Arabic Calligraphy tech

[Graceheart the Leopard]

Here's a tech I made for Arabic Calligraphy. It is based on an image of a Koranic Verse in Kufic Calligraphy from the 7th Century I found in Wikisource. According to the description, the verses are Sura 7:86 and 87, which go as follows (In English):

Refrain from blocking every path, seeking to repel those who believe from the path of GOD, and do not make it crooked. Remember that you used to be few and He multiplied your number. Recall the consequences for the wicked.

Now that some of you have believed in what I was sent with, and some have disbelieved, wait until GOD issues His judgment between us; He is the best judge.

I'm not a Muslim nor an Arab, but I still found this icon very nice to look at, though I was a little dissapointed about the small icon.

I have no idea what you would use this for, but maybe you can use it in a Medieval Arabia scenario or something.

 

[Graceheart the Leopard]

The Files:

 

[againsttheflow]

Hey Farsight,

I've taken a look at your image and it is not civ-compatible. I made a quick picture tutorial for you in the spoiler (be prepared, there are lots of images!). I don't really ever use GIMP to do this as I use PSP but this is the way I would do it using the GIMP. I'm not gonna be very wordy as I don't have much time right now... just let the pictures do the talking.

Spoiler :

First of all your images are in GIMP format which means they have the .xcf extension. They must be .pcx files in order for the game to use them. Your images also are in two layers so the first thing I did is anchor/merge/squash the layers to one like this:

Then starts the process of giving it the specs it needs:

Make sure you make it 254 colors (256 is the max)

At this point there weren't enough colors in your image to make 254 colors. (see next)

Click the Add button until you get 255 (this means 256 colors since the first one is labeled "0")

Select the second to last slot by clicking on it and then click "Edit color".

Click OK and then do almost the same thing for the last color slot.

Done!!

One of the best ways to improve a small icon like this is to crop the big icon first. I tried cropping down to 64x64 (its nicer to use numbers that are powers of two if you're going to shrink later). I then resized to 32x32 and got this:

The small image must have the same properties as the large icon above. Hope this helps.

 

[Blue Monkey]

I use basically the same method - but skip the posterize step. Also, for a graphic with very limited colors I do something like this:

Then I do the palette reduction followed by cropping the image. You end up with a full palette where many colors don't appear in the actual image. you still have to then set up the two slots reserved for what the game uses.

 

[Samez]

Very creative solution Blue Monkey! This method will save me a few hundred clicks...

 

[againsttheflow]

I use basically the same method - but skip the posterize step.

I wondered about that, makes for one fewer step. As I mentioned I generally use PSP for this process, it has the option of adding the last two colors to the end regardless of the number of colors.