Flicster, civ-color.

I'm currently trying to make a unit via Flicster, everything was easy but I've finaly found myself with a problem.

The civ-color. How do we set it ? Or, rather, turning it off as I don't want it for this specific unit.

Also, Flicster crashes when I try to load up a PCX storyboard with 8 rows. Odd.

Supa, the civ specific colour is decided after the place of the colour in the palette, not the actual colour. If you check a unit palette in Photoshop the last four rows are more or less fixed, regardless of what colour you assign it. In PSP it's the four first rows, of course. Just play around with a unit's palette in your gfx program and flicster. I've found that if you don't want the unit to have civ specific colours you can change the unwanted colour to a vidible colour ( (0, 255, 255) is a favorite), and then fill that colour with the paint bucket using a colour not from the civ specific rows.
I hope this makes any sense.

And remember to get the last version of flicster (build 18, IIRC).

And here's a quote just for you:
"Do you have an appointment?"
"I have a morningstar."

That was pretty much what I was afraid of.

[scream] I don't like the edition of the palette in GIMP [/scream]

Now, I, either, must learn to use GIMP efficiently, either find a program with a much simpler use of the palette.
Anyway, thanks for your clarification.

Okay, is there someone around who could direct me to a good palette tutorial for GIMP ?

And what's wrong with this pcx ? Flicster crashes when I try to load it.

:L

The palette is wrong. You can't use the ordinary "2 colour transparency" rule, this one will play merry hell with the civ colours. You really should start with a palette from an old (working) unit.
There may be other problems as well, of course, the size of the pcx could be wrong, for example.

The 2 transparency colours are the last 2, I don't see why it would mess with the civ colors. How could I do elseway ?

I didn't change the size of the pcx, it was generated by Flicster, I've merely begun to add the animation.

*learning*

I've finaly found a solution for my palette problem. Not the better and probably not the easier, but here it is.

Now, if I could find what's wrong with the 8 coloumns pcx.
(Stand animation has only 7 coloumns and doesn't crash)

Preview of the stand :

(Please note the FLC2GIF lowers the quality)

You must tell flicster you have 8 coloums, have you done that? And I advice you to check the unit in flicster with the alpha blending (whatever it's called) ON and using any civ colour.
And re-read what I said up there. The unit palette is different.

>> You must tell flicster you have 8 coloums, have you done that?

You mean, when I create a new FXM file ? Yes, I've done it.
When I try to watch the 'preview' of the blank animation then, it works. After I've added the animation itself, it crashes. Even with the very same palette as the standing (who works).

I've tried with frame size of 55x45 and 55x55 both.

How works the transparancy palette ? After looking in some units, I think it's the last 2 rows. Am I right ?

Also, is there a tutorial for units creation somewhere ? This way, I'll probably work faster and annoy less people

Someone (Kinboat?) made a tutorial ages ago.
Can't you just export an old unit, and paste over that?

I know this thread is old so don't be angry for bumping but supa posted this:

Supa said:

I was working on a Bengal tiger conversion from Zoo Tycon, but Flicster crashed everytime on an animation and I dropped it for a while (the examens haven't helped much). Tzar Sacha offered help, and I plan to resume this units (and my other works, btw) after my exams (mid-june).

Click to expand...

It is now june so I was wondering if supa is working on this becasue I could really use this for my mod Animal Wars: Pet and Pest. So few animal units are available and this one from Zoo Tycoon looks like it is pretty good quality and partly/mostly complete.

Below is the palette that I used for my Reaver.

Here are some palette rules.

1 - DO NOT ALTER THE TWO COLOURS IN THE BOTTOM RIGHT OF THE PALETTE!!! The magenta colour is the invisable colour in the game.

2 - The first 4 rows at the top are Civ-colours but only the first row is usefull. Fill the first row with your civ colours and the other three with a colour that you don't use.

3 - The last row is shadow (except the last two colours WHICH SHOULD NOT BE ALTERED IN ANY WAY!!! see rule 1) Put your shadow colour somewhere in there

4 - The next-to-last row is for smoke/haze. Either fill this row up with a colour that you don't use or, if you are using anti-aliasing when you render, put the anti-aliasing 'blur' colours that surround your unit here so that they don't show up in game.

Search Google for a palette editor called PEdit since it will allow you to add colours to your palette directly from the storyboard.