Wing Commander Chronicles ... first page

I have also tweaked both pages so far to get rid of those annoying blue lines that were on the sides of the images, which are from me taking the screen grabs while DosBox is not on full screen. For whatever reason, I can't take screen caps when it's on full screen, so I have to take them in the smaller window.
Have you tried using Ctrl+F5 to take the screenshots? That's the built-in screenshot option of DOSbox and in my experience it works nice, both in fullscreen and windowed mode, and it's easy to take multiple screenshots in one go. I believe it creates PNG files.

You can even record videos with Ctrl+Alt+F5 (press again to stop recording) and soundclips (the same, but with Alt+F5). It might pack some impact on your performance, if you've a slower machine. If it does, try (while you're not recording) how far you can lower the DOSbox cycles with the game still running smoothly, and then try again to record. Also make sure to use the "dynamic" core. (I always use that, except when a game won't work with it. It dramatically eases the load on the CPU.)
 
No, I hadn't tried that. Thanks for the tip, it works swell!

After a few days break, the conversion is coming along swimmingly. I've only got 4 more sets of caps to re-take before I start converting everything I had for WC2 to PNG files, and then moving forward with the project again, finally. I'm happy with how the SM2 page is turning out. Everything (except the stuff I've yet to convert) looks so much more crisp, looks better put together, and has a better overall feel. I even added some extra caps to the page, and I don't have that "hodge podge" feeling when I look at it anymore. If I can clean the WC2 page up the same way, I'll be happy as a clam. The sooner I get these other pages done (WC2, SO1 & 2, then Privateer), the sooner I can jump back into the cockpit for WC4. Looking forward to it!
 
Finally done with the conversion of the first three pages! I hadn't gone that far into the WC2 page, but I've still got a decent amount of conversion ahead of me for that page. However, I added new screen caps to the SM2 page, as well as new text. It looks so much better now.
 
I am running into a problem more and more frequently as of late, and wondered if anyone here can help me out. As I keep working on the page, I keep hitting Angelfire's "preview" button to look at it, instead of just visiting the page through my browser, since that increases the number of page views, which I don't like to do. Anyway, I've noticed that several images that I have uploaded to Photobucket are having problems. Randomly and intermittently, with both JPEG and PNG files, the images in question have had the bottom half of them just disappear. I can't explain it properly, so I took a screen shot of what is happening.

problem.png


When I view the image on Photobucket, it's whole and does not appear to have any problems. I have to then upload the image a second time and change the code around, which is annoying! It just keeps happening and I have to keep backtracking. Anyone have any idea?
 
If the image is correct on Photobucket, then maybe there's an issue with your cached copy when you view it from the web-site? I really don't know, sorry.
 
Well, I just looked at the page, and I don't see any of these image issues. So it may just be an issue on your end...cached image or something else bizarre with previewing.

Or it could be the browser (currently using firefox) cause sometimes the formatting of certain webpages or image can get read incorrectly or something like that depending on the browser and page code. Only noticed it occurring one time before though.
 
No, you guys have it right. My friend and I figured out this problem last night. We came to the conclusion that my browser was trying to render too many images at once, and thus had problems with some of them. When I re-loaded the page to try and correct it, it was re-loading cached copies of the pictures, including those that had loaded with this problem. If I cleared my cache and reloaded, it wasn't a problem. He viewed the pages and said the same as you guys, that he saw no problems. That's when we figured out it was a problem on my end, so it is cleared up now. Is there any way to keep this from happening? Each subsequent page seems to have more and more screen caps on it, and I would hate for this to be a chronic problem for other people.

I am now making forward progress on the WC2 page. I've only got a few pics left to convert to PNG, and I have added a ton of new PNGs and text to the page. I will link it when I am finished with it, and I am working on it bit by bit every day. My recovery is pretty much complete now, from my surgery that is, and I am now just waiting for things to heal up. When that happens, they will give me a new set of partials that will be permanent, and I can either save or get rid of the temporary partials I have now. Thanks for weighing in, fellas!
 
Hoo boy. I added 33 new grabs tonight. I don't know how many I've done over the course of the last few days. It's probably pretty close to 100. Just an update to let you know I'm still working. :)
 
I just have a question about this I'd like to ask everyone here who is interested. As I have been working on the page for Wing Commander 2 (in between work, sleep, and other duties), I've noticed that the amount of screen grabs I've taken and used is way, way more than I originally thought. A friend of mine looked at the (still as yet unfinished) page, and suggested that I break it up into parts, just because there was so much text and so many screen grabs that putting it all together on the same page was a kind of a sensory overload sort of thing.

My question is, is there such a thing as too many screen grabs? I mean, I don't plan on taking a grab of every single different screen in the game, but I am up to 292 screen grabs at this point, and I am not even done yet. I estimate that I will have close to 350 by the time I am done, and if I had more than that, I wouldn't be surprised. Any opinions on the subject are welcome. I will be linking to the page within the next few days, hopefully before the end of this weekend, if all goes well.
 
Loading so many images, even if they are small ones, can be a strain for both server and client. Especially for clients with low data transfer capacity.

But I think the prevailing assumption is that 'everyone' has high capacity Internet. Even if that assumption is unwarranted.
 
Well, I did break the WC2 page up, as my friend suggested, into 3 parts and an intermission. Do you think I should create a series of pages with links instead of pics for potential low speed viewers?
 
A series of pages that are linked to the next in the chain at the bottom of that page like you have already.

WC1 -> WCSO1 -> WCSO2 -> WC2a -> WC2b -> ...
 
I think what he meant was some kind of "table of contents" for all the pages in that chain, so that someone with low internet speed who already visited doesn't have to load the pages all again (when they're out of the cache already) but can skip to the one he/she wants directly.

I'd say, why not. You could put that on that first introductory page or make a seperate page just for it. But remember to put backlinks to that TOC page on every page, or else it defeats the purpose.
 
I mean have two links on the intro page. One link will take you to a set of pages with links to click on if you want to see an imagine instead of the images being pasted on the screen. That will be for low speed connections. The other link will take you to a set of pages that have all the photos on them, and that will be for high speed connections. Does anyone remember frames? Pages used to have buttons you could click that said: "view with frames," and "view without frames."

Mine would just look like:

Click here if you have a low speed connection
Click here if you have a high speed connection

It would require me to create a whole new set of pages, but it would just be copy and paste, and removing the IMG code, adding the URL code instead. Too bad Angelfire doesn't have a "replace all" feature. :p It wouldn't be a terrible amount of extra work, and I'd be willing to do it for the occasional user who does not have a supa-fast internet connection.
 
I'm no web design expert, but my personal feeling is that sites shouldn't really offer a dual solution, but instead make an effort to present something that is both high quality, yet still avoiding exorbitant download requirements. To this end, I would favour breaking up long pages into smaller ones rather than offering a dual-solution which feels a bit like 'upper-class' / 'lower-class' to me.

I remember frames, and the ugliness they were (both in terms of presentation and coding), and I didn't think the frame/non-frame option was a good idea either.

But then, this is all only my opinion and you need not pay attention to it one bit.
 
In the end, I decided not to do all the extra work of making a link-only set of pages, as I felt the same way as Wedge, and didn't feel like doing all the extra work. :p

HOWEVER!

I can finally say that the Wing Commander 2 page is complete. I think it's as complete as I am going to get it, and after undergoing a few different format changes as I worked through it, I feel like how it is now is the best way I can present it (keeping in as close of a similarity with the other pages as I could).

The amount of screen caps started out small, and quickly turned gigantic. By my count, there are over 420 screen caps (just for WC2...not for all the pages combined) spread out through several pages. The breaking up of everything into several parts also seems to have solved the problem I was having earlier of images not loading. Since there is not nearly as many images on each page as I was trying to load all at once before, the problem has not yet resurfaced.

I also changed the URLs for everything, as having all those pages scattered around my web shell was getting it kind of crowded up. I made individual folders for each game, and put all the information in there to tidy things up. I only mention this because if the site admins decide to put my project on the news page again, the URL will be different. Maybe they want to update their original post on the news page with the new URL. I don't know, I was just trying to be helpful.

The new start page is located at: Http://www.angelfire.com/cantina/tuck/WC1/wcintro.html

The Wing Commander 2 page, as I have just finished it, is located at: Http://www.angelfire.com/cantina/tuck/WC2/wc2.html

I look forward to and welcome all opinions, constructively negative and positive. I welcome any constructive criticism.

Thanks for your input, all! I'm going to probably take a break for the fourth of July before I start on the Special Operations 1 page.
 
Back
Top