Star Wars: The Mod - Unit requests

Hey, just to let you guys know, I'll still be working on the Z-95 Headhunter.... as soon as I'm finished with my current unit project (Shinra SOLDIER).

odintheking said:

Float slowly left and right, or up and down.

Click to expand...

I can have it sway for the default animation if you like.

@Hikaro- Awesome!
@polyphemus- I think seeing that every second would kind of bug people a little. The fidget should be fine.

That Super Star Destroyer looks cool!

I prefer the size of either the 1st or 3rd picture in the original preview. I also think the SSD should rotate to the side for its attack like the Civ3 Battleship.

I ran into a little snag with the TIE Bomber it will be up tonight at the earliest, more likely tomorrow.

I'll tell you all how to extract units from SW:GB here in a little bit, I gotta get my materials together first.

I have got to drop the Cruiser from my list. Sorry! I ran into a computer problem, and accidently uninstalled OpenFx. When I get it back, I may start working on it again, If I can find or make a model. Sorry guys!

It's ok, we've got other more productive unit makers here, ,

First, You need a copy of the Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds.

Now Go to http://swgb.heavengames.com/downloads

Next go to the Utilities Section

Find and Download the following files (they're a few pages back) :

SWGB DRS/SLP Viewer by Ykkrosh
SLP Listing SWGB/CC by James Martigo

The DRS viewer is what's needed to view .DRS files which are the data files for SW:GB, .SLP files are the individual art/animation/sound files in the game itself. The DRS Viewer also lets you extract these files into .BMP or .WAV files which I'll explain later.

Once you've got everything downloaded, open up the DRS Viewer. Go to "File" and "Open" now select GRAPHICS.DRS. Now you should see numbers to the left. Those are the SLP files and it is now evident why I told you to download that second file earlier, becuase all of the SLP files are named by number and it can take a long time to find a specific file without the SLP Listing index.

Now open up the the "Graphics" file in the SLP Listing SWGB/CC file you downloaded. This makes things easier, because now you can see which files are which. Unfortunately, there isn't an index for sound files so you'll have to look for sounds the hard way. Next I will teach you how to extract a Building, a Unit, and a Sound.


EXTRACTING BUILDINGS
First I'll start with extracting buildings. Look at the SLP Listing index and look for Jedi Temple/Rebel Alliance/Tech 2. It is listed at 278, so go back into the DRS Viewer and look at file 278. You should now see a Jedi Temple, now go to "Colors" and select "Mask." Select the color for magenta R=255, G=0, B=255 and hit OK. Now go to "Colors" and do the exact same thing for "Outline (inner)" and "Outline (outer)" this won't make a visible difference on buildings, but is neccessary for units. Now go to "Colors" and click "Shadow", select red, this will be your color for shadows, again this only works for units. Now that we have our transparency and shadows set up, we are ready to extract.

Go to "Image" and "Save as BMP", this will extract the building to a .BMP file, which can then be easily edited with a paint program into a .PCX file.


EXTRACTING UNITS
Secondly, It's time to extract a unit. Go back to the SLP Listing index, scroll down until you find Trooper/Galactic Empire/Standing. This is number 1192, again go back into the DRS Viewer and find file 1192. Now you see the Stormtrooper Standing, you can use the scroll at the top to cycle through the animation. Your Transparency and Shadows should still be set up so I don't have to repeat that step. Now go to "Image" and select "Save As Image Sequence," save the file as "StormtrooperDefault0", this will automatically extract all of the frames of the animation into individual .BMPs.

Now make a new storyboard call StormtrooperDefault in Civ3FLCEDIT or Flicster that is 40x57 and 8 Frames long. Before we can compile these bitmaps into the storyboard we need to get the colors for the palette. In the past some people skipped this step while extracting units, that why some of the Star Wars units are of low quality. Now open one of the .BMPs with Paint Shop Pro or GIMP and look at the palette, now begins the tedious task of transferring that palette to the storyboard you created. Once all of the colors have been added to the StormtrooperDefault storyboard we now must use Steph's Storyboard Builder to compile the frames into one file.

So now begins another time consuming step, there are 2 ways this can be achieved. The first way is to make folders for all 8 directions, and rename the .BMP files with 0001, 0002, 0003,... and so on so SSB and read the images. The second way is to place all 40 .BMPs into a folder called "SW", also make sure the files end with 4 numbers and use SSB to compile the images. We now have to cut and paste the frames into the StormtrooperDefault storyboard. Once everything edited and centered just right the animation can be extracted to .FLC and completed. NOTE: Some units need to be resized as well. Just repeat those steps for the other animations until the unit is completed.


EXTRACTING SOUNDS
Finally, we can extract a sound. Again there is no SLP Listing for sounds so we have to look for sounds the hard way. Go back into the DRS Viewer, this time go to "File" and "Open" select SOUNDS.DRS. Once you find a sound that is good, go to "Extract" and "Extract the File" and the sound will be extracted to a .WAV file that can be used in Civilization. You will never have to scour the internet for Star Wars sounds again!

If you have Clone Campaigns the files for those are "Graphics_x1.drs" and "Sounds_x1.drs." I guess that's it for my little tutorial.

Good Luck!

Wow. Please tell me it gets easier after the first time,

Once you figure it out, it comes more naturally.

Thanks. That was exactly what i was searching for.

Hmm.... I tried open the DRS viewer, and I got this message:http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/ytrv.JPG

yes!! i finally got Galactic Battlegrounds so now i can start converting.

odintheking said:

Hmm.... I tried open the DRS viewer, and I got this message:http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/ytrv.JPG

Click to expand...

I don;t know what wrong but maybe you should download the files again.

If that still does not work than download here

question. When i view an animation in the drsviewer i can't see the NE, E, or SE animations. Is that the way it is or is my viewer corrupt?

The units in SW:GB only have 5 directions the game compensates for the other directions by using mirror images.

@odin - I think I've heard about that error before. I think it only effects Windows XP users or something like that, I think I remember seeing a fix for it on the site where you download the DRS Viewer.

Chris85 said:

The units in SW:GB only have 5 directions the game compensates for the other directions by using mirror images.

@odin - I think I've heard about that error before. I think it only effects Windows XP users or something like that, I think I remember seeing a fix for it on the site where you download the DRS Viewer.

Click to expand...

I have XP and it works fine for me. Maybe you just need to download it again.

how are you going to implement the LIGHT, MEDIUM, and HEAVY turret in the game. Are they units? also i am going to take a break from my SSD. Poser is acting up and it's taking forever for me to get a good SouthWest attack animation in it considering all the lasers i need to add. Boy is it a pain. SO ill start converting units and hopefully the conversion process works. When i feel like i can conquer that SSD ill start on it again.

Ok, polyphemus, that's fine.
@Chris85 - great job on the bomber! As for the B-wing, can you make a bombing anim, too, just in case?
EDIT: I've downloaded the extractor 3 times, and from ployphemus, too. I can't find the patch, either.

I wasn't planning on making a bombard animation for the B-Wing, but I'll try. Any suggestion on what I should make it look like?

EDIT: Odin try this to see if it works ---> *.ocx files for mod utilities

It installs the comdlg.ocx and richtx.ocx files that are needed to operate the mod utilities, so it might fix the problem.

Just make little bombs fall out from under the B-wing.