Coolroman123 wrote:

I was wondering if Byond 4.0 could have a transparency option...(I know that only 2000 and XP support it but It would look nice in byond graphics. Right now there is only no transparency or 100%)

edit:
sorry I spelled transparency wrong...

I believe this is known as an "alpha channel", allowing you to specify how opaque something is. You can simulate it by using gradients with overlays.

Here is a useful demo of how to do this:

http://developer.byond.com/hub/Garthor/DitheringIcons

Coolroman123 wrote:

I was wondering if Byond 4.0 could have a transparency option...(I know that only 2000 and XP support it but It would look nice in byond graphics. Right now there is only no transparency or 100%)

From the last thing Tom told me about it, no, there won't be a full alpha channel. The plan is, however, to make icon colors 24-bit (well, 25-bit with on/off transparency).

Lummox JR

I don't think it'll roll around until they implement some sort of HAL, though. (For the normals: "HAL" is short for "hardware abstraction layer".)

heh Isn't that what the Win GDI is for :)?

well, you can kind of do that, it's not simple, or fast, if you know what kind of colors are in an icon, you can take the colors, divide them both by two, add them back together, and then apply an rgb value for the swaps...

var/o_color = list(0,0,255)

var/b_color = list(255,255,255)
var/icon/I = icon('blah.dmi',"whatever")
(rgb(b_color[1],b_color[2],b_color[3]),rgb(round(b_color[1]/ 2+o_color[1]/2),round(b_color[2]/2+o_color[2]/ 2),round(b_color[3]/2+o_color[3]/2)))

which ammounts to rgb(127,127,255)

which looks like <font color = #8787FF>THIS</font>

or... this might be blending, and not transparency... what?

SuperSaiyanGokuX wrote:

Yeah... Basically all variable transparency does is adjust the colors of the pixels to show a certain amount of the color below them... Which results in essentially a blending of the two colors... The ratio of the colors is controlled by how transparent that particular pixel is... The more transparent, the more of the bottom color is blended in... Less transparent, less of the bottom color is seen...

It could potentially be done in DM just the way it is, but it wouldn't be very efficient...

Transparency is either on or off. Something is either transparent or it isn't. Nothing on the planet is truly transparent, by the way -- everything has some sort of colour. Even the air is blue; the refraction of the different colours of light off of air molecules is impeded, but the colour blue is impeded the least -- that's why the sky is blue during the day time, and very deep navy blue at night. Pollutants in the air can change the refractions and produce different colours -- solar energies refract differently than light and can produce different colours as well.

Translucency is what is being talked about here. Physically speaking, it occurs when light passing through an object loses some of its colour along the way. For example, a red piece of stained glass blocks colours that are green and blue. Looking through that piece of glass will make anything beyond it appear red or black (and anything red underneath it will be indistinguishable from white).

Spuzzum wrote:

Transparency is either on or off. Something is either transparent or it isn't. Nothing on the planet is truly transparent, by the way -- everything has some sort of colour. Even the air is blue; the refraction of the different colours of light off of air molecules is impeded, but the colour blue is impeded the least -- that's why the sky is blue during the day time, and very deep navy blue at night. Pollutants in the air can change the refractions and produce different colours -- solar energies refract differently than light and can produce different colours as well.

Bing,

Sorry, but that's only partially correct. The nice way of putting it is saying that light is scattered according to wavelength. That's where you're sort of on the right track.

It's blue because of the way light scatters, not impeded. If light were not scattered it would just flow through our atmosphere and never be directed towards our eyes -- and so the sky would appear blacker than the blackest night in Blackville, Blacksylvania where Count Blackula walked his dark and devious walk.

Now we meet our good friend Rayleigh scattering. Rayleigh comes into play the most because it affects very small particles/molecules[1]. Now, as most everyone should know, atoms have the positively charge particles in the nucleus, and the negative charges floating around them. This can be simplified overly into a nice magnetic dipole. When a dipole is struck with electromagnetic radiation[2] of a frequency close to that of its own, it may actually -absorb- the radiation and move to a higher energy state. Naturally, this higher state is not very stable and will decay later, releasing the same radiation in a random direction[3].

Basically, light is absorbed by the atmosphere and shunted towards our eyes. Blue is the kind most affected by this.

Congratulations! Armed with this knowledge, you can proudly walk up to any person who asks why the sky is blue and punch them in the face. Be proud.

-- Tarmas.
Please don't ask about sunsets[4]. I don't want to have to explain Mie scattering.

[1] In a manner proportional to 1/lambda^4, no less!
[2] Things like radio waves, x-rays and light. Please don't ask about particle/wave duality.
[3] Incidentally, this is why sunlight is polarized in some areas of the sky. You're looking along one of that scattered light's axes of oscillation.
[4] If you want to know why the sun it's yellow, wonder where all the blue light went. White-blue=yellow.

Spuzzum wrote:

Which is, basically, saying that blue is the colour of light that is impeded least when refracting off of the atmosphere. =P By impeded, I didn't mean "outright halted", I meant "subtly slowed".

And that's the problem. Light doesn't have its speed changed, just its direction.

Oh, about that refraction thing. Light is indeed refracted by the atmosphere, but just not very well[1]. Air has a crappy refractive index. Blue light is least affected, not least impeded.

That was exactly what I said, albeit with some words made opposite. Two negatives make a positive, remember.

Perhaps in your bizarro universe, Spuzz. :)

We should put two universes in a box and make them fight.

Two universe enter, one universe leave!

--Tarmas.

[1] It's sort of a combination of Brillouin and Mie scattering. Snell's law, blah blah blah.