Unit Animations: the cut-and-paste way! (Kryten???)

I decided to open a new thread for this rather than stick it in the Alex the Great thread. This is mainly directed to Kryten (since he is the master of cut and paste!), but anyone else who knows how to can give me some pointers.

I plan on whipping up a couple (or more) non-animated units for the scenario. By non-animated I mean just the 8 basic directions, and nothing else (like civ2). See the unit "Canadian Blue Cask" for what I'm talking about.

Since there is no way in hell I'm gonn do them from scratch, I was wondering if you or someone else could give me a quick tutorial on how to cut-and-paste these units together. I've got PSP7, AS3, and PS6. Help?

Hello mate

So you've decided to give up all your friends, family and social life to become a unit animator. Good for you!

These are the things you must have:-
*a good paint program, such as PaintShop Pro7 (which you've already got)
*FLICster 1.0.1 build 18 by Moeniir (available in the Utilities Forum)
*Dark Sheer's "How to Create New Units" tutorial (in the Tutorial Forum)
*your body cloned, so that you can still go to school/work and find the time to animate.

Download these and have a look at the readme that comes with Moeniir's FLICster. It gives a quick walk-through of all the features and options (I suggest going to CivilizationIII/Art/units/Cossack and copying the CossackRun FLC file to another folder, then you can use this to experiment on).

Don't be afraid of FLICster....press all the available buttons and tabs just to see what it's capable of, you won't do any harm.

Once you've done this you'll have loads of questions. Just post them here and we'll sort them out.

Originally posted by Kryten
Hello mate

So you've decided to give up all your friends, family and social life to become a unit animator. Good for you!

Click to expand...

Too late .

hey, Kryten, can you send me a copy of your "catalogue" with the non-alpha blended background (magenta/lime), in all directions (I'm assuming this is the type of format you use; if not, enlighten me!). I'll just be making 8 pictures - they don't even deserve to be called animations. I plan to make a bunch of cavalry to express the diversity for this scenario (unless you can animate 10+ horsemen in less than about a month, I guess I'm the only alternative!). In time I may actually "animate" some of the units. My first project will be sworded cavalry for Persia and India. I hope I can get in touch with elfstorm soon enough to tell him that the Companion needs a swords AND a spear (am I asking too much? )!

...wow, this probably should have gone in the scenario thread.

I'll attach that "custom-creation-catalog" to the bottom of this post, but to be honest, I'd don't think it's going to be much use to you. It's just a collection of bodyparts in one direction, not all 8.
The idea was to pick the bits from this 'catalog' that were required, then I would go to the original Civ3 units, FLICster them, and then cut-'n-paste that part onto the unit being created. Here's the step-by-step process:-

Let's Create a New Unit Called the Mounted Bowman
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The Mounted Warrior is a nice animation, but the north American war bonnet would look out of place in ancient Europe, so let's just change the head (this, along with that old Horse Archer that I made, would give you two different bow armed cavalry units for your scenario).

1) Create a new folder called "Mounted Bowman" and copy all the original Civ3 Mounted Warrior FLC files into it, then copy all these again within the folder and rename these copies to MountedBowmanRun & MountedBowmanDefault and so on (so you now have a set of original Mounted Warrior flics and your new Mounted Bowman flcs which we will use as a base).
Also, copy all the Archer FLC files into this new folder as well (we will need these for the new head).

2) Now use FLICster to go to this new folder and open the MountedBowmanRun flic.
Clicking 'View Animation' shows him galloping along.

3) In FLICster click 'Export' and in the new window select 'Frame Count' which is the third option down, then change the 'Frame Count' to 1, click 'ok', and click 'Export' at the bottom of the window (and say 'yes' to all the warning popup windows).
The view animation tab will now show that you have changed a 10 frame flic to a single frame (because you have decided to have only a single frame instead of a full animation in each direction - cheapskate!).

4) Pull FLICster to one side for the moment (but leave it open) and look in your "Mounted Bowman" folder. You will see some new files have been created.

When you use FLICster to look at an animation, selecting "export" causes FLICster to create 3 new files: one is the PaintShop image, and the other two are called MountedBowmanRun.pal (this is the normal purple CivIII palette) and MountedBowmanRun_Alpha.pal (this is the nice grey palette).

Double-clicking the Paintshop image brings up a picture of all the animation frames, but they still have that 'orrible purple background.

Now select "Colours" from the top of the PaintShop window and then "Load Palette", and you will be given a list of all the different palettes available. Choose the Alpha.pal and the picture frames change from purple to grey.

ALWAYS use the grey background picture when playing around or cutting 'n pasteing shadows!!! Otherwise, the shadows will be bright green or red in the FLICster 'View Animation' popup window AND in the game.
However, ALWAYS use the purple background when cutting-'n-pasting anything bother than shadows from one animation to another, because this uses the 'true' colours, whereas the grey Alpha.pal only uses approximations, so some colours will change.
(NOTE: each unit in Civ3 has it's own pallete, so the colours will change as you cut-'n-paste from one to another. You'll have to adjust any of these colour changes by hand. I like to use the Hoplite as a base whenever I can because it's one of the few palettes that has red as a non-civ colour, but this is not always possible, especially if horses are involved).

5) So then, doubleclick the newly created MountedBowmanRun Paintshop image and make some changes (like removing the war bonnet for example). When done, save the image, then change direction in FLICster and back again to you original direction.
You can now see in FLICster the changes you have made.
IMPORTANT NOTE: these changes are NOT recorded in the FLC file untill you click 'Export' and 'Export' again!

6) And that's about it! All you have to do now is use FLICster on all the FLC files in your folder to turn them into Paintshop images, have FLICster open and displaying MountedBowmanRun, then cut-'n-paste the head from the Archer to your unit.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sorry if all this is a bit long-winded, but I'm not sure how much of it you already know.

Anyway, here is that 'catalog', although I'm not sure if it's any use to you (I have attached the Thracian helmeted running figure in all 8 directions in case you can use it)....

oh s***! do you really have to mess with the palette? I'm in no mood to do that... tell me you don't!

Originally posted by Exsanguination
oh s***! do you really have to mess with the palette? I'm in no mood to do that... tell me you don't!

Click to expand...

DON'T mess with the palette! (there, that should make you feel better. )
Just use the palette that comes with the Civ3 unit that you are using as a base.

Every unit has a different (limited) palette. So if you take say, the head from the Hoplite and try to put it on the head of say the Horseman, you will find that some colours may change. Sometimes this change is so small it hardly notices, and other times it looks 'orrible. But it is simple enough to change them with the PaintShop Pro 'colour replacer'. OR, just use a similar colour within the current palette.

So keep it simple....always use the palette that comes with the Civ3 unit you are adapting.

mmm... I think I'd need a tutorial on cuttin and pastin'... but I think this is too much, I think I should leave it to the pros .

.....coward.....

It really ain't hard. That Persian Levy Spearman preview is just the Scout capture flic with an Immortals head, a spear & a shield, and the top half of the body changed to brown.
(If I can do it, anyone can. )

Forgive me for bumping this old thread, but Civanator (and I assume others) wanted a 'step-by-step' cut-'n-paste tutorial.

Any problems or suggestions, then please feel free to post them here.

Ok Kryten, I wanna actually start some units, but I found one HUGE problem.

If i try to take one "piece" and put it one another (ie. put a body on a horse), the damn magenta background is put on as well, thus covering a majority of the horse (or first layer). Using the wand in PSP7doesn't work (at least if I remember right). I have PS6 and PSP7, so I'm well-prepared.

How do you do it?

PS - For when I do start, should I make the units int he SE direction or the E direction?

So the the steps you said, do they apply for full animations exept changing to one frame?

If you uses PSP7, just use the wand and select the pink background (you can erase any part you don't plan to copy with pink first ) then press ctrl-shift-I to inverst the selection. Now you have selected what you want to copy (ie not the background).

Hope that helps with copy and paste! Take my current project, the Colonial Musketman as example. First I draw the backpack and water canteen etc on the first frame, then select an area from the first frame that cover all these items. After that I paste them all into a new pcx file, erase all the body except for the newly drawn items. Now I use the wand to select these parts from the new file, copy, then go back to the main storyboard pcx file and paste them into the individual frames. This way I can maintain the original animation and yet add backpack, water canteen etc to each frame at one go.

To Civanator:-

You are quite right, there is no need to change the number of frames (unless you want to). I don't want to put anybody off, but remember....there are a LOT of frames! And with cut-'n-paste, EACH one has to be 'adjusted' by hand.
But it's not hard, just a bit repetitive. Even simple little changes can create wonderful new units, and things become much easier with practice.

To Exsanguination:-

Here's some important keyboard short-cuts that save a lot of time with PaintShop Pro (I assume that other paint software version have similar features)....

*Ctrl+T = this is the 'remove colour' short-cut.
*Ctrl+C = this 'copies' the current selection.
*Crtl+E = this 'pastes' any previously 'copied' selection.
*Crtl+Z = very important; this 'deletes' your previous action! Can be used multiple times.

Soooo, with these new tools, how do we use them? Here's what I always do.....
1) first, use the 'dropper' tool to select the 'orrible pink (magenta?) background.
2) now use either the 'selection' or the 'freehand' tools to draw around the item you want (don't be too choosey...grab some 'pink'as well, it won't hurt).
3) here's the good bit; now press Ctrl+T and select 'Forground Colour' with a 'tolerance' of zero, then 'ok'. And hey presto, your selection has shrunk to only include every colour that is NOT 'pink'!
4) Ctrl+C will now 'copy' this selection, and Ctrl+E will 'paste' it.
Job done.
5) any problems....just press Ctrl+Z a couple of times and you're back to where you were.

I frequently use this method to first remove the bits I don't want (like heads or shields), then paste in the bit I do want (I must admit that I never got around to using 'layers'; I know I should have, but I find it just makes things a bit more complicated).

Hope this helps. Later on I'll post some simple tricks I found with the 'rotation', 'retouch' and 'clone brush' (but that bloody so called 'magic wand' seems to be a waste of time! ).

Keep the questions coming everybody.

Later Edit: Oops! DS had posted while I was writing all the above stuff.
Perhaps I need more time with the 'magic wand'.
(this could be a good thread to pass all our little tips to each other
)

thanx kryten.

Since I need to redo my musketman fortify animation, I will use that as an example on how to create something different from some current available file using rotation & cut and paste.

But let me get the animation done first and I will post some screen shot in this thread on how they are done.

ok, yaay!

in a hurry, but real quick: Kryten - can you get me a file that has the parts you gave me earlier either all in the E direction or SE direction? right now I've got SW horses, NW torsos and others... don't bother if it's too much trouble though. Thanks in advance!

EDIT: or better yet tell me how to cut off specific parts from ready-made units.

Originally posted by Exsanguination ...or better yet tell me how to cut off specific parts from ready-made units.

Click to expand...

This is easy. There are two methods....my way and the way everybody else does it!

First, select the 'dropper' tool and click it on to the pink/magenta background. This sets the colour that the 'paint brush' will now use.

Then select the 'paint brush' and use it on the your first frame to simply paint out the bits you don't want.

Now your frame has an empty (magenta) space, choose the 'freehand' tool to draw around this empty space and Ctrl+C to save it. You can now use Ctrl+E to 'paste' this empty area on to any other offending bits in other frames.

Changing Direction: the best way is to use the 'freehand' tool to select an area you want, then at the top of the PaintShop screen select <Image> then <Mirror>.
This will....as you'd expect....form a 'mirror image' of your selected area. That's why it's so easy to create tanks and aircraft and ships (!); a tank in the SW direction looks the same in the SE direction (once the shadows have been adjusted of course). But a human figure only carries a rifle in his right hand and his shield in his left hand, so 'mirroring' a human figure sometimes looks odd.
Still, this dosen't matter with horses. They can easily be 'mirrored', once the human figure on their back has been removed.

Anyway, here's a 'mirrored' version of that custom catalogue.....

Got to say that Jasc Paint Pro shop 7.04 is the best for "Cut & Paste" , if you purchase the graphic program it is a very well investment (I can't live without it! :jump: )
...and you heard it from the "Masters" : Kryten and Dark sheer