12/25/09 [PF #92] Splitting headache

[Ren Gaulen]

Seems that Kytharion won't be celebrting Christmas with us..

Kip did a very nice work on his part of the page; Keaton looks positively awesome in the second and the third panels.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

I do think that that makes for a very good christmas present for Notaek, though.

[Zedd]

Nice swing

[ChaosMageX]

And with this page posted, goes my last chance to put any of my art into the comic for a long while.

Oh well...

It just would have been nice, considering this is the comic that led me to the DMFA multiverse.

It was the demonology pages of this comic that first taught me about angels, demons, and cubi too.

I forget what comic led me to Project Future.  If it wasn't through some advertisement, then it might be easily found again.

The only comics I remember reading before Project Future and DFMA were Black Tapestries, Kaspall, and Broken Plot Device.

[Tapewolf]

And with this page posted, goes my last chance to put any of my art into the comic for a long while.

Hey, I'm sure we'll need some filler at some point :p

[techmaster-glitch]

...Did you guys do anything different with uploading the comic this time? The image heavily fractures whenever I move the screen, I can hardly read it. Strangely enough, when I'm on the main page, it fractures up when I move around, but then settles down and fixes itself after a few seconds of moving. The archive page doesn't fix itself. All the other comic pages are still fine, though...

[Tapewolf]

...Did you guys do anything different with uploading the comic this time?

The procedure was slightly different, yes.  I didn't strip out the Alpha channel this time or optimise it, but only a truly craptacular browser would be thrown by the presence of the Alpha channel.  Even IE6 just ignored it.  I've only tested on Firefox 3.5 and the Android browser, but I haven't seen any issues.

Actually, weren't you saying that you couldn't read Housepets either?  They do a lot of alpha channel tricks.  Personally, I think you've got some serious software problems with your setup.  I might try hauling it into GIMP and editing what's there, but I won't be able to re-render it the usual way until Wednesday or so when I get back home.  Sorry about that

[Sprocketsdance]

Ooooooo so nice. I really like the lighting!
And Keaton is so strong!

[Roach Lord]

Still smexy.

[Chakat Blackspots]

...Did you guys do anything different with uploading the comic this time?

The procedure was slightly different, yes.  I didn't strip out the Alpha channel this time or optimise it, but only a truly craptacular browser would be thrown by the presence of the Alpha channel.  Even IE6 just ignored it.  I've only tested on Firefox 3.5 and the Android browser, but I haven't seen any issues.

Actually, weren't you saying that you couldn't read Housepets either?  They do a lot of alpha channel tricks.  Personally, I think you've got some serious software problems with your setup.  I might try hauling it into GIMP and editing what's there, but I won't be able to re-render it the usual way until Wednesday or so when I get back home.  Sorry about that

How can you tell the difference between the channel being there and not being there?

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

How can you tell the difference between the channel being there and not being there?

Some apps default to "it's not there", some default to "it's there and has obvious settings", some default to "duh"

Take your pick. ;-]

[Tapewolf]

How can you tell the difference between the channel being there and not being there?

By downloading it and pulling it into an image viewer or something else which is able to pull the headers apart.  GIMP or Photoshop will work too, of course since they will allow you to add or remove the alpha channel.

[Chakat Blackspots]

How can you tell the difference between the channel being there and not being there?

By downloading it and pulling it into an image viewer or something else which is able to pull the headers apart.  GIMP or Photoshop will work too, of course since they will allow you to add or remove the alpha channel.

Well, what I was mainly thinking was how can you tell in the browser, but yeah, that works too.

Opening in GIMP gets this message:

Clicking on either button doesn't seem to change anything.

[Tapewolf]

tapewolf@daryil:~/Desktop$ optipng strip092-backup.png
OptiPNG 0.6.2.1: Advanced PNG optimizer.
Copyright (C) 2001-2009 Cosmin Truta.

** Processing: strip092-backup.png
595x842 pixels, 4x8 bits/pixel, RGB+alpha
Input IDAT size = 394405 bytes
Input file size = 397658 bytes

Well, what I was mainly thinking was how can you tell in the browser, but yeah, that works too.

Opening in GIMP gets this message:

Clicking on either button doesn't seem to change anything.

In some browsers the transparent sections will be displayed as chequered squares when the image is loaded directly.  You will see the edges do this in GIMP, or as a giveaway, go to Layers->Transparency
...you'll have 'Remove alpha channel' if there is one to remove.

I would be happy if I could convince comiclife not to do that.  As a workaround I run a complex sequence of filters as a shell script, converting the thing from PNG to PNM with the alpha configured to render as solid white.  Then it's converted back into PNG and processed with optipng running -o7 to shrink it down further.

With page 5 (strip 92) I forgot to do this and put it directly onto the site.

[Chakat Blackspots]

In some browsers the transparent sections will be displayed as chequered squares when the image is loaded directly.  You will see the edges do this in GIMP, or as a giveaway, go to Layers->Transparency
...you'll have 'Remove alpha channel' if there is one to remove.

I would be happy if I could convince comiclife not to do that.  As a workaround I run a complex sequence of filters as a shell script, converting the thing from PNG to PNM with the alpha configured to render as solid white.  Then it's converted back into PNG and processed with optipng running -o7 to shrink it down further.

With page 5 (strip 92) I forgot to do this and put it directly onto the site.

Yeah, in GIMP I saw the checkerboard sqaures, and using the Windows picture viewer, the image appears slight smaller because of the transperancy, and you can see two notches in the corners at the top of the strip 92

[Tapewolf]

Okay, I've re-rendered strip 92 so it should work on Tech's broken browser again.  But that is not all.  I have updated early, so there is now a page 93, bringing chapter 11 to its much-delayed conclusion.

There is a reason for this - we'll hopefully have a special bonus update tomorrow.  (No, we will not be updating Friday as well.)

[techmaster-glitch]

Okay, I've re-rendered strip 92 so it should work on Tech's broken browser again.

Oh, forgot to mention. Just a day or two after I told you it was messed up, it was fixed. Didn't you say something about doing a patch job before you could get home and do it for real...? If you did, that worked.

[Tapewolf]

Oh, forgot to mention. Just a day or two after I told you it was messed up, it was fixed. Didn't you say something about doing a patch job before you could get home and do it for real...? If you did, that worked.

No, I didn't get around to that :-S

**EDIT**

I have just updated the archives, adding episode 11 and also episode 10.5, the Episode of Filler.