Re: More flexible unit image use

[Hans Ronne <hronne@comhem.se>]

>> I think there should be a serious overhaul of the
>> graphics used by XConq.
>
>This is something you could probably do. Just edit them out of the
>'imf.dir' file in the 'lib' directory. And, once it is cleaned up,
>give the new file to Hans or myself, so we can look it over
>and merge the cleaned up image directory into CVS.

Let's not rush things here. The many images in imf.dir is not the main
problem (except if you try to load all of them into some versions of
IMFApp). And I think we still need to keep many of the older images for
some games, such as "Classic Xconq", which are supposed to be that way.
Nostalgia for old-time xconqers ...

What I had in mind when I talked about the need for an overhaul was the
image loading code (something which I think we already discussed). It could
be made much more efficient, for example by not loading all images in a
file, just the ones you want. There is also a static limit on the number of
image families, MAXIMAGEFAMILIES, which we hit every now and then. I bumped
it to 3000 to accomodate the awls images, but I guess we will run out of
space again when you are done with the Angband graphics. Getting rid of
this ceiling and making image loading more modular is on my todo list.

If you want to make a useful contribution, I think rather than throwing
away images in imf.dir, you might consider going through some of the
existing game modules and updating the images they use with better images
already available in Xconq. I did that with several game modules when I
carried out a general overhaul earlier this year. For example, the roman
game now uses images from ancient.imf and the Beirut game uses the trident
images. I think many more game modules could easily be given a more
attractive look that way.

Hans