PNGs, GIFs, JPEGs, etc...

ID:135899
 
Dec 17 2003, 8:22 pm
First of all, will GIFs, JPEGs, or any other formats be supported for icons?

Second, will the PNG's alpha channel ever be supported?
Dec 18 2003, 7:54 pm
There's some messy legal business going on with GIFs; I think Compuserve patented it, so technically you have to pay them a royalty to use the format. I'm told they wouldn't dare to enforce it because they'd probably lose their patent, but it's a bit of a grey area. Me no like legal grey areas. =)

JPEG is a lossy format, so I see no point in including support for it. Most other formats that BYOND doesn't already support aren't compressed, or aren't compressed very well, or are very uncommon.

As for the alpha channel... hopefully. Sometime. =)
Dec 19 2003, 11:13 am
In response to Crispy
Actually, Compuserve doesn't hold the patent. Some other company(starts with a U) has/had a pantent on the compression that GIF uses. Depending on what country you live in, their patent may or may not be expired.
Dec 19 2003, 12:06 pm
In response to Jon88
The reason I brought out JPEGs are because you can seriously lower the size of it by the way it's formatted.
Dec 20 2003, 12:45 am
In response to Yota
Jon88 wrote:
Actually, Compuserve doesn't hold the patent. Some other company(starts with a U) has/had a pantent on the compression that GIF uses. Depending on what country you live in, their patent may or may not be expired.

Then why are they called "Compuserve GIFs" in Paint Shop Pro, I wonder? *shrug* Whatever. =) Is the patent holder called "Unisys"? The name rings a faint bell. Eh, whatever. =P

Yota wrote:
The reason I brought out JPEGs are because you can seriously lower the size of it by the way it's formatted.

You can, but they're still not particularly good for games. Now that I think about, I can see a use for title screens and such, but it would hopelessly mangle turf/obj/mob icons.
Dec 20 2003, 6:26 am
In response to Crispy
Compuserve created the GIF. Compuserve doesn't care who uses them. GIFs use a form of lossless compression that a certain company (Probably Unisys) has patented. The patent has run out in some places, however.
Dec 20 2003, 7:12 am
In response to Jon88
Well, acording to this the patent has expired here in the USA.
This backs it up pretty well.

And it's Unisys, patented the LZW compression.

"The U.S. LZW patent expires June 20, 2003, the counterpart Canadian patent expires July 7, 2004, the counterpart patents in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy expire June 18, 2004, and the Japanese counterpart patents expire June 20, 2004." -Unisys