I THINK i'm optimizing my PNGs, but could you clarify what it means to do so? I've just ben mostly using photoshop to make new buttons and stuff and assuming it's at the best settings. If you can tell me what the correct settings or the correct thing to do is, i can go back and make sure that's done. So far i haven't encountered problems with it though.
I can pipe in here real quick!
As for optimizing images, there are two concerns:
1.
Taking up as little space (and bandwidth) as possible for the images. It is important to note that (unless something has changed) this as NO affect on the storage space taken up by the rendered boxes in Wiiflow. They each take up the same amount of storage space.
2.
Avoiding crashes or errors in Wiiflow when converting images to boxes. It is important to understand this this ONLY affects Wiiflow when it is converting images to boxes, and runs into an out of memory error. Once the boxes are created, they each take up the same amount of memory load.
So, to address #1, I have tried numerous PNG optimization algorithms, and have found that there is a surprisingly wide range of performance from various algorithms, with the exact same pixel for pixel quality. Some of them will create very bloated PNG files and some will create very small PNGs that are incompatible with Wiiflow. The best I have found, is the algorithm used in recent versions of Photoshop. If you choose the "Smallest file size (Slowest Saving)" option, it will write files that are within ~1–2% of the smallest file sizes achievable, with seemingly 100% Wiiflow compatibility.
Now, if you want to go even further with #1, and address #2, you need to save the PNG with a reduced colour palette. There are numerous ways to do this, I won't detail them here. The more you reduce the colour palette the worse the image looks, but it also tends to get much smaller. In some cases the loss in quality is barely perceptible. This obviously saves more space for problem #1, and I am told that it allows Wiiflow to convert way more images to boxes at once in #2.
My personal $0.02 is to just bother with #1. People can always convert images to boxes on a PC, or in batches (I've never had a problem doing 300 at a time). However, some people may appreciate the effort with #2, or providing both.
If anyone has any additional info they can share on #2, please do! I have literally never seen this error myself, so I know very little about it.