Page 1 of 1 [ 10 posts ] 

trappedinhell
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 14 May 2011
Age: 55
Gender: Male
Posts: 625
Location: Scotland

09 Feb 2016, 10:02 am

So another Stack Exchange question gets closed as "off topic". Maintaining my hundred percent record. That's right up there with Slashdot: Whenever I post on Slashdot it gets deleted or ignored. Yet each time I spend hours crafting something that tries to keep within the rules as well as being useful to others.

Does anyone else have that experience on tech forums?


_________________
No longer trapped in hell. Well, not in the lower levels of hell. But I cannot change my username.


ZD
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 30 Oct 2015
Gender: Male
Posts: 589
Location: Manchester, England

09 Feb 2016, 10:08 am

No I don't have that problem, why not post what you asked here so we can critique for you? (Also which exchange you posted to so we can see the rules)


_________________
( If I ignore a reply it's not intentional I get distracted, send me a PM to prompt me :) )


trappedinhell
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 14 May 2011
Age: 55
Gender: Male
Posts: 625
Location: Scotland

09 Feb 2016, 10:59 am

ZD wrote:
why not post what you asked here so we can critique for you?


http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questi ... ead-in-hex

They say the question is not specific to game development. They quote the rule "would a professional game developer give me a better/different/more specific answer to this question than other programmers?" My answer is yes, they would. But on the other hand, Stack Overflow always closes my questions as well.


_________________
No longer trapped in hell. Well, not in the lower levels of hell. But I cannot change my username.


ZD
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 30 Oct 2015
Gender: Male
Posts: 589
Location: Manchester, England

09 Feb 2016, 12:17 pm

You'll need to post the content (you need a certain rep level to view deleted posts)


_________________
( If I ignore a reply it's not intentional I get distracted, send me a PM to prompt me :) )


trappedinhell
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 14 May 2011
Age: 55
Gender: Male
Posts: 625
Location: Scotland

09 Feb 2016, 12:33 pm

Ah, didn't know. Thanks.

Title:

Quote:
easiest bitmap format for a human to read in hex


Content:
Quote:
I have tiny 2-bit images to convert into arrays of 1s and 0s. Ideally I'd like to open the image in a hex editor, and see the pixels as numbers. This is for a very simple javascript game. I stress "simple" - just basic html IMG tags, no canvas or PHP.
EDIT: at the time of asking I had only tried a dozen file formats. After trying another two dozen, I've found the best format: save as RAW. It outputs to 256 grayscale, but it's super easy to see the pixel patterns in a hex editor.
Thanks to those who read and commented.


I figured that game dev was the best forum to ask because may game developers are like me: artists first, programmers second. A programmer would say "do this clever thing, it's useful skill to know". But an artist would say "I don't want a clever solution, I only do this thing once every five years, what's the easy way?"

So I disagree with the "ask programmers instead" advice. But that's normal for me. I tend to disagree with everybody about everything. :)


_________________
No longer trapped in hell. Well, not in the lower levels of hell. But I cannot change my username.


100000fireflies
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 2 Jan 2016
Age: 123
Posts: 552

09 Feb 2016, 5:23 pm

I too have never had that issue.

Maybe post a bit more of the goal behind the question? I've noticed peope will post questions that in the end are completely unneccessary or irrelevant to what they're trying to accomplish. That is, when you get out of them the reason behind the question: i'm going to take this info to be read by this and inserted here, the answer may dramatically change. i.e. They *think* they need to do x, which is why they're asking how to make x work, but in reality, z is far more effective.

As it is, with some questions, people will see them and just say ummmwhy would you want to do that? And not bother even trying to answer.
(I'm not saying that is the case here, just in general that better results may come from altered input.)


_________________
"When does the human cost become too high for the building of a better machine?"


trappedinhell
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 14 May 2011
Age: 55
Gender: Male
Posts: 625
Location: Scotland

09 Feb 2016, 5:39 pm

100000fireflies wrote:
with some questions, people will see them and just say ummm why would you want to do that? And not bother even trying to answer.


I think you are right. My problem is that I am not trying make the same kind of games as other people. To explain my goals would take several pages. Who would read it, much less understand?

In this case my real reason was to make a clickable transparency mask. There is already an established solution to that, to use canvas. But I did not want to use canvas because it adds a layer of complexity that makes my game harder to control. The reason for that takes a while to explain. To explain my reasons would require me to explain how my whole game concept fits together. It was much easier I thought to just as a very simple question: which graphics format is simplest? That would allow me to create my own non-canvas mask. But as usual my question was deleted. My thinking is just too different.


_________________
No longer trapped in hell. Well, not in the lower levels of hell. But I cannot change my username.


100000fireflies
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 2 Jan 2016
Age: 123
Posts: 552

09 Feb 2016, 7:29 pm

trappedinhell wrote:
100000fireflies wrote:
with some questions, people will see them and just say ummm why would you want to do that? And not bother even trying to answer.


I think you are right. My problem is that I am not trying make the same kind of games as other people. To explain my goals would take several pages. Who would read it, much less understand?

In this case my real reason was to make a clickable transparency mask. There is already an established solution to that, to use canvas. But I did not want to use canvas because it adds a layer of complexity that makes my game harder to control. The reason for that takes a while to explain. To explain my reasons would require me to explain how my whole game concept fits together. It was much easier I thought to just as a very simple question: which graphics format is simplest? That would allow me to create my own non-canvas mask. But as usual my question was deleted. My thinking is just too different.


Though i don't have the issue in tech forums, i do in human!! ! Always too much or too little information given.. And often with the latter, i wouldn't even know where to begin to explain it all. And even if i did, yeesh...it's a mess. What i thought came out is not what they took in and...yeah.

With your post, what you wrote here might get more help.
I'm working on a game and want to make a clickable transparency mask. I know the standard way is canvas, but for what i'm doing, it doesn't fit. (It would take too long to explain why). So, l'm looking for an alternative way to do [what you originally wrote].

That at least says - game dev = right forum..and a highlight of what your goal is. Which gives oooohhhh i get Why you're asking and why you're asking that here..


It might not get answers as maybe no one has a good alternative, but it at least is (hopefully) less likely to just be ignored.


_________________
"When does the human cost become too high for the building of a better machine?"


ZD
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 30 Oct 2015
Gender: Male
Posts: 589
Location: Manchester, England

10 Feb 2016, 4:19 am

Ok, the reason why it was closed on gamedev was justified as any programmer could help. But if you posted this on StackOverflow there is also a good chance it will be closed as it's not a coding error you are actually asking for advice on a specific programming problem. But this does suite the programmers stack I think (not a member there but reading the rules it states "If you have a question about... algorithm and data structure concepts" :)

TBH I think all these stacks should be merged it's ridiculous having all these different ones but anyway......

I do think some background would be helpful on this question though, for instance:
* Is this data been transmitted over the net?
* Do you need to commit it back to a server?
* Can you lose data? (I am expecting this to be lossless tbh)
* Is the format required to be 2bit or is that the amount of data you will require.

And I think your answer is actually to use a simple custom format something like below. this does mean you need to write code to decode the format in javascript.

[Header]
4 byte identifier - Just a common practice for you know it's your format
2 byte width
2 byte height
248 byte padding - For future expansion (you could get this to align to you hex editors display)

[Data Stream]
4 bit [,] image data

The data stream I recommend you store as a 4bpp stream instead of 2bpp as you wish to use a hex editor this will align one character to each pixel then.

Or alternatively use a RAW like you mentioned also stored at 4bpp (I am sure you saw this but here is a library to open them https://github.com/fbuchinger/rawson.js not sure if this supports 4bpp though)


_________________
( If I ignore a reply it's not intentional I get distracted, send me a PM to prompt me :) )


cberg
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 31 Dec 2011
Gender: Male
Posts: 12,183
Location: A swiftly tilting planet

10 Feb 2016, 4:23 am

Stackexchange is subsected to within microns of its' life. Usually I just find anecdotal or completely arbitrary support for anything I'm trying to set into code & things work out with library support or class bindings as opposed to advice I must work to substantiate.


_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos :mrgreen: