First, sorry this is very late in being posted. Had something unexpected come up this evening.
Second, I'm not building a new full install, at least not tonite. If you already have the tool, just replace FLICster.exe with the new one. If not, please run the installer (at the start of this thread) and then replace the exe with this version.
NOW: What's new? Palettes, thats what. In a CIV3-FLIC, all the directional animations share a palette. When FLICster splits a CLIV3-FLIC into Standard FLCs, each FLC gets its own copy of the palette. Animation Shop has a nasty habit of "optimizing" the palette (its not a bug, its a feature!) by re-arranging and even merging the entries. This is a Bad Thing. Further, when editing the cells in another program (say, PaintShopPro), if you make any changes to the palette of any cel, you can end up with multiple palettes in one animation. While this is technically legalk in a FLC, it seems to also be a Bad Thing for civ3.
So, on to solutions. Most of the Civ3 FLCs (mebbe all? not sure) follow a pattern - the first frame of the first direction (SW for those keeping score at home) has a palette (COLOR_256 chunk with 1 packet of 256 rgb tuples, but who's counting), and none of the other frames in any direction do. So, I've updated FLICster to take advantage of this.
When splitting a file, FLICster 0.1.2 will read the COLOR_256 chunk of the first frame of the first direction (basically, the palette for the whole animation) and emit the palette as a JASC .PAL file - a saved palette file usable by AS & PSP. It's created in the same directory as all the split files.
When editing a FLC file using Animation Shop, be sure to edit the individual frames in PSP (they're integrated... go for it). Once you open the frame in PSP, go to the Color menu, and choose Load Palette (edit palette and save palette aren't available yet, because PSP thinks the file has transparency info. Go figure), and load the .PAL file created during the split. You will be asked if you want to "flatten" the file. Yes, you do. BE SURE that when you load the palette, you choose 'Nearest color' error correction. Since all the colors in the picture are in the palette already, there's no error correction needed, and everything will look fine. Now, you are using the exact palette the original CIV3-FLIC used. IF YOU CHANGE THE PALETTE (edit palette on the color menu) - there are 3 rules. Rule 1 - stay away from the first row of 16 colors - all shades of blue. These are the colors that CIV3 translates for civ colors, ie, green for persia, pink for france, etc. Rule 2 - Don't touch that last color! The gawd-awful fucia we all know and hate is the transparency color, and I think Civ3 wants that in the last spot on the palette. Rule 3 - save the palette and use it for ALL of the animations, and all of the frames.
Okay, if you've gotten this far, then you have edited all the cells in a standard FLC file, and it's time to save the changes. First up, select all the frames at once in AS and right click to choose properties. In the ensuing dialog, change the frame delay to 1/1000 of a second. By default, the AS seems to use 6 ms, which is nice for viewing your FLCs in AS, but BAD BAD BAD for saving. Right before you save it, be sure you set the frame delay to 1 MS. Good.
Now, save it. When you save a FLC in AS, you get a dialog box. Click the CUSTOMIZE button. Pick 256 colors, and choose "Custom Palette". Now click Browse, and browse to your PAL file ( the one FLICster created for you, or the one you created if you edited the original PAL ). Okay, NOW you can save it.
I did test this, and it worked fine. I put a flapping bird over the shoulder of the Modern Worker's RUN animation (South bound only). Sorry, i'm no artist. Anyway, using the above steps to keep the palettes in sync, I re-merged the file and tried it in game. WORKS! WOOHOO! I would post it for people to see, but I did it at work (blush) and forgot to mail it home. I'll try to post it tomorrow.
As I've said before, I think this process is pretty &*%^** unwieldy, and I don't like it. I'm working on something better. In the mean while, I figured folks would rather have a poor tool than no tool at all. The updated EXE is attached. Stay tuned for more.
PLEASE post your successes/failures... I really want to see this help folks, but I don't have the time or the artistic talent to do as much testing as i'd like.