Marcus Blair Development

Why, when it’s graphical text!

So this week has been one of many minor setbacks and equally minor breakthroughs. We started implementing the cutscenes, using JQuery effects to achieve a glow on some of the letters. After going through the requirements thoroughly with Abe and Brian, as well as their UI guy, I went off on some other development tasks thinking that the whole operation was under control. Imagine my surprise when I come back into the fold to discover that all the “text” in the cutscenes had been changed to animated PNGs, with each line of “text” weighing in around an amazing 1M!

Needless to say I wasn’t happy, and in the ensuing scramble, I had to invest hours trying to find a comparable pure-text based effect. We evaluated and tested what seemed to be about 100 effects, a few of them polished and commercial-quality, a lot of them rough and amateur. Here’s a small sampling:

• http://nakajima.github.com/jquery-glow/
• http://cssglobe.com/lab/fading_text_links/
• http://www.ssi-developer.net/css/visual-filters.shtml
• http://kilianvalkhof.com/2008/css-xhtml/cross-browser-text-shadow/
• http://www.jquery.wisdomplug.com/jquery-plugins/jquery-text-effects-plugins/text-effects-in-jquery/

At the end of the day we wound up settling on jquery-glow, as it seemed closest the effect we were looking for, and the most cross-browser compatible. If you’re feeling bored, you can check it out, and when our alpha is ready you’ll be able to see what we’ve done with it in the game. Hopefully you’ll find it easier on the eyes and your internet connection, than the previous graphic “text”. Humph!