barry@netcom.UUCP (Kenn Barry) (11/08/90)
[] Just a small application note that might be of interest to someone: the FBM utility, 'fbcat', can translate other picture formats into IFF, but if the number of colors is too high, the results are not generally useful. If, for example, you translate a 256-color GIF picture to IFF with 'fbcat', you'll get an 8-plane IFF picture, and Amigas don't have 8 bitplanes. The good news is this: The Art Department *will* read such 8-plane IFFS, and can be used to translate them into a displayable format (e.g., HAM, Dynamic Hires, etc.). This means that you can use 'fbcat', which is free, to translate such pictures for processing with The Art Department, and save the extra money The Art Department's GIF reader would cost. I discovered this by trying it. I also tried reading 8-plane IFFs with the Digi-View software, but this does not work. Kayembee
drtiller@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu (Donald Richard Tillery Jr) (11/08/90)
You can also create 24 bit RGB IFF files with GIFtoRGB (user version 1.1). It is up on abcfd20. This also answers all the quesions about translating GIFs to 24 bit format. The intention of the program was originally to load the files into the Digi-View 4.0 software for processing into the Amiga modes, including the exotic ones. The Art Department will do this also (although not quite as well in some cases) and this program too will save you the money for the GIF module. Rick Tillery (drtiller@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu)