DKC Atlas Forum

[Phyreburnz]

I'm having problems saving screenshots of the maps. I really think the animated maps are super useful, however, every time I try to do a screenshot, the image is zoomed and blurry, like this (this is a normal ctrl+prt sc):

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This is how blurry it looks when I zoom in using Photoshop. The edges should be sharp and crisp.

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Zooming out does nothing for the images... just this... See how the words and menu options are small? That's all that changes for some reason.

zoomed out page.png (69.46 KiB) Viewed 81882 times

Is there another way to get images from the maps? This time, I'm trying to get the image of the rope, specifically.

[Kingizor]

Browsers are traditionally more geared towards photographs rather than pixel art and by default will attempt to resample an image when the page is zoomed in or out by any amount. The technique is good for photographic images since it help reduce blockiness or make an image appear smoother, but it's a bad thing for our purposes since we want that fine detail preserved.

Best results with screenshots can usually be achieved by setting the zoom level to the default level which is usually 100%. Browsers are all different, but the most common shortcut for reverting to the default zoom level is Ctrl+0. Some versions of IE will use Ctrl+* instead.

Some browsers have an option to zoom text only and always leave images at a specific zoom level, which might explain why images don't appear to be shifting at all. Perhaps the images are fixed to a zoom only slightly over 100%? That would probably be enough for the browser to say "we're zoomed in, so I'll go ahead and resample everything".

—

Anyway:

You can usually select a particular item in the sprites layer by first disabling the foreground layer entirely (click the button with white text that says FG). Even if there isn't anything in the foreground layer, it being enabled will prevent you from accessing items underneath. With that out of the way, you should be able to right click on an object and select "View Image", "View Background Image" or whatever. It can be a bit tricky with some of those moving items though.

A probably better alternative is to save a local copy of the page. Usually this can be done by right clicking on a page and selecting "Save as...", "Save page as..." and so on. This will bring up a typical save dialogue. If you select the type "Web Page, Complete" or similar, it will save the HTML into a file as well as all the loaded resources (such as images) in a folder next to it. From there you can find all the images from that page in said folder.

The DKC ropes appear to be a single tile repeated vertically and a separate image for the bottommost part.

[Phyreburnz]

Thanks a lot, Kingizor! That really helps a ton!

[Phyreburnz]

Okay, another question with the maps... I'm good with objects now, but this problem is with saving different layer images. For example, this time, I'm trying to get BKG layer 3 on Jungle Hijinxs. If I save the page as complete, it gets me objects, not background images or anything like that. Is there a way I can save this image?

*EDIT* I did notice that there are level scenery images on the atlas itself, so that should be sufficient.

[Kingizor]

The background thing seems to be a known issue (it seems that any resource specified in CSS won't get saved along with everything else, which is rather unfortunate). Firefox for instance has had it listed as a bug since 2001, but other browsers seem to behave similarly. I'm 99% sure it worked for me when I suggested that solution the first time, but it doesn't seem to have worked since.

Saving arbitrary images can vary a bit depending on the browser you use, but there is usually a way. In Firefox if you right click and select "View Page Info", then choose the media tab, you'll end up with a list of all the loaded resources. You can navigate through them and save whichever ones you want.

The other methods are usually a tiny bit more involved. Chrome and Firefox (and other browsers) have a set of development tools (usually accessible by pressing F12). Among these is a "Network" tab that logs each resource as it is loaded along with other useful data. You can usually right click on an item in the list, select "Open in a new tab" and save the image from there. If you click on any item an info panel will appear. From there if you choose the "Response" tab in Firefox or the "Preview" tab in Chrome, it'll actually show you a preview of the selected image.

[BlueTronic]

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[Qyzbud]

I disabled registration some months ago due to spambots attempting to sign up en masse, which was crashing the forum. I figured I'd solve the issue in a matter of minutes, or at worst hours... but it turned out to be a bigger and more difficult job than I'd expected.

Rather than continuing to fiddle with and hack away at our out-of-date forum software in an attempt to fix things, I resolved to do things the "right" way, and do a full reinstallation of the forum software with the latest version — which would improve security, stability, performance, etc, plus add modern features and so forth, and would allow me to keep things up to date from now on, which has been very awkward to do because of the aforementioned fiddling and hackery I've employed to get things working in the past.

Of course life has gotten in the way of progress here, but I'm hopeful that I'll find time for this process over the next week or so. Installing this latest version will likely solve the spambot problem outright, but if not, it ought to make the process easier, or at the very least it will feel more worthwhile to put time into developing an up-to-date installation rather than continuing to patch the holes of a long obsolete and hastily hacked together bowl of spaghetti code.

[OneOf99]

Glad to know Qyz! At least we recovered from the spambot epidemic a few months ago... that was... slightly terrifying.

[CM August]

Please resolve this registration issue. I've had a good friend wish to register in the past week and he still can't do so.

[OneOf99]

I agree. We need this update soon.

[CM August]

The same friend is still waiting. I'm not sure which is more unbelievable, that this issue still exists or that he still cares to join.

[Kingizor]

The last time registration was open for more than a mere few minutes we were inundated by a bazillion kinky Soviet spybots, or so I'm led to believe.

Still, it probably wouldn't hurt to press our own red fellow some more on the matter. Qyzbud

[VideoViking]

Qyzbud, would you consider manual invitation registration?

[Qyzbud]

CM August, I sent you a PM to help get the ball rolling with your friend's registration.

VideoViking, invitations are something I'd be open to if there's a good way to implement such a system; I'll take a look at our options.

Anyone looking to register while the issue persists can email me (my username @gmail.com) and I'll open registration temporarily when they're ready to sign up.