Simple, Easy how to for adding buildings.

Just wanted you to know that I managed to use this guide to successfully install the building to PTW ( i don't have Conquests). Cheers for the well-written help!
 
Hi Law_Freak and everyone.
A Newbie here.

I followed your guide step by step. But when I load my scenario, all the buildings in my city are displayed by a black square instead of the actual picture. When I use the normal (un-edited) "buildings-large.pcx" and "buildings-small.pcx" in the "city screen" everything is how it is supposed to be, I see the right pics (my Palace and the buildings I can build) and not the black square. But also (ofcourse) not the building I just created (your Refinery).

Am I doing something wrong???

Please help me.

Greetings, Jazz.
 
Actually, when i tried it with the extended buildings.pcx I had the same problem as Jazz Master. Help on this would be greatly appreciated. What are we doing wrong? :sad:
 
:) Yeah !!!

I downloaded GIMP and when I finally copyed the Refinery into the buildings-large.pcx of the city screen it worked! When I opened my scenario-mod all the pics were visible as they should be and I was looking at the Refinery that was in my building list.

Thanks a lot. :goodjob:

There is only 1 minor problem:
when I look in my city at the buildings I can build, you can see where the pic is loaded into the game, because the gamma of the picture is a bit lighter (so you see a square surrounding the Refinery and the other buildings, but no green lines or anything).
I'm not used to work with GIMP so I couldn't see what the last colours were. Is that what I should look for? How do I find it? Or should I adjust the gamma (if that's possible)?

Now I'm gonna try the Wonders and Units... (so I'll probably be back soon with some cry for help ;) )
 
Thanks for the extended buildingd pcx I was going to make one myself because the other tutorial said to look for an empty line after the spaceship parts and there wasnt any on the Civ3C building pcx. Great tutorial you posted very easy to follow.
 
Thanks for this tutorial

I have just one question :

- do you know if it si possible to have bigger files buildings-large.pcx and
buildings-small.pcx . I mean with more rows to add more buildings in the game ?
 
I used this tutorial to try and put units into my game. However, I now have a problem with that.

I use the IrfanView program to view my PCX files. I made sure my PCX file (units_32) was 256 colors. So I did the simple procedure: copy from one sheet, then paste into the sheet I want to use. Everything looks fine... until I get back to the Editor. Now the units have a magenta square for a backdrop! It looks cheesy, and I can't figure out how to get rid of it.

You mentioned something about an altered palette, though I am not sure what you mean by that. I use IrfanView because it is "absolutely free," not "sort of free." Please let me know what my mistake is! Thank you.
 
The pallete has to be indexed. I don't know anything about IrfanView but if it is pcx editing program is should have an option to index a pallette. Then you have to make the last color pink.

This link may describe the problem better. It's where I learned about palette problems of the same kind.

EDIT: I tried this tutorial out today as well and my building isn't showing up when I go to Add in the editor. As in it isn't even on the list. :confused: Is this stuff case-sensitive for folder names? I don't get why it doesn't show up in the list of available buildings. Also, I am using Civ 3 complete. I have heard this makes some changes in some stuff when it comes to modding. Is this tutorial invalid with complete? I don't know what I am missing. :(
 
Thanks!
=]
 
Irfanview won't work at all (I use it for viewing pcx's & flc's too). Use GIMP. With GIMP, you take the image, select All and then Copy and close the original. Then use Acquire -> Paste as new to get a "work copy". Then, using the Select By Color Tool, take all of the pink completely out (cut). Make a copy of that and put it to the side. Then index your work image (Image ->Mode->Indexed). Then go to Dialogues->Colormap and make the last two squares green (hex: 00ff00) and pink (ff00ff). The Gimp program remembers these colors for later, by the way. Click on the pink square in the new colormap (to make it the chosen Foreground Color) before closing the colormap window. Then use the Select by Color tool to highlight empty areas and Edit->Fill with FG color. Then paste the non-indexed copy you set to the side over that. Then save as a pcx. It should come out alright. I hope I haven't confused anyone. Good job on this, Law_Freak.
 
IrfanView is a crazy bugger at times. I think I figured out this aspect, however. (Note my post was made in 2004. That was a good year. I've had time to hash it out, apparently!)

Basically for IrfanView, it helps to simply save the Pallette (Export it from the Image menu bar) to a folder - probably the folder for the type of thing you are working on (buildings, units, etc.). Saving this Pallette BEFORE you edit the units_32.pcx file is essential.

Then, after you are done copying and pasting your unit images to the PCX file, then Import the saved Pallette that you saved in your folder. Now save the file. Things should work fine after that. (For this anyway!)

Thanks, fellas.


Snootch
 
Yeah, I have since solved the problem I was facing as well although I don't recall what the solution was. It may have been pulling from the wrong folder in scenario properties or something. Not sure. But it all works now :D

Now I just have to figure out other problems unrelated to that one. :lol:
 
buddingCivFan said:
That works great, thanks for your tutorial.
Click to expand...

You're welcome. I'm never sure if I'm helping or confusing people, so it's nice to see it work for someone.

I just realized that you may have been thanking Law_Freak for his tutorial, written years ago (rather than my little one, written months ago). Well it's never too late to say thank you.
 
I just wanted to mention that 256 is the maximum number of improvement/wonder/small wonders you can have in any given scenario.
 
Snootch said:
IrfanView is a crazy bugger at times. I think I figured out this aspect, however. (Note my post was made in 2004. That was a good year. I've had time to hash it out, apparently!)

Basically for IrfanView, it helps to simply save the Pallette (Export it from the Image menu bar) to a folder - probably the folder for the type of thing you are working on (buildings, units, etc.). Saving this Pallette BEFORE you edit the units_32.pcx file is essential.

Then, after you are done copying and pasting your unit images to the PCX file, then Import the saved Pallette that you saved in your folder. Now save the file. Things should work fine after that. (For this anyway!)

Thanks, fellas.


Snootch
Click to expand...
I have recently been working on Art\resources.pcx with Irfanview and saving the pcx palette and then re-importing this same palette when finished. this solves the purple blotch problem. for some reason importing the palette drastically reduces the pcx file size as well

the pcx palette CHANGES depending on which pcx you are working on. apparently the last two colors on the lower right have a special meaning for Civ 3

Irfanview has a basic paint toolbar which can be used to draw shapes and add tags

using the palette technique I was able to copy and paste from the Internet and get good images. sometimes the re-imported palette degrades the copied in colors

did the use of pcx files really save that in file size over using jpg or gif format??? the use of pcx format certainly makes it harder to mod Civ 3 than if gif or jpg had been used instead

joelwest
 
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