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Galactic Graphics. Download this new set of graphics used in Roberto Lavieri's games![All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Tony Quintanilla wrote on Wed, Nov 12, 2003 11:56 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Very nice set of graphics! Imaginative and of high quality. Very chess-like for games.

📝Roberto Lavieri wrote on Thu, Nov 13, 2003 12:56 PM UTC:
The graphics are incomplete, I have around 15 pairs of other pieces
available, but the idea now is prepare a set that can be used with
Courier. I have seen that not all the pieces I sent are the most recent
version, so I have to update it soon, adding the pieces missing and the
last versions of some of the pieces. The listed pieces are good, but there
are some of them that are a bit bigger or smaller than the most recent
versions, and there is perhaps a line of drawn pixels more or less, down
in some icons, causing a not-very perceptible sempsation of very little
changes of level in the ubbication of pieces on the squares.
The immobilizer icon is very old, the new one is bigger, Alternative
Queen, alternative Guards-like pieces, alternative Royal pieces, Marshall
and Archbishop graphics, alternative equine pieces, and some of ROCOCO
pieces are missing in the set, but the icons have been made. Wait one or
two weeks, more or less, and I'll update the set, although the posted
here can be used perfectly now (When I transform my icons, in BMP format
with all colors, to GIF images, the graphic loss quality and color
distorts a little, including the pure green used back, appearing many
times a halo around the piece, and I have to make additional retouches, so
there is some work giving the images in GIF format.
TONY: Would you help me creating Presets for some of my games with two
buttons: allowing the change of pieces sets used in the game, Alfaerie or
Galactic?

Tony Quintanilla wrote on Thu, Nov 13, 2003 10:33 PM UTC:
Roberto, I would be glad to help.

Peter Aronson wrote on Fri, Nov 14, 2003 03:01 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Roberto. These are neat and different piece graphics, and I look forward to your expanded set.

L. Lynn Smith wrote on Sat, Nov 15, 2003 11:02 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Very cool look.

🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Sat, Nov 15, 2003 10:55 PM UTC:
This page could use a legend telling what the pieces are.

🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Sun, Nov 16, 2003 04:25 PM UTC:Good ★★★★
It's good that the new pieces have descriptive names instead of letter names. This practice ought to be extended to all the pieces. Did you use letter names because Game Courier uses letters to identify pieces? The letters used to represent pieces are defined in a set file, not in the piece names themselves. If someone wanted to make sets of your pieces that match the sets made with other piece designs, the letter names given to the pieces would be of no help at all.

🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Sun, Nov 16, 2003 04:39 PM UTC:
Let me add another reason why descriptive names are preferable. Game Courier normally displays all the pieces in a set at the bottom of the page, and it puts the image name in ALT text. So when you place your mouse cursor over a piece, it shows you the image name. When names are descriptive, this provides users of Game Courier with very useful information. Someone designing a preset can use this information to tell whether a set has appropriate pieces for a game and to choose the right pieces. But when image names are just letters, the ALT text provides users with no useful information. In fact, if a set were made that matches a set of some other design, the information provided in the ALT text could be more confusing than helpful. For example, some other sets associate the Cannon with c/C. If a Galactic set were made that matched one of these sets, a user placing his cursor over the Cannon image at c would see 'a.gif' in the ALT text.

Joost Brugh wrote on Wed, Mar 1, 2006 03:21 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Very cool Graphics. Now I understand where those slightly different graphics in some Zillions implementations came from. I was used to the 26 in the Game Courier set.

H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, May 24, 2021 08:51 AM UTC:

Would it be possible to make these images available under more sensible names? As it is they are completely unusable for the Interactive Diagram. I don't even mind single-letter piece names, but that capitalization is used to distinguish white and black pieces, and that the color indicator is appended as a postfix rather than a prefix is completely fatal.


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Mon, May 24, 2021 01:07 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 08:51 AM:

I don't even mind single-letter piece names, but that capitalization is used to distinguish white and black pieces, and that the color indicator is appended as a postfix rather than a prefix is completely fatal.

You are actually complaining about the same thing I was complaining about in 2003, and it was already fixed years ago. However, the old image files are still there alongside the new ones. The old ones are as you describe. Just ignore those and use the new file names.


H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, May 24, 2021 01:20 PM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 01:07 PM:

But where can I find these new filenames if I am not a psychic? The Topics Index -> Computer Resources -> Graphics brings me to this page, which doesn't specify any names in text form, and only links to images with these silly names.


Ben Reiniger wrote on Mon, May 24, 2021 04:28 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 01:20 PM:

https://www.chessvariants.com/graphics.dir/galactic/

(I found it by viewing an image in a new tab then cutting off the filename from the URL. I'll add the direct link to the page next time I get the chance.)


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Mon, May 24, 2021 04:53 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 01:20 PM:

But where can I find these new filenames if I am not a psychic?

Go to the directory for this page. Just chop off the file name.


H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, May 24, 2021 05:32 PM UTC in reply to Ben Reiniger from 04:28 PM:

I found it by viewing an image in a new tab then cutting off the filename from the URL. I'll add the direct link to the page next time I get the chance.

Ah, I didn't try that, because for most piece sets it would not work, since the main page for those is index.html, and using the URL of the directory would just redirect you to that main page. But here the main page is galactic.html.

It would be convenient if the page could contain the piece names as caption to the images. Even knowing the directory they are in, it is very annoying to have to open them all one by one when you are looking for a certain image. (E.g. what the heck is a 'Super'?)

At the very least, the images shown on the page should use the descriptive filenames, so the user can learn these by inspecting the image, or display the page source.


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