted: 18th Jul 2009 14:55
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Quote: "You acknowledged it on:
http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=139700&b=1"


That was a different usage and so very very long ago! lol

Your signature has been erased by a mod because it is way too awesome!
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Rus
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Posted: 21st Jul 2009 10:34
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I stand corrected Scraggle. Surely you wouldn't judge the quality of a game by it's icon. Thank you! Your sarcasm was not lost on me.

I'd like to know how many of you are bothered by the nasty looking icon that gets produced when you compile an exe with DBPro. Not so much the original icon (which doesn't look too terrible), but especially if you've placed your own icon in the IDE and it comes out all corrupted, with nasty color banding and an extremely pixelized transparency.

If you, like me, are making a commercial title, you would want everything about your game to look great. The icon is no exception to this. Surely TGC would like the icons of titles made with their package to look good!

Custom 3D art for games, interactive applications and video.
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