Overview and Briefing pictures! Arraaghhh!

[Calamity]

ARRAggghhhaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Can any one please tell me if there is a front to back, "This is how you put a picture into an overview or briefing" tutorial!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have spent Days tring to get it right!!!
If the frustration is oozing out it is because every time i think I'm getting close OFP oppends on me!!!
I have downloaded the Texview app. Can't get it to open my JPG files. Or any files for that matter!
I have tried to find tutorials... to no avail. I once managed to get a JPG file into the overview but my 256x256 jpg picture created a seccond page in the overview, and went and hid there. Anyone looking at the mission would have to hit the pritty little arrow to look at the grossly distorted immage (Actually a blessing in disguise. Saved some poor slob from having to look at it!)

Here's what I've tried.
I take a screen shot.
Paste it to Paint
Wut of the screen shot cut an immage I want to appear on the Overview.
Either calculate the skew compression to get the immage to the recommended 170x64 pixles. Or I just work with that much of the original immage (That caused the one success to be distorted)
Then I open an HP Viewing tool that came with my digital camera, open the bit map (now the correct pixle size) and save it as a JPG.
As I said, I've had some limited success with the JPG file, bit it looks grose.
So I try to open the file into TexView. The ONE time it works I save it as a paa. The rest of the time TexView sits there with that smug green screen and tells me that the file is open and I can only see 1x1 of 16x16 pixles. (The 1x1 pixle is still green incase you were wondering...)
I proudly saved my one success and configured my overview.html file to use it.
I then saved my mission as a user mission. and with great anticipation went to the single player area to find my newly minted SP mission, picture and all. However, when I clicked on the ill fated mission I was simpley rewarded with an error message


OverviewPic.paa not found...

I thing I'm going to go reload some bullets now.
I may even use one of my reloads to shoot my F***ING COMPUTER!

[deaddog]

One thing about Texview.  The input jpeg file has to sized to a power of 2, ie 2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512, etc.  So it must something like 128X64 or 256X256 or the like.

And the 170X64 that you see in the overview.htm file does not have to match the .paa or .jpg pic size.  You can have a .paa pic at 256X128 and have 170X64 in the overview file.  The image will appear smaller this way.

I attached an example overview.htm and .paa pic for you to check out.

PS:  I reload, too  

[macguba]

Overview pic is THE hardest thing in OFP editing.  

Go to the Ed Depot and download the Tutorial Mission, there is a picture in there.     Borrow it and get your overview working with that picture.    Copy and paste the code from the Tute mission overview.

Now create your own picture.   Get it into .jpg format.    Don't worry about .paa at this stage.   (I know it's the official format, but jpegs work fine and paa gives you a larger file size with no appreciable increase in quality.   There may be other advantages but I dont' know what they are.)     Nick the border from the tute mission pic if you like.    

Make your picture look nice at 170x64 or whatever you want.    Lovely.    Now save it as 256x64.

In the overview code define the size as 170x64.    Bingo.   In other words you have to save it as 2^nx2^n but it doesn't really have to be that size.

I eventually figured it out from the tutes in the Ed Depot (Getting started - Briefings and Overviews) but it's not easy.

[Messiah]

Overview pic is THE hardest thing in OFP editing.  

ROFLMAO.... i wouldn't say that.... complext scripting use Trigonometry and maths is  

[macguba]

lol you're only saying that because your camera script doesn't work .... or have you found the problem?

[Messiah]

nope.... still doest frikkin work

and honestly mac.... pics aint very hard - take a screen shot - cut out the bit u like - remember the pixel size of the cut out bit - then resize it to 256 by 128 and create your overview and quote the original size of the pic in the overview. very very easy stuff...  

[macguba]

They are not hard once you know how, it's true ... but for example I spent a half a day once trying to take my first screenshot before discovering that things like prtscrn don't always work and you need a utility ... and not just any utility ... somebody on the forum recommended one which didn't work, but of course it took another half day to find that out and find one that did... and the tutes are not the best we have in the Ed Depot ... and the overview was hard anyway because I'd never seen html before ... yes I spent a happy morning trying to do it in explorer, frontpage express and god knows what else before somebody told me to use notepad .... my first Overview was 20 or 30 hours work.   Now of course it's 5 or 10 minute job and most of that is chopping up the screenshot.

Bad luck on your script ... sorry I'm not enough of a scripting guru to help out.


Anyway Calamity, don't be put off - it's easy once you know what you're supposed to do.

[Messiah]

lol... yeah... ist knowing what utlities to use and how to use them.... i might write a comprehensive tute on this since i have the time... althought will first start a thread in here to ask the how to do it in different utilities... as i only know how with Paint and Photoshop.

as for printscreen not working - i've never had that problem...

anyways, the mapanim and camera.sqs tute were a sucess... so this should help  

if you still can't do it calamity... send me your pic and overview and i'll sort it out for u.

[Calamity]

Eureka! Got it!
Thank you Gentilmen! You have saved my computer an untimely death by being shot by my .45!
I Got pictures!

Here's what I did, and if any one wants to collaborate on a tutorial let me know!

Get the Picture Source:
To do this I just played the game or moved a camera arround until I got a good immage I wanted. Then I would hit the PrintScr button. Thus saving the immage to the Clipboard.

Edit the Picture
First step in editing the picture is to get it into paint.
Just alt-tab out of OFP (you might want to hop back in to get more immages) and open Microsoft Paint.
Once paint is open, Paste your immage in. It will problably ask you to resize. For this one, say Yes.
Save the immage as test1.bmp, or something like that. That way you can go back if you mess up.
Using the Cut tool in paint, select a part of the immage you would like to eventually see in the overview. Cntl-C or righ-click to Copy that immage. Then open a new Paint sheet.
Once a new paint sheet is open  click Immage --> attributes. The attributes dialog box will appear. The fields you want to edit are Width and height. I found that 128 and 128 or 128 and 64 are the best for me. Though as has been said, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, or 256 can be used. (I can only personally attest to 128x128 ans 128x64 as these are the only two I've used.)
Anyway, You now iave an immage aria that is supported by OFP. Now is the time to paste the immage into the new bit map. This time though, you DO NOT want to RESIZE. You will most likely have an immage larger than the viewable aria. That's ok. You can grab the immage and move it arround until you get the most you can into the frame. Once you are satisfied with the immage, save it as OverviewPic.BMP (Or simething like that).
At this point if you wanted to make the immage look like a photo you can do that. I enlarge the picture by selecting View --> Zoom --> Large size.
Use the LIne tool to draw a white border, two pixels wide, arround the border of the frame. On the Left and Bottom I make this border three pixles. Then I drawl a black line on the bottom and left sides. In the pixel row as close to the edge as I can. This creates the illusion of a shadow.

Transform to JPG
This part is the easiest step.
Open the Bitmap in Internet Explorer or a Photo Viewing software. I used a ivewer by HP that came with my digital camera.
Once te picture is open in IE. Save it as a JPG file type.

Transform into PAA.
This is the trickiest part. I fought with this ap for quite a while.
You'll need to download TexView From the OFPec downloads or Biz's site.
Open TexView.exe by double clicking on it.
Once in TexView use the open command and browse to your file, OverviewPic.JPG. Or, I use explorer to Drag and Drop the file into TextView.
Once the file is in TexView, save the file. You will need to delete the JPG extension before you save.

Overview.HTML
I got an Overview.HTML file from a Campaign tutorial here at OFPec. The line in the OverView.HTML file you need to look at is
<p align="center"><img src="OverviewPic.paa" width="128" height="128"></p>
Pay carefull attention to the spelling of your PAA file name as well as make sure you match the Width and Height you used when creating you immage. If they do not match exactly you will be rewarded with an error message and not a picture when you view your mission. I know, cant tell you how many times I got that annoying "cannot find file XXX.paa"

Once you have you PAA file and Overview.html in your mission folder, Open OFP and open you mission. Save the mission as a user mission. Exit the mission editor and go into Single player missions. You should now have your single player mission with picture and all.
 
Trouble Shooting
If you did not get rewarded with a picture, but instead go an error message, you'll have to exit the game. It holds a lock on the file in the Missions folder. You'll need to go into the missions folder and delete the PBO you just created. Then, look at the Overview.html file and verify the spelling of the paa file. I once had two periods between overviewPic and paa.
You may need to go back and verify that the original bitmap size conformes to the size limits. I've often fatfingered a 9 instead of an 8 in 128 or a 5 instead of a 4 in 64.
Once you have verified all your peramiters, Try saving the mission as a user mission. and keep trying. It does work... Eventually.

I hope this helps someone avoid the headaches I went through...
Because you can't play OFP if you shoot your computer..

Calamit out.

[Messiah]

you don't need to use a PAA file though... jpg works just as well with the overviews  

[GaryP]

You might want to use IfanView instead of paint.   It's a very nice and free graphics editing program.

http://www.irfanview.com/