Wassup Skins

[kennyd]

I am trying to build a skin for wassup with a background image.  An error occurs while compiling the skin due to the size of the background image.  Apparently the max file size can not exceed 64K.  For the HiRes devices the background image is split into two parts in order to occomodate the minimum file size.  The two files that make up the background image for my skin exceed that limit.  The upper image weighs in at 69.8k while the lower image weighs in at 72.9k.  I have tried everything that the skin maker has suggested in trying to reduce the file size of each image ie


filtering the image through the "palm" pallete.
filling in with solid colors wherever possible.  (This is supposed to generate more compression during the conversion )


Are there any other options out there to try to get an image file size smaller with out changing the deminsion of the image.  Is there another pallete that I can filter the image through that generates smaller file sizes. 

[pipedaddy]

Kenny,

Try saving the image file in 256 colors instead of 64K colors. Wassup only displays 256 to make it load faster, I think.

[Darius]

You don't have to shrink those sizes. I just made a bg for wassup last night and the two images were around the same size (both over 64k). What's the exact error you're getting, because mine worked fine...

[Festus440]

The 64K limit applies after the skin has been compiled (and compressed).

Unfortuneately PilRc, which is used in the Wassup Skinmaker, only supports "scanline" compression.

Scanline is actually "vertical" compression. It compresses pixels that are the same color going from the top to the bottom. Using diffusion on the image when you reduce the colors, makes it look better, but also makes it harder to compress.

[kennyd]

Originally posted by Festus440
The 64K limit applies after the skin has been compiled (and compressed).

Unfortuneately PilRc, which is used in the Wassup Skinmaker, only supports "scanline" compression.

Right.  I noticed that with some images it did not matter how small I was capable of reducing the size of the image before conversion.  In fact most of the skins that I successfully compiled weighed in at about 80k prior to compiling with sucesss.  Other images that couldn't make it throught the compiling I was able to rip them down to 34k prior to conversion, but would fail.  The difference between the two images is exclusively relative to how much solid color filled the image.

[Noodles Hovar]

I'm glad to see folks working on skins. Be sure to post them here so we can enjoy them!
Wassup is such a great program and I look forward to seeing some cool skins.