• New Horizons on Maelstrom
    Maelstrom New Horizons


    Visit our website www.piratehorizons.com to quickly find download links for the newest versions of our New Horizons mods Beyond New Horizons and Maelstrom New Horizons!

Transparent Crosshair

M

Mackenson

Landlubber
Hi, all. I'm a newbie to POTC. So far, I love the ocean graphics, but it kind of spoils it to have that big, dark crosshair in the center of the screen.

In an attempt to rectify this, I mucked around with the textures and came up with a version that reduces contrast in the alpha in order to give the crosshairs a bit of transparency. See below for the before and after pictures:

BEFORE
crosshair1.jpg


AFTER
crosshair2.jpg


This works pretty well, I think. I have a couple of questions, though:

* I saved the texture in DXT3 format. Is that okay? I notice that he file size is a fair bit smaller than the original. It works for me, but I wonder if other video cards will have a problem.

* I originally tried adjusting the crosshairs through the code in the AIcameras. file. It includes values for argb for different states (default, enemy, friendly, etc.), but the "a" (I assume this is alpha) didn't really do anything, and I was having a hard time sorting out what effect changing the colors had (it didn't seem as straightforward as I would have thought). Is it possible to achieve a transparency simply through editing that code? If so, I'd prefer to do it that way and have the crosshairs almost completely transparent when it isn't on a target.

Thanks in advance!
 
Hi Mackenson...

I think the "argb" will just change colors. What you've done is probably the best way to deal with it - and as far as saving, well, I usually use DXT5, although I don't think there would be a problem saving it as DXT3. The smaller file size might also have to do with the fact that you lowered the number of colors in the save...

What are you using to image edit? :cheers
 
CatalinaThePirate said:
Hi Mackenson...What are you using to image edit? :cheers
Click to expand...

Hey Catalina ... I use Photoshop 7. I do image editing as part of my job, but I've never done much with game textures before. However, that crosshair was bugging me enough to want to do something about it.

I'll continue fiddling. I am thinking about replacing the texture entirely with something much more subtle (i.e lines or a simpler circle).

Cheers!
 
sweet, will this be an update for the new build mate? i like this idea, i hate the damn crosshairs always showin up so damn dark! :cheers
 
Aye,'at crosshair and de compass be way tew dam big,I made me compass smaller an wid 'at dam crosshair it be a nuisance :cheers
 
I too, use PS7 - couldn't be without it, love it... :)

I've never done this kind of thing with textures before either - wandered in here one day looking for a patch for a buggy game, and before I knew it, I got sucked into the whole modding thing! :?

It's a nice outlet for my creativity. :cheers :p:
 
Har! Catalina,yew luv modd'n like ye luv all o' us scallywags,don''t ye just know it :cheers :? :p:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top