mostly about ut99

[EvilGrins]

While I played both Unreal2 and ut2004, not surprisingly, I took a lot of screenshots. It's due to this I noticed both of these versions actually had a 'screenshot' directory where it stored all of them, while also not having a limit of 255 screenshots at a time.

ut99 has that 255 limit, you have to delete/move the ones you've taken before you can make more.

I never played Unreal1 so I can't speak to that, but why wasn't ut99 made with a screenshots directory? It's not like people weren't taking screenshots long before the Unreal games ever existed.

[Feralidragon]

Well, disk size was so scarce back then, that they never thought players were actually going to take 200 *BMP* screenshots AND not care to remove them later from the disk (even if they were low-res).
There are a lot of things they could do have done a bit differently with almost no effort at all, and which many of them would radically affect the scalability and flexibility of the game in nowadays time, but back then good practices and thinking ahead wasn't still in the head of most of them. They were just focused in making things work back then and not really caring in the future outcome, and didn't care in updating it either anymore. Epic didn't even dream that UT would get the success it got, let alone still being around 15 years later and being run in modern systems.

In short: UT was made in a time when everyone was making BAD decisions in programming, however if anything, I think that the fact that UT has no major problems in running in modern systems is quite an accomplishment by itself.

[Chamberly]

I wonder if it is possible to make a mod that take screen shot and move them to a specific folders (using a screenshot.ini) without the limit? That would be really great. & I would think, take the screenshot bind to sshot2 because sshot is the original.

I know there are 3rd party software out there, I tried looking for them and there isn't many luck for proper functionality.

[rsbloom44]

There is a tool called UTScreenCaptureConverterm. It's pretty handy, it converts bmp to jpg and also I believe it will move your screen shots to a new directory for you without conversion.

[Chamberly]

There is a tool called UTScreenCaptureConverterm. It's pretty handy, it converts bmp to jpg and also I believe it will move your screen shots to a new directory for you without conversion.

Does it also move the default files? I had a program that did that and I had to get a copy off my CD to use Ued.

[EvilGrins]

There is a tool called UTScreenCaptureConverterm. It's pretty handy, it converts bmp to jpg and also I believe it will move your screen shots to a new directory for you without conversion.

Does that also convert to png?

Not a huge fan on JPGs for screenshots. It's a quality thing.

This is a jpg:

This is a png:

[rsbloom44]

Unfortunately I don't think it does. If anyone is interested here it is
http://www.utzone.de/forum/downloads.ph ... le&id=3202

[KingJosh]

eh Jpegs look just fine to me. Not day and night difference imo.

[UnrealGGecko]

eh Jpegs look just fine to me. Not day and night difference imo.

+1, Also they probably load quicker online.

[Dr.Flay]

Many people don't get it.

JPeG (especially progressive) was invented for the internet, to compress complex images. Web pages are where you post "preview quality" versions of pictures.
Many people never use a sensible JPG setting, or a useful program that gives you any settings, so mangle the image.
Don't blame JPeG for not ticking the right boxes or sliding the right sliders.

PiNG was invented by the author of GIF to replace TIFF and GIF as a lossless format for storing and sharing images.
If you wish to share a large lossless 24 bit image, you would normally provide a link, or put it in a non-compressed ZIP or RAR
Many people also do not have access to a good PNG saver, so often their PNGs are larger than they should be.

The 1 and only rule of using PNGs on the net is;
The use of PNG in web pages is supposed to be exclusively for 8bit PNGs where they are smaller than GIFs.
If you must use PNGs for large complex images, then you should enable "progressive" or "interlaced" mode.

If you wish to post PNGs, then convert them to 8bit first (like I do).
To be honest even choosing better PNG settings will make it smaller. I can re-save the PNG at 858k.
At 8bit it is 237k

8bit PNG

and here is a sensible JPG at 158k (90% quality, medium chroma subsampling)

JPG

I have used the same settings as I can see in your JPG, but whatever you use is doing something else to make the image look crap.

I use the "Save for Web" RIOT plugin for Irfanview. Makes it all quick and top quality, with no guesswork.

[TheDane]

I need glasses lol, My old eyes don't show much difference at all? I'll go for the smallest filesize ... always... all of those images shows a perfectly good Picture to me - I don't go into the depths when viewing screenshots on forums? I only look for it's contents ...

Anyway ... EvilGrins, have you tried making a batch file to launch UT with? You should be able to construct a batch file that will move your images away to another folder and then launch the game? This way it's Automatic and you can fire away! ahem .... knowing you ... you might have to shut Down the game and launch it Again lol, I bet you may shoot a full folder in a couple of good games?

[EvilGrins]

Never tried a batch file, no. And yeah, i used to fill up my capacity of images a lot, but over the years I've gotten better at not hitting F9 for every little thing.

[Dr.Flay]

Exactly what the Dane said. Size and speed is the most important factor in web pages.
Programs like Irfanview and xnview both batch-process to the folder of your choice.
I have Irfanview put them in my screenshot folder I made in the system folder.

I always save them as 24bit PNGs, but before I post them I save a new dithered 8bit PNG and a JPG.
The smallest one is the one I use online (unless the quality suffers).

8bit PNGs support simple transparency, and 24 bit supports transparency as an extra layer.
Using an extra layer allows for subtle gradients of transparency.
If you require this effect, that is when you use 24bit PNG in a web page.