Garden Gnome Software

While editing an older skin using Pano2VR v2.3 beta4 I noticed something odd: newly added .png images of 88x88 pixels or smaller do not show up in the pano, but much smaller .png's that were already in the skin do.

In other words: if I add a .png of 89x89 pixels it will be visible in the resulting Flash VR, if I make it 88x88 pixels or smaller it won't.
However, if I tell the skin editor to convert them into .jpg's on import, smaller .png images do show up, but without transparency (of course).
It doesn't matter if I add the .png as an image or as a button, the effect is the same.

Is this a know bug in v2.3 beta4?

This is odd. I have a skin full of navigation elements imported as transparent PNG, most of them as small as 16x16 and they work just fine. I tested just now with multiple shapes and colors from 88x88 to 70x70, 60x60 and 40x40... Everything imports without problem and all shows up in the library as well as the file output.
I'm using exactly same version as you on PC, I use photoshop to export my PNG using the PNG-24 format.

I´ve observed that when resizing a .png button for example in another soft then PS ( ACDSee actually) I had problems. At the moment I´m working on a skin with buttons of 23x23 pixels (originals from Hopki, resized with PS) with no problems at all. Maybe it has something to do with the settings I don´t know, but that´s what happens
Regards, Martin

It is possibly a colour depth thing that has been covered before. Without seeing it is hard to say.
I have never experienced anything to do with physical size that has caused an issue. (that's not to say I wont!)

Regards, Smooth

The images were all PNG-24's (made in PS CS4), so it wasn't the colour depth thing.
It IS a colour related thing though: PNG's with only one single colour (like a red dot or a black line) on a transparent background either show or do not show, depending on their (pixel) size. Add another colour and the problem is gone.
I vaguely remember reading about this particular issue with .png's and Flash a long time ago, but I completely forgot about it.
The 88/89 pixel size limit I found with simple black squares doesn't seem to apply to other images, so what the threshold is for them appearing or not appearing remains unclear to me.

I'll have to take back my last comment: even with more than one colour in them there appears to be a minimum size to .png's where they will or will not show up in the Flash pano. Maybe there is a minimum size in bytes (in stead of pixels) that governs this behaviour?

edit: nope, that's not it: a multi-coloured (with transparency) 10x10 pixel square of 163 bytes will show up, whereas a 20x20 pixel image of a red dot on a transparent background of 171 bytes will not.

Here's a combination of screenshots from the skin-editor and the Stand-Alone Flash player.
As you can see some of the elements in the skin-editor window are missing in the Flash version.
It seems like it's a combination of pixel size and the number of colours in a .png that causes it to not appear in the Flash panorama.

Surprisingly the 4-coloured 9x9 pixel .png of 174 bytes is shown, whereas the red 15x15 pixel one of 178 bytes is not.
With the red squares, which do not have transparency, all including the 85x85 pixel one of 208 bytes are invisible, the 90x90 pixel one of 226 bytes is not. So it would appear it's not (just) file size that matters.



edit: I've replaced the rather chaotic initial example with a more clearly structured version.

I found the bug in Adobes Flash Player and implemented a work around in Pano2VR 2.3 beta 5. They seem to ignore their own specs.

thomas wrote:I found the bug in Adobes Flash Player and implemented a work around in Pano2VR 2.3 beta 5. They seem to ignore their own specs.

You should submit the bug at http://www.adobe.com/go/wish
they do read that stuff and take under consideration.