Ok, please could someone help me with a little problem

I use Corel Photopaint and/or Adobe photoshop for editing the unit pcx strips created by FLICster.

I always run into problems when I edit the green color that is used for the shadow of a unit.

I can use the purple color to paint over this green color - everything is fine. I can draw a unit over this green - no problem. But as soon as I pick up the green color (via pipette) to edit the shadow itself, the shadow is not displayed correctly anymore in FLICster (and in the game). With Photopaint, when I change only a single pixel in green, this pixel is diplayed in the same green in the game - not as the shadow. With Photoshop, it is not displayed as green, but as transparent, so the shadow has "holes"...

This is a bit annouying when you try to optimize the shadow in a unit anim. Does someone have an idea how to fix this?

I believe its because you're not using the alpha-blend (?) palette when editing the shadows. Kryten told me if you don't use the alpha palette bundled with Flicster when editing shadows, the shadows come out funky when in the game.

but fon't take my word for it, I have not made a unit (yet).

Thanks for the answer :) but this brings me to the next question: How do I use these palettes?

I don´t consider myself a newbie when it comes to gfx, but I´m a bit inexperienced with such transparency operations...

In my Photoshop 5.5 it seems I can´t load the "Unitname_AlphaA.pal" pallette files created by Flicster (or I make something wrong). It always says "Not a valid Microsot color table" (or something similar - my version is in German).

Haven´t tried Photopaint yet...

I'm not sure how to do it with PS6, but in PSP7 you just Load Palette.

Again, I reccomend you get some advice from Dark Sheer/Level/Kryten/oterh unit creators to make sure what I say is absolutely correct. One of things most people say is don't touch the palette. So, BE CAREFUL.

Originally posted by Exsanguination
One of things most people say is don't touch the palette.

Yep, I learned it the hard way.... :o ;)

However, thanks for your advice, I´ll ask the experts ...

With the "green" shadow in flickster the actual shadow is made up of a graded shape painted in different palette entries (rather than different colours), the pallete entries in the shadow and smoke section are all the same colour and are all the same colour as the border colour (usualy).
I use Corel photopaint which like photoshop, can't load the Alpha blend palettes, so I usualy edit the shadow and smoke entries manualy (using the palette editor option you get when converting an image to 128colours) and then replace the shadows with a new colour from the edited shadows. The down side is that the shaodws are no longer "smooth" because they are all one colour, If you make the shadows and smoke all different shades of magenta, you can then use a colour mask to grab the shadows only, and paste them in to a new file on a magenta background. Then use a blending technique from photoshop to smooth the shadow (make sure you change the shadow to what ever you want it to be) and then when you are finished, use a colour mask to grab the magenta colour (background), invert the mask and paste your new shadows back in to the original storyboard. You may want a copy of the original unit (without shaows) to paste over the top of your new shaows, because using blend can cause the new shadows to be pasted over the points where it touches the unit (Legs, wheels etc...).

That is all very complicated to explain, but it is all very obvious when you are actualy doing the modifications. Here is a unit that I modifies to have transparent explosions (by making the layer with the explosions 50% transparent and posting it over the default flic);

Hopefully someone else can explain an easier way to do this, I usualy don't do cut and paste method, All my units are done in 3d.

Thanks, this sounds interesting, I´ll test it in the next days. Your example anim is very helpful...;)

If one has more tips, there are all welcome :)

I don't use Photoshop, but if you can load the palette you will notice that when flicster convert the flc it somehow make all the shadow shading into one color. (when you load up the palette you will see a whole row of green, assuming green is the shadow color)

If you use storyboard then the best thing is not to mess with the shadow. If, however, you use animation shop together with paintshoppro, then you need to edit the shadow color in the palette so that only one spot in the palette is green (or whatever shadow color). Of course you can do shadow shading by putting different shades of green in the last 16 or so spot. The very last spot being pink which is the transparent color in the flc.

Just remember that no matter what color you use for shadow in the flc, they uses the last 16 (or 32) spot and the same color must not appear anywhere else in the palette. ;)

Well, thanks for all the help, I fixed it.

In the end it was easier than I thought, in Photoshop 5.5, you don´t have to load a Flicster created palette, simply change some of the last colors (except of the purple and one green field) from the palette of the pcx strip into darker greens (similar to what Dark Sheer described for PSP). Then you can use these dark green colors to edit the shadow - works fine. :)