Apple Mac UNITS.pict workaround discovered!

[frunobulax]

I think I've found a work-around for those Apple Mac-users trying to modify Civ2 UNITS.pict graphics files.

Normally, modifying a UNITS.pict file on a Mac results in the Mac adding an extra colour to the end of the pallette, thereby invalidating the transparent colours which have to occupy the last 3 spaces on the pallette in order to load correctly in Civ2.

[** Note: I'm doing this using Lemkesoft's wonderful shareware programme "Graphic Convertor" [go to -> http://lemkesoft.com/us_index.html]; my version is 3.8.1, though the latest is 4.0.something.... highly recommended if you're a Mac user.]

Okay, what you need to do is this....

Open your UNITS.pict file in GKON (Graphic Convertor) and start modifying it - cut and paste units from other UNITS.pict (or GIF or BMP format UNITS files even) etc.

If you save at this point, and close and reopen this UNITS.pict file, the color pallette will be incorrect. Try to load it in Civ2 and the colors will be all wrong !

Now, the workaround I discovered involves nicking the color pallette from an unconverted PC UNITS.gif file !; these normally appear on a Mac with the Quicktime icon.

So, what you will need now is a downloaded PC format Scenario to hand that has NOT been converted for Mac use.

Go to GKON and open the UNITS.gif file from this scenario.

Then, in GKON, go to 'Picture' -> 'Colors' -> 'Edit Color Table'. You will see the color table for this PC format UNITS file. Click 'Save' to save this pallette to your computer (just call in "PC colors" or something).

Now, reopen you previous UNITS.pict file (that you were cutting & pasting) and go to 'Picture' -> 'Colors' -> 'Edit Color Table' and click 'Open' and import this "PC colors" color pallette.

Once imported, you should see the last three colors correctly - i.e. *without* a second white color tile at the very end. If you *now* save the pict file and close it, it should reopen *exactly* the same as it was - for some reason the Mac does *not* now try adding the extra 'white' at the end, as it would normally do.

Now, I would be very interested to see if this *does* work for anyone else out there, as it *might* be that I also have some Preferences set-up within GKON that also affect all this... (I know I disabled GKON trying to do any pallette tests or color tests, but would have to check this again.. I don't have the info to hand as I write this).

To be honest I spent a whole daylast weekend doing this and was on the point of giving up (nearly minight!!) when i tried finally this pallette-swapping as a last resort, and hey presto it worked ! I've double, triple-checked it and it doesn't fail for me, so I can happily cut & paste units from other sources and save my UNITS.pict files without any worries !

I haven't yet tried this with terrain files etc..., but assume a similar strategy would work.

best wishes !

 

[frunobulax]

Apologies for the typos !

 

[frunobulax]

What I forgot to add was that you *must* import the "PC colors" pallette every time you have modified and need to save your UNITS.pict file... make this the last thing you do before saving !

 

[Henrik]

Sorry, but this isn't really new

If you want an even better way of doing it (which requiers a little bit more disk space) you can do what I do:
I have two versions of my units file:
Units.gif
Units.pict
I edit in units.gif and save the changes the normal way, then I hit save as and chose "pict", this preserves the pallete and is very easy to do.
The only file you work in will be the units.gif which you must remember to save as well as replacing the pict file.

 

[Henrik]

And yes this works for all graphic files.

 

[Cunobelin Of Hippo]

Are you sure Henrik???

I've been trying a lot of ways to change my unit files, including one that I believe fits your above description, and it's still driving me nuts cause it don't work!!!

I think I'll go and try both of these. Back in a sec....

 

[Cunobelin Of Hippo]

#($@*&(#&(%)!!!!!!*(&(*WER&(*!!!!

I've been tinkering around at my computer for the whole afternoon and still can't get my damn images to work!

Using Henrik's simple method, my game STILL refused to give me the right colors!

And using frunobulax's, I got similar results. The 'Color' settings were very strange, and seemed to be doing different things each time!

If any educated Mac type can offer me another method I'd really appreciate it. In the meantime, I'll just keep hammering away at these.

 

[Cunobelin Of Hippo]

Originally posted by Henrik:

I have two versions of my units file:
Units.gif
Units.pict
I edit in units.gif and save the changes the normal way, then I hit save as and chose "pict", this preserves the pallete and is very easy to do.

But how do you edit the UNIT.GIF file? My original UNITS.PICT file is a simpletext document, or at least that's what reads it when I open it.

I can't even 'Save As' with simpletext, so I was going to Appleworks Scripts, Making a duplicate of the PICT file in Appleworks (as a GIF) paint, messing around with it, then saving it as a PICT file again.

 

[frunobulax]

Cunobelin, you won't be able to save using Simpletext - try downloading Graphic Convertor from Lemkesoft - it's shareware but runs fine without paying ;-) ---> go to http://lemkesoft.com/us_index.html to find it.

You'll be able to "save as" etc etc...

Re. Henrik's comments, I posted this workaround because I hadn't been able to find any other workarounds or advice that, err, worked, so sorry if this ain't new for you, but it's sure new to me ! Anyway, thanks for the feedback !

I've managed to get my workaround (see original post) to work for all types of icons/terrain files, so I'm editing away happily in pict format on a Mac.

Cunobelin - keep at it, it DOES work... but you *DO* need Graphic Convertor (GKON) !

{p.s. In the GKON preferences be sure that no 'Color tests' are enabled, or any 'pallette optimization' (forget exact terminology here), as this produces weird results...

 

[Henrik]

Hehe, I can do it both ways

I prefer editing the files as gifs, since I wont be forced to change the pallete all the time (Graphic converter wont change the pallete of gifs, but it will change the one of picts, unless you save a gif as a pict or import the correct pallete to a pict everytime you save).