[Zacam]

Non-replacement Squadron Insignia do not show themselves in the Pilot room.

Is there any way to adjust that behavior or create a list that it can use to know to use them?

I realize they can still be used by specifying them in a mission, but the player should be able to apply them as well.

[karajorma]

The maximum number of squad images is 64 (Same for pilots in case anyone is wondering). Are you going over that?

[Shade]

That could eventually become a big problem for TCs that are at all focused on multiplayer. Hell, I'm already running close to 30 squadron logos just from what I've picked up playing FS2 multi. Everyone who plays a lot will eventually want to use their own custom pilot images and squadron logos, and with the automatic transfer they will end up in the folders of everyone who plays. In short, if we look a bit into the future, 64 is way too low.

That does pose another problem though. Even if the limit is raised or made dynamic, it will quickly become very cumbersome to find the logo/image you want by scrolling through a list of 100+ that only displays one at a time. So ideally something to address that would be nice as well, though I'm apparently in an idea-drought at the moment as nothing's coming to mind.

[Edit] Maybe some way to select between official, transferred and self-made images would solve the navigation problem. It would require some extra subfolders under data/players/squads and data/players/images to keep them seperate though, as well as an interface art change to add the selection buttons, plus of course the code to make it all work. Not exactly a trivial change.

[Zacam]

considering that I only have 4 additional Insignia over the regular retail, I highly doubt I am anywhere close to that limit, considering there are only 22 retail insignia.

If I call to the insignia via mission SquadReassign, they will display in the barracks just fine. Just not selectable in multi-player.

[karajorma]

What format are they? Have you tried a debug build?

[Zacam]

DDS. Just like the retail replacement ones. That do show up, only because the file name is identical to the retail ones. The ones I want to show up, WILL show up if I name them after the retail ones. But not if they are named anything but.

Yes I tried a debug build. (I tried it in a box, with a fox, in my sox even.)

Builds I have used that are mine: fso-WIN-20080914_r4814 through to fso-WIN-20081124_r4960 which does total 39.

Missing questions:
Did you try a new pilot?
   Answer: I did indeed, and for the same results.
Did you try Retail?
   Answer: I ran FSO with no flags and no mod other than the folder containing the squad images, as retail directly will not support DDS.

[Talon 1024]

I just tried this recently, and apparently you have to have a PCX (or PCX and DDS for better quality) in the squad logos folder for this to work properly.

[Titan]

so it needs to se a pcx, but if a dds with the same filename is present, it'll use that?

[chief1983]

That sounds like a bug.

[Talon 1024]

so it needs to se a pcx, but if a dds with the same filename is present, it'll use that?

Yes, but please don't remove DDS squad logo support.  The reason being is that DDS files have alpha channels, and therefore you won't get that ugly green background if you make a custom PCX squad logo that doesn't use an FS squad logo palette.

Could custom squad logos in mods (that you select in the launcher) be supported?

[chief1983]

No no, I don't mean the bug is that it uses DDS.  I mean the bug is that a PCX is required for DDS to work.  No one would remove DDS support I don't think.  We know the benefits well enough

[Zacam]

Frak me. Makes sense though. It will only allow DDS as a replacement for something it knows is present to be replaced. Something to vet against while it is loading.

So, how do we get around making single pixel PCX files to display custom DDS insignia then? Allow it to vet players\squads regardless of format?

http://scp.indiegames.us/mantis/view.php?id=1834

[chief1983]

Well I imagine it should scan for DDS or whatever separately like it does for textures, and pretty much anything else.  You don't need PCX versions of DDS files anywhere else, I don't know why this should.  Unless there really is some strange technical reason for it.

[karajorma]

It's probably just a simple case of the scan code looking only for PCX files because no one ever updated it. The image load code on the other hand is probably the same as everywhere else and thus can load DDS files.

[Zacam]

"Is DDS the only other format it will accept or will it take jpg and tga too?"

I created custom TGA, PNG and JPG (and a  JPeG) insignia and specified it as squadron logo in a skybox test mission. No errors or warnings in fs2_open.log, no insignia on the model. I then re-ran the tests with a PCX also present, still the same.

NOTE: Creating a new pilot and going straight to the tech room for a single mission to test with had an interesting result. Because the player was never assigned to a squadron, no re-assignment took place, so no logo on the player ship. HOWEVER, this also killed any logo's from showing on OTHER ships as defined by using +Squad Logo: on a per wing.

Also, the MISSION has to reference a PCX file. Referencing a DDS file even if a pcx for it ALSO exists results in no logo rendering as well.

In short:

Calling to DDS/JP(e)G/TGA/PNG results in nothing with or without PCX present. Calling to non-existant PCX with existing DDS results in nothing. Calling to PCX with a DDS version present loads the DDS version, calling to existing PCX with a JP(e)/TGA/PNG present results in PCX loading.

[chief1983]

So it sounds like, at the moment, the answer is no, jpeg and tga do not work as logos, with or without an existing PCX file.