Image compression

[zodiac44]

How much of a PITA would it be to add image compression to the game?  I just noticed that my game folder is approaching 1GB, nearly all of which is from .jpgs.

[LordShame]

JPGs don't compress well at all; they're already extremely compressed by nature. You can use a mass conversion tool (like this free one) to further compress them yourself but you'll lose some quality.

[exodia91]

the only advice I can give you is prune out girls you don't really want, and sort through images and remove unneeded ones.

[DocClox]

Can probably save some space resize some pictures as well.

[zodiac44]

Oh well.  It was just a thought.  I'm not running out of disk space, it just seems like there should be a better way to store the images.

[DocClox]

Tell you what: there's a program called SequioaView that does a very good job of visualising disk usage. Install that and set it loose on your game folder.  It should show up where the space is being taken up. If it's spread fairly evenly, there's not a lot we can do. But if there are a few files using a disproportionate amount of space, there might be something we can do.
 
http://w3.win.tue.nl/nl/onderzoek/onderzoek_informatica/visualization/sequoiaview/

[zodiac44]

It's a very even distribution; the largest file is about .3% of the total.  There aren't any hotspots that can be fixed, unless someone knows of an archiving format that can compress .jpgs further.

[Mehzerz]

I don't know if some of the images have been compressed since the game first came out, but If you compress some of them any further you'll start to lose quality. If you have photoshop or something, you can open up the images go to file>Save for web
Here you can adjust the quality of your jpgs. (About 80% is good) Dagoth did this to some of the images WAY BACK when the game first appeared. Whether that's been a common theme recently or not, I don't know.
Might even help the game load the images faster.

[zodiac44]

I'm not going to mess with the jpg's individually - there are over 6000 of them in all the girl packs put together.

[EternalEquinox]

This was something i never really took into account and now that i think about it the pics to pile up after awhile. I save them in there original quality and to not compress for fear of losing quality. My feel is that if the space is an issue is to remove unneeded images. If you remove an entire folder as exodia suggested you must also remove the calibrating info from the .girl file and that can get messy if you dont pay attention

[zodiac44]

Once a girl has been assembled, it becomes tedious to fix the problem by reformatting or removing images.  The problem is simply exacerbated by the sheer number of girls released in girl packs.  I was hoping for a single shot solution to the problem, but since that is unlikely to develop, I prefer to leave it alone.  If I run out of disk space because of WM, something is seriously wrong, and I think it would have more to do with my psychological state than the size of the image files.  >;o)

[letmein]

Yeah, pretty much...   you might be able to trim a bit by merely killing off girls (or at least images) you don't like, but that could prove a bit time-consuming as well.  Otherwise, well, a gig is basically nothing these days.  Ironic that I say that, given that I still own a first-model Nano with a hefty two gigs, and a couple old computers at home that barely push past of the kilobyte range.

[Mehzerz]

Well, I don't mind the size of the images. You have to keep in mind that some images are smaller or larger than others so while some can handle a LOT of compression others will look really bad.
I found a program called PhotoELF that will compress batches of images. I'm sure there's others but in any case while trying it out the compression for the image I tried was awful, and by no means as good photoshops.
If you HAVE to have a ton of images for girls this may be one of your better options. (I tried 80% on one girl AWFUL quality)


I heard a program called Breezesys works wonders as batching.
It can be found below. I havent tried myself so I can't confirm. (Trial only allows you to compress 12 images at a time, which should be plenty for this game.)
http://www.breezesys.com/downloads.htm

If I run out of disk space because of WM, something is seriously wrong, and I think it would have more to do with my psychological state than the size of the image files.  >;o)

The reason they're so large is so you can add your own girls. If you ever played Sim Brothel you'll see how small it is. However, with that game you can't add your own girls or really customize it at all. I think girls only have 3 images as well.
/Wall of text.

[letmein]

That sounds about right for SB - the new version, anyway.  However, you might do better comparing to Slave Maker II, which is image-intensive and IIRC also sneaking up on the gig barrier - and that game has little to no modded expansions, and all images controlled and compressed by the creator.

[zodiac44]

The latest release of SMII is at 350 MB, though it's all in flash files.  I don't know what format(s) Flash uses internally, so it could be poor image compression which is to blame.  They certainly don't have enough girls in the game or images per girl to account for that space using jpg's.