Check the post above me. JCD posted a quote that messed up everything.

I don't much care for the picture sets.  The one that has the best Vasari image has by far the worst Advent one (in my opinion).  They are pretty much all like this, one or two good race images, one really bad.  Why not just have discreet images without confining them to sets?  Packing them into sets just seems like an odd design decision to begin with.

This. Thats why I was so "mean" and was more forceful in requesting this to be changed, and it is also why I referred to it as "retarded", because anyone with two brain cells to rub together can clearly see there was no reason to make it that way in the first place.

Ironclad is filled with some brilliant people, hence why they created SOASE, but like everybody they have their retarded moments.

Don't know why I think of JCD when I look at this demotivational...

And that is related to this thread how? Really, Id like to see you try and explain.

Pwned.

No, not pwned. Just cause you post some internet banner doesnt mean anything. Again, tell me how either of the posted banners have anything to do with my actions on this thread.

With all due respect, insulting the game developers by insinuating that they do not have two brain cells is likely not the best way to convince them to listen to your game design requests (regardless of whether they are right or wrong). Just saying.

Really guys? I mean seriously? are you all looking back on what you are posting here? Tobiwan, and Myfist0 are about the only ones making any kind of sense here. The OP posted a legit gripe.. It all went to hell in a hand basket from there. Damn. Legit as this may be, much could have been worded better. I thought I was a stress case. All of you go to starbucks, and get a mocha!

The "Real" answer for the current picture set issue is that the developers thought the current setup would use less ram, and resourses in a very resource intensive game. Sins being 32 bit has a 2 gig hardcode limit. So i can see to a point why the Dev's did it the way they did. Any other way from the developer's point of view may have crashed the game left, and right. Which is EXACTLY what happened in Entrenchment! Because Entrenchment had too many assets added to it, and it made the game go over the 2 gig hardcoded ram limit. IC fixed that issue with the recent Diplomacy patches (but they did not fix Entrenchment, or Original Sins).

Modders have found a way to work around the issue, and add to the picture sets without crashing the game, but that is the MOD community's work. Not Ironclads work. It is true if IC were to adapt a single picture per faction they would have to do a lot of re-building of the UI to make it happen. Some of it is simple to do, but some of it is not that easy (sorry Myfist0, but some of us still haven't figured out the UI yet). We (Developers, and Modders both) still have to be careful not to make the game hit the 2 gig brick wall when we add to, and change stuff around in the game.

I wont say this is a "non-issue", because this is a legit question. The current picture sets don't bother me, but as a modder i did question why it was done this way, and found a way to change it without breaking the game. As others did.

Guys you need to relax a bit.

You must be spying on me because that's exactly where I am. Awesome!

At first some said it wasn't worth bothering and people like Stant tried to say it would be a pain. But then we have had other rough dealings with JCD, so our wick is pretty short to start.

Thanks for the detailed analysis of the actual issue, Major.

And this is contradicting me in any way how?

I'm the one who has been saying it's not a simple, can be done in a couple of hours time fix as some would like others to believe.  By your estimation of 6 to 8 days (which I feel is probably a bit excessive), you agree with me that it is considerably more time intensive to get it done on the devs side (which also breaks compatibility for every single mod that makes changes to the picture sets until they convert over as well, thus adding more time and work for the rest of us which you didn't include in your example).  My point was that said 6 to 8 days can be better utilized elsewhere when the current set up isn't broken and thus requiring a fix.  Would it look pretty?  Sure.  But most everyone who plays either only plays as one faction and thus never even bothers to worry about switching pictures, or is like me and really doesn't give a damn about the pictures at all because they add nothing to the game that the faction icons don't already do...

I'm not a newbie modder, I've been doing this 16~17 years now, don't treat me as such, it's insulting to us both.

Speaking of icons!  I'm the one who first said making it like the icons would be a better option to the present, which was explained in detail with MyFist's explanation, so I have to mark that one down as a he agrees with me, and since you like what he put up in said detailed explanation, I have to assume that means you agree with me as well.  I just didn't care to get into an overly detailed explanation of how to make it all happen when the person I was talking to wasn't interested in listening to anyone who didn't share his own opinion and my reply had already been going on for long enough.  And again, there are more icons then pictures for personalization, and they can be multicolored if one so desires.  Do I need to explain out the process for that right now or is someone else going to come on here and say "Huh?" and then proceed to explain it all out for me so JDC can claim another victory for himself?

I'm also the only one who has shown that even if the current set up is less then perfect in some people's minds, the player side solution is extremely simple and takes only seconds to get the same results (proven with the use of exactly TWO pictures to show the entire process: click here, then here), which no one denies.  (And no, that's not a challenge, so all of you Barney Stinsons out there, just keep on doing something else.  )  It's not a broken system and thus, does not require attention.  If it's given attention, great, I wouldn't be any less happy about it as everyone else because it expands my modding potential with Sins.  If all things remain the same, I'm not going to be pissing and moaning about it because I've already posted an extremely simple and easy solution, and for anyone who does, I'm going to direct them to my two pictures.

And if you've paid attention to me all of these years, you'd know I never start anything, but I'm also not afraid to respond in kind, as is the case here.  You show me civility and actually listen to what I have to say, and I will do that for you, even go as far as modify an existing mod, or build an entirely new one to make your playing experience an enjoyable one.  You post all over these forums being an ass to everyone including those that are trying to help you, I'm going to treat you the same way you treat everyone else.  It's as simple as that.  The Golden Rule my friend, the Golden Rule.

I don't think that, aside from someone making it a mod, I would support the multicolor thing. It can be done, but we currently have .dds and .tga files to work with. I don't know what the limit is with .dds files, but I know that .tga files are limited to a single alpha channel. I also find it easier to stick with .tga files as they are about the same size as .dds files and you can be fairly sure nothing is messed up during a conversion process. If they want to use more than one alpha, the way I would expect one to create a multicolored image, then they would have to choose a new file type and that means going back to fix a lot of things previous done and, I'm willing to bet, more data pushing us up toward the 2 gig limit, especially given that the game loads everything prior to the start of a game, whether or not it actually utilizes it.

Just my two cents on that.

No, I'm saying they presently can be (and some already are) multicolored if someone chooses to create a multicolored icon.

Already is done and in the stock game from the very beginning.

Alpha channel is only used for transparency.

Nothing needs to change at all.  Look at the faction icon sheet.  Colored icons are there.  Play the game, multicolored icons are there too.  I'm actually taking little bits of time here and there to work on making an animated tga for the icons to see if it's possible that I can have animated icons on the screen in game.

Yes, I know.

I was just establishing the file types the game is designed to read before anyone tries to throw out any ideas involving something incompatible.

Yes, but when you choose a color, it places the color within the selection and makes it more or less transparent based on the alpha. You could, in theory, use two alphas with differing priorities so that one designates a primary color and the other a secondary. I figured someone might think that, so I established that, as nice as the thought is, we only have one alpha to work with.

I don't know about playing with animations, but I know that there are multicolored factions (mostly militia) available. The problem is that they are set colors. If someone's going to be picky about having to toggle character images, I can't imagine how pissed they would be to discover that they can't change their team colors. I'm thinking more along the lines of people wanting to choose their multiple colors, which I assume is what people would desire given what they are already accustomed to.

What really ticks me off is that they didn't have any picture sets like this:

One of the custom images I used for DS started with a clip from an Asian porn.

That is legit...good picture scouting, sir!

It couldnt have had anything to do with all of you guy's stubbornness could it?

Also, there was only ONE comment of mine that flamed anyone, and that was in retaliation (for my being called retarded)

@Stant

Yes I heard about the issue of "starting over" mods, but you guys are gonna have to start over anyways when Rebellion comes around. Tis the life of a modder.

technically not, but I'll spare the details.

If its really gonna make updating your mods so hard to redo, then whatever. You guys never said so in the first place though.

EDIT: I guess Stant tried to say something about it, but I just assumed MyFist0 told him off.

Yes, we have custom images in DS and would have to go through the motions like Stant said to catch up to the new setup. That's there time and ours.