Re: [GD-General] Level Editing

[Javier A. <ja...@py...>]

Niklas Hansson <ni...@ma...> wrote:

>> I guess it doesn't count, but after the recent Photoshop 7's
>> braindead monkeying around with TGA's alpha channel (and their

> About the photoshop filter I hope you are aware that all you need to
> do is copy the .tga  plugin file from Photoshop 6.0(or whatever the
> latest verision was) into 7.0 and It will work as exspected. Our
> Artists solved this without even involving us programmers so first
> time I heard about it was on this list.

Yeah that was the official "fix" proposed by the Adobe relations people once
they were done pointing out how wrong we game developers were for misusing
the TGA alpha channel. A simple checkbox / option to specify how you want
TGAs to work would have been enough but they quickly rejected it for
"internal architecture reasons" (!!!!). Just give me the TGA plugin source
code like Discreet does and I'll fix it myself, but no they won't disclose
their "intellectual property" (TGA loading code?) either.

The thing is, I expect new versions of tools to provide interesting new
features or at least improve the existing ones. It makes no sense to pay for
a new version when new features add nothing to you, and the only thing you
miss in your current version is made worse (or just equally wrong) by the
upgrade.

Or maybe they'll rebate a few $ to people who buy PS7 and then are forced to
downgrade a portion of it? What about fresh new copies of PS7 for our new
artists, does the license allow us to copy a portion of another version?
Hope you see what I mean, there are tons of ways to fix this problem, but
The Real Fix would be for Adobe people to listen to and care about its
users. There was this little gem of an exchange in the forums:

[Names witheld (sp?)]
Adobe: "Why don't people report these things during betatest?"
Developer: "Perhaps you need better betatesters. Want me to sign up?"
Adobe: "No, we have enough people already"
Developer: "Ok I get it"

I think "braindead" is definitely applicable.

  Javier Arevalo
  Pyro Studios