New Unit: Yevon YAT-97 Artillery Droid (25 OCT 04)

DJ Bonebraker

a.k.a Laura
Joined
Mar 10, 2004
Messages
5,644
Location
Eorzea, Hydaelyn
Well, thanks to Civ III FLCedit, this project is finally complete. You see, I would have been finished two days ago, but when converting the Attack and Death animations to Civ III FLC files, I ran into the infamous pixel eating bug that results from making FLCs lager than 200x200 with FLCster. Thankfully, I was able to download Civ III Flic Editor (the other FLC editing program) which does not have this problem. The only thing with Civ III FLC edit is that it's not all that great for changing the timing of the FLCs, and using it was about as pleasant as getting a root canal with a sharp rock, but it got the job done.

Anyways, the YAT-97 is one of the forbidden Machina that the Church of Yevon (in FFX) uses to guard thier most sacred places (despite the fact that such machina are against the teachings of Yevon). I've spent several hours playing FFX... to umm.... ensure the accuracy of the animations (yeah, that's it). Even though this is a Final Fantasy based unit, it wouldn't look too out of place for other Sci-fi mods for use as either Artillery or anti-air. The Yevon use them for both. When you go to Bevelle for the first time via the Al Bhed airship, the Yevon guards and the YAT-99's on guard detail start sending up a good cloud of flak.

Thanks to being back in the ol' homeport, I've been able to upload the entire unit to the server, so you can get the entire unit in one fairly easy to download Zip file (~720K). Also for your viewing pleasure, I've included the animation previews.

Dowload the Yevon YAT-97

Animation preview order is fidget,run, run, fortify, attack, and death
 

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Excellant work Hikaro, looks like you have taken it straight from the game, not designed it by hand!
Can't wait for the mod to be released.
By the way Garnet looks amazing, what's next? more leaderheads or units?
 
The designs on the barrels are great!
 
Thanks, guys. I'm glad you like it.

Archon: I'm glad you like how it turned out. You see, once I got to the Zanarkand Dome ruins, I must've had to fight at least 40 of those things in a 30 minute period, so I had plenty of opportunity to observe all the animations (particularly the death once I'd rotate either Auron or Wakka into the active party :evil: )

As for my next projects, I'll be doing both a LH and a unit (both of which I've already started). The unit is a certain Orky unit that a certain someone requested for the WH40K mod and the LH is a very fammilliar face from FF VIII. I'll be making a preview thread in the main forum shortly...

Mr. Will, The original (in FFX) had a similar watered steel pattern on the barrels, so I used settings for a metal texture, but replaced the actual texture with one normally used for wavey water :lol:
 
Very clean cool unit... Although with the size of those barrels I would expect the flash from them to be a bit bigger. :D
 
WOW. Great Job Hikaro Takayama! This unit will be a Wonderful addition to my MOD too :thumbsup: :thanx: ...and by the way, the Flash from the barrels is Larger in Alpha Pal and in Game. The Flash is not cut off by the frame size like many units, Looks and works Great.
 
Hikaro Takayama, here are some Alternative pcx files. Basically reversed images with softer shadows and the Small pcx is sharper... just a matter of opinion on those but the units_32.pcx file is Civ Specific and you may want to use it. The palette #95 color in yours is not Civ Specific. Again Great Unit! :goodjob:
 

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Thanks for the comments.

KinBoat, as Vuldacon said, unless you view the unit with the alpha blend palette, it's kinda hard to see the lighter smoke colors. Whe alpha blending is turned on in FLCster, the smoke is almost twice as big as it appears in the preview.

Odin: Which civ would that be :wow: I've never seen any knight's amor that looked anything like that (although I've seen some robot in Star Wars somewhere that bore a resemblance if I remember. There's just something familliar about this robot design that I can't quite put my finger on).

Vuldacon: I could've sworn the red was supposed to be the civ coloring. :crazyeye: Unless my bad luck caused the "nearest color" to be one of the two non-civ color reds in the Units_32 palette. :aargh: I'll take a peek at your pcx files and see if I like 'em.
 
Yes, # 95 color in the units_32.pcx file is Notorious for applying itself to a Units_32.pcx files when converting. If you would like a Good "tool" to help with the units_32.pcx files, get the upload I placed a while back concerning this. It is on Zulu's units_32.pcx tutorial Thread ...Last (bottom) post on the 1st Page. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=75413

This will help show you what colors in the palette are Civ Specific and what the units_32.pcx file tends to do that you can correct. It is faster and more simple than can be stated, like all technical info but if you can play around with it, you will see that it is not a difficult thing to do.
#11 is usually the color to use for #95 but you can look at a Frame of your unit at the same time and pick other palette colors to use that improve the units_32.pcx for your unit. Best way is to check it out and play around with it to understand. IF any questions, send me a PM.
 
Actually, what I'm going to do is create two alternate units_32.pal files (for PsP): a units_32nored.pal and a units_32blue.pal. Basically, the nored pal will have all the non-civ reds changed to black and be used for converting most units (so that I won't have this problem again), and the blue palette will have all the civ color reds changed to blue. This palette will be used for converting mostly red-colored units (with the original blue civ coloring, of course). That way, once I convert an image with either of these two palettes, all I have to do is then load the standard units_32.pal with the "maintain indexes" box checked.
 
Hikaro Takayama, (If I understand you correctly) If you apply the "units_32nored.pal " with Only Civ Specific Red colors, you will have ALL of the Red Areas of any unit colored Civ Specific Red so this will only work well for units that do not have any Reds other than Civ Specific Reds.
The "units_32blue.pal" should be helpful for converting Reds to Blues but again, ALL Red areas of a unit would be colored with Civ Specific Blue colors. You would have to maintain indexes for ONLY the Civ Specific colored areas of a unit using either palette so you may have problems applying the palettes to entire units. IF you have the Palettes I uploaded you will see that in the "Start_Units_32" Palette, the Green areas are the Only Civ Specific Colors. By Loading this palette and maintaining indexes, you can quickly check to see if your units_32.pcx files is Civ Specific in the correct areas. You can also load this same palette with nearest color and prevent all Civ Specific colors because none have the Green 255. This will provide the closest color match to any unit but without Civ Specific colors. Combinations of the different ways to load the "units_32pcx" palette and the Start_units_32pcx" palette can help. The closest match for #95 is #11 but many times you will want to also use #9 and #10 as well so this is done manually rather than allowing the Palette to dictate all "Closest Matches". I used #9 and #10 as well as #11 in the Alt_YAT-97_units_32.pcx file I uploaded...check it out. How ever you do it...Good Luck with your Palettes and technique.
 
Vuldacon, you didn't quite get what I was trying to say. The No-reds palette would be for units that don't have any red, except for the civ colored areas. Since the Nored version would ONLY have the Civcolor reds, then the units would be properly converted without having to go in with a color replacement brush and manually checking every red pixel to make sure that it's actually proper civ-color red. The blue version would be with units that have non-civ color red (but blue civ coloring) so that the only reds in the palette are non-civ colored. That way you have the civ coloring where it belongs and not on parts that aren't supposed to be civ colored. That way, I can then jus load the original Units_32.pal with the "maintain indexes" so that all the colors will remain in the proper places, but with the correct colors (i.e. the red unit will have red civ coloring replace the blue, but the body will still be non-civ color red). This way the whole process is automatic and only takes about 2 seconds (aside from the initial 15-20 minutes of making the two conversion palettes), and I can concentrate on the main parts of unit making rather than getting bogged down because of messing with the *&%$*@ units32 file.
 
I can see how that will work but how will you handle a Unit that has Red Civ Specific Colors in some places and Also has Reds that are Not Civ Specific in it? IF you apply the Red Pallette, it would color All Reds with the Civ Specific Colors...including the NON Civ Specific Reds. Same for the Blue Palette concerning Blue colors. What I am saying is How will you have the palettes ONLY apply the Civ Specific colors to the areas where they belong and NOT to any other areas on the unit that are Non Civ Specific Reds or Blues? If you manage to accomplish this, you will find that the units_32pcx palette wants to apply like #11 to too many areas when #9 and #10 would help make it look better.
IF you apply the "Start_units_32" palette and Maintain indexes, I made with the Green 255 color in the Civ Specific areas, you can see in 1 second if the Civ Specific Colors are at least in the Correct place on a unit. So it can help you see if all is ok Fast, regardless of the technique you use. One way is to trace the Civ Specific colored areas of a unit ONLY, copy and paste as a new image then apply your Red Palette that contains ONLY the Civ Specific Colors, it would ONLY Color the Desired areas as wanted. Then you Could copy and paste it back to the unit_32.pcx you are making. Before pasting the Corrected area back to your units_32.pcx that you are making, apply the "Start_units_32" pallette and use Nearest Color. This will Have NO Civ Specific Colors. Then apply the "units_32" Palette and maintain indexes. Now paste the Corrected Civ Specific colored area and all would be correct and all colors of the entire unit would be as close as the units_32.pcx palette allows with Civ Specific Colors where they belong. Rather than tracing those areas, I usually copy the entire image, paste as new image and do the palette change. Then I can see where and what to copy from it with the corrected Civ Specific Colors. This is as usual, more difficult to type than to do. :crazyeye: All is fast..just a matter of methods.
 
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