Civ3FlcEdit - Civilization III animation viewer & editor

[Cyber Dreyk]

So far it looks great! And visually appealing as well!
The more I look at it, the more amazed I am by the extra amount of power this tool carries!

Thank you for the compliments!

 

[warmwaffles]

Hey Cyber I just thought of an idea

Make the program able to convert a Flic to a Gif because I hate having to open two other programs and slowing my comp down.

 

[Cyber Dreyk]

Hey Cyber I just thought of an idea

Make the program able to convert a Flic to a Gif because I hate having to open two other programs and slowing my comp down.

Sorry, I have not enough free time for it. Now I have busy with my own mode, so have not time for programming...
Maybe I'll make it late.

 

[Bjornlo]

Hi Cyber Dreyk,
Nice utility.

A couple of comments in case you find the time to come back to this.
Using build 3, 0, 6, 85

There are a couple of bugs in the display.
1: It can cause items not in the screen to display. I have a fighter plane, shooting. In the first frame, it shows bullets in the first frame of the SE facing where there are none in the PCX. It does the same in the E facing.
2: When you hit stop and advance frame by frame, the last frame displayed is from the next facing. ie: last E frame is actually first SE frame.

A bug in the save frame dialog.
It claims to support BMP, but always saves in PCX only no matter what you select.

Suggestions:
In the save frame dialog, have the default name be the name of the file + the frame count. ie: run.flc save 1st frame and default file name is run_frame1.pcx
In the save fram dialog, allow for saving directly in GIF.
Allow for resizing the the background without changing the shape of the item being displayed. ie: a frame death.flc might not be the same as in run.flc, but we might want them in the same gif.
Allow for saving an entire facing as an animated gif.
Have the default save path be a sub-dir (or the same dir) as the path that was used to open the file. This can be a simple parse of the file name to extract the path.
Have preset configurations that are preserved from load to load. ie: have a default save path. have a default save_frame location and extension, and so on.
You have a zoom, have the zoom show the unit zoomed in, but still animated unless you hit the STOP button. In which case have the zoom show the same frame as the small frame. This would give us the ability to in close detail examine an animation for flaws without squinting at the fairly small units.

Keep up the good work. I know we all appreciate it.

 

[Bjornlo]

Some examples of the bugs I found.

This image shows the frame count with an impossibly high number. In programming terms, you forgot to do boundry checking.

Here is a screen shot of where I finally found the first frame in the PCX file. I had to go back and forth through several of the facings until I found it.

This is the image as I finally found it. You will note the graphics anomoly I have circled in red. This error is not present in the source file.

Here is the frame from the source file, so you can see it does not have the mistake above.

 

[Grand Cadfael]

Sorry if this has been asked but,dose it work for Windows 98?

 

[Cyber Dreyk]

Hi, Bjornlo!

Thank you for your interest to Civ3FlcEdit and bug report.

Using build 3, 0, 6, 85

Please, check a last update - v.3,0,7,90 which was uploaded in the end of January.

1: It can cause items not in the screen to display. I have a fighter plane, shooting. In the first frame, it shows bullets in the first frame of the SE facing where there are none in the PCX. It does the same in the E facing.

Most likely it's not a Civ3FlcEdit's bug. I think that it may be a problem of importing from Storyboard to FLC - you can miss some parameters... Can you send to me or (it's better) attach here the Storyboard - C3F file & image file?

2: When you hit stop and advance frame by frame, the last frame displayed is from the next facing. ie: last E frame is actually first SE frame.

Yes, this is a bug! I'll fix it in the next update.

A bug in the save frame dialog.
It claims to support BMP, but always saves in PCX only no matter what you select.

Already fixed, but I'm afraid that still missed in the v.3,0,7,90.

Suggestions:
In the save frame dialog, have the default name be the name of the file + the frame count. ie: run.flc save 1st frame and default file name is run_frame1.pcx
In the save fram dialog, allow for saving directly in GIF.
Allow for resizing the the background without changing the shape of the item being displayed. ie: a frame death.flc might not be the same as in run.flc, but we might want them in the same gif.
Allow for saving an entire facing as an animated gif.
Have the default save path be a sub-dir (or the same dir) as the path that was used to open the file. This can be a simple parse of the file name to extract the path.
Have preset configurations that are preserved from load to load. ie: have a default save path. have a default save_frame location and extension, and so on.
You have a zoom, have the zoom show the unit zoomed in, but still animated unless you hit the STOP button. In which case have the zoom show the same frame as the small frame. This would give us the ability to in close detail examine an animation for flaws without squinting at the fairly small units.

I'll thinking about this!

 

[Cyber Dreyk]

Sorry if this has been asked but,dose it work for Windows 98?

Yes, it works with Win 9x qite well. But possible some minor bugs may occurs under such OS.

 

[vbraun]

I really don't want to go through the entire thread so.

Will it work on a computer if Civilization is not installed? thx.

 

[Cyber Dreyk]

Will it work on a computer if Civilization is not installed?

Yes, it work without installed Civ III too.

 

[vbraun]

Now to see if it will work with wine... (Linux thing)

 

[Neomega]

Hi Cyber Dreyk,

love the tool. Works great.

Small thing - palettes as described by Aluminum

Confusion: I set the delay speed to 100, and in the preview, it looks great. However, when in game, it looks like it is still using the old 500 speed.

I am not sure if this a bug or not.....

EDIT 1: This looks like something in the Civ III engine, since both Flicster and CIV3flic dispaly it at the correct speed. In game it is very slow. Perhaps this is because it is a 64 frame animation. Small program offsets get magnified
greatly with 64 frames.

This is a fidget animation for a ship. The default animation, also has had it's speed changed, and it appears to run at the correct speed.

EDIT2: So I opened both animations in FLICster, and exported them to 8 directional flcs, so I could get a look at their animation .ini's

Default showed a speed of 8000, but Fidget's was 32000.
I am guessing this means default's 8000/32 frames = a delay speed of 250.
However, with Fidgets 32000/64 frames... equals a delay speed of 500.

If I am not mistaken, the base unit is milliseconds, so every frame is being displayed at .5 seconds... which appears about right.

For now I am going to have to edit the .ini manually.

...and that did the trick. It now appears to take about 6.4 seconds to complete the fidget animation.

Strange this did not happen to the 32 frame animation, For some reason there is a miscommunication in the coding somewhere between frame 33 and 64... allthough I suspect it is only for frame 64.

Long story short... there appears to be some kind of bug in the preview and export with 64 frame animations. Perhaps 64 is too long. I think I read somewhere once that FLC's have a secret 0 frame in every animation, meaning ht eactual maximum of civ 3 flics is 63 frames?


this is in build 90 of civIIIflic, and 1.18 of FLICster.

 

[Cyber Dreyk]

Hi, Neomega!

You have made a good investigations!
I want to explain a several points and make some comments.

You know, Civ3FlcEdit & FLICster works with FLC files. These utilities can modify FLC files including changing a time delay.
Regarding Civ3FlcEdit - you can open FLC Info dialog box which contain two timing parameters: 'Speed(ms)' and 'Animation Time'. First parameter shows actual delay between two frames when animation is playing and the second shows total animation time for one direction (count of frames per direction * speed).

I don't know is Civ III using one of the parameters above or maybe gets time/speed parameters from unit INI file. As you know, INI file contains such lines:
[Speed]
Normal Speed=225
Fast Speed=225
Possible, you can change animation time via INI file... Actually I have never test it.

And one more - I don't heard about 64 frames limit in Civ III. But it's possible... From other hand, Civ III using leader head animation where 121 frames...

It's very interesting - how to change animation speed so as Civ III engine can accept it. Please, write to me in case you'll fild how to make it.

I think I read somewhere once that FLC's have a secret 0 frame in every animation, meaning ht eactual maximum of civ 3 flics is 63 frames?

It's not a seret frame. If you open 'Extended Info' sheet of the FLC Info dialog box, you can see that normally each direction starts with BYTE_RUN chunk and all other frames contains DELTA_FLC chunks.
BYTE_RUN means that chunk contains a full image that is compressed with byte oriented RLE. DELTA_FLC chunk contains The chunk contains only the differences (the "delta") between the current frame and the previous frame.

 

[Neomega]

Hi Cyber Dreyk,

I ran into the same thing again, this time with a 48 frame animation.

It seems the real break comes in the process of changing the delay.

I had the default set to 250 when I made my death animation. Upon review it was too slow, so I bumped it down to 50, and the preview looked good. Once again, in game, it was running at 250. I don't understand where Civ3flic is getting the preview instructions, because when actually written to the c3f file, the delay stays at default.

So I deleted, the .flc, .c3f and .pcx file and started fresh this time, starting with a delay of 50 when creating a new storyboard... and that did the trick.

 

[Bjornlo]

Hi, Bjornlo!
Please, check a last update - v.3,0,7,90 which was uploaded in the end of January.

Ah, I just installed the version in your latest copy of Civ3FlcEdit_and_Civ3MM.zip, since you also did this, I did not check to see if when you updated the standalone Civ3FlcEdit you and did the one bundled with Civ3MM. I've now installed the latest version.

Hi, Bjornlo!
Most likely it's not a Civ3FlcEdit's bug. I think that it may be a problem of importing from Storyboard to FLC - you can miss some parameters... Can you send to me or (it's better) attach here the Storyboard - C3F file & image file?

This bug sure does seem to be in Civ3FlcEdit. Since to create the PCX, I took a FLC I made with flicster and exported the storyboard/pcx.
The bug did not exist before in the FLC. For fun, I also pulled the PCX out with flicster and replaced the pcx Civ3FlcEdit generated. The display bug was still there in Civ3FlcEdit but not in flicster. I examined the PCX file quite closely with photoshop to see if all the pixels had the exact same value and they did.
The bug in the picture was more visible then most of the other occurances, where it was around 1/4 as many pixels. The flc in question is Me262Attack.flc from the me262 in my signature.
So, I can duplicate the bug with Civ3FlcEdit using either the PCX file it or flicster generates. I can not duplicate this bug with flicster, nor can I find any annomoly in the image files. It is fairly easy to check. Select the magic wand, set the tolerance to zero, and check if any stray pixels show up when you click on the background color.
Since this issue does not seem to show up in the final FLC, it is not a HUGE bug, as far as I am concerned. But it would be nice to see what is in the pcx without wondering if it is a render bug.

Another more interesting bug is that the resize option sometimes works perfectly (80%) and sometimes destroys the image (20%). I was playing around with a couple of planes that were the wrong scale. 4 resized correctly, one went invisible and the shadow went red. Curious I tried 5 more (some of which were the correct size, some not, since that part did not matter to my experiment). Again 4 went perfectly, the 5th lost 20-50% of the pixels which became invisible.
Puzzling.

 

[Cyber Dreyk]

I had the default set to 250 when I made my death animation. Upon review it was too slow, so I bumped it down to 50, and the preview looked good. Once again, in game, it was running at 250. I don't understand where Civ3flic is getting the preview instructions, because when actually written to the c3f file, the delay stays at default.

So I deleted, the .flc, .c3f and .pcx file and started fresh this time, starting with a delay of 50 when creating a new storyboard... and that did the trick.

Well, I have made the following test: open a FLC, change speed from default value to 50 and then save it. After I reopen the FLC speed value and animation time where correct (new values). So I'm sure that delay changes where saved. These parameters stores in the header of FLC - as I told you can see them in the 'FLC Info' dialog.
Can you make one more test (more complex ):
1) open FLC with Civ3FlcEdit, change delay, save FLC, reopen and check 'FLC Info' values.
2) open FLC with FLICster, export it to the storyboard with changed delay and then make FLC again.
After you can heck both FLCs with Civ III - in case FLC which made by Civ3FlcEdit will has wrong delay and FLICsters FLC has right delay so Civ3FlcEdit has some bug.
Sorry about my test request but I have not installed Civ III on hand and have not free time too.

 

[Cyber Dreyk]

This bug sure does seem to be in Civ3FlcEdit. Since to create the PCX, I took a FLC I made with flicster and exported the storyboard/pcx.
The bug did not exist before in the FLC...

I just ask you again: can you attach here the Storyboard - C3F file & image file?
I want to test it.

Another more interesting bug is that the resize option sometimes works perfectly (80%) and sometimes destroys the image (20%). I was playing around with a couple of planes that were the wrong scale. 4 resized correctly, one went invisible and the shadow went red. Curious I tried 5 more (some of which were the correct size, some not, since that part did not matter to my experiment). Again 4 went perfectly, the 5th lost 20-50% of the pixels which became invisible.
Puzzling.

And, please, attach here one of the wrong scaling FLC animation, I mean your 5th plain before scaling.

 

[vbraun]

Is there anyway you could change something to get rid of this:

err:module:import_dll Library LTDIS12n.dll (which is needed by L"C:\\ProgramFile s\\Civ3Flc\\GraphX.dll") not found
err:module:import_dll Library LTDLG12N.dll (which is needed by L"C:\\ProgramFile s\\Civ3Flc\\GraphX.dll") not found
err:module:import_dll Library LTEFX12n.dll (which is needed by L"C:\\ProgramFile s\\Civ3Flc\\GraphX.dll") not found
err:module:import_dll Library LTFIL12n.DLL (which is needed by L"C:\\ProgramFile s\\Civ3Flc\\GraphX.dll") not found
err:module:import_dll Library LTIMG12n.dll (which is needed by L"C:\\ProgramFile s\\Civ3Flc\\GraphX.dll") not found
err:module:import_dll Library LTKRN12n.dll (which is needed by L"C:\\ProgramFile s\\Civ3Flc\\GraphX.dll") not found
err:module:import_dll Library LTLST12n.dll (which is needed by L"C:\\ProgramFile s\\Civ3Flc\\GraphX.dll") not found
err:module:import_dll Library LTTWN12n.dll (which is needed by L"C:\\ProgramFile s\\Civ3Flc\\GraphX.dll") not found
err:module:import_dll Library LTSCR12n.DLL (which is needed by L"C:\\ProgramFile s\\Civ3Flc\\GraphX.dll") not found
err:module:import_dll Library MFC42.DLL (which is needed by L"C:\\ProgramFiles\\ Civ3Flc\\GraphX.dll") not found
err:module:import_dll Library GraphX.dll (which is needed by L"C:\\ProgramFiles\ \Civ3Flc\\MFCaids.dll") not found
err:module:import_dll Library MFC42.DLL (which is needed by L"C:\\ProgramFiles\\ Civ3Flc\\MFCaids.dll") not found
err:module:import_dll Library MFCaids.dll (which is needed by L"C:\\ProgramFiles \\Civ3Flc\\Civ3FlcEdit.exe") not found
err:module:import_dll Library LTDIS12n.dll (which is needed by L"C:\\ProgramFile s\\Civ3Flc\\GraphX.dll") not found
err:module:import_dll Library LTDLG12N.dll (which is needed by L"C:\\ProgramFile s\\Civ3Flc\\GraphX.dll") not found
err:module:import_dll Library LTEFX12n.dll (which is needed by L"C:\\ProgramFile s\\Civ3Flc\\GraphX.dll") not found
err:module:import_dll Library LTFIL12n.DLL (which is needed by L"C:\\ProgramFile s\\Civ3Flc\\GraphX.dll") not found
err:module:import_dll Library LTIMG12n.dll (which is needed by L"C:\\ProgramFile s\\Civ3Flc\\GraphX.dll") not found
err:module:import_dll Library LTKRN12n.dll (which is needed by L"C:\\ProgramFile s\\Civ3Flc\\GraphX.dll") not found
err:module:import_dll Library LTLST12n.dll (which is needed by L"C:\\ProgramFile s\\Civ3Flc\\GraphX.dll") not found
err:module:import_dll Library LTTWN12n.dll (which is needed by L"C:\\ProgramFile s\\Civ3Flc\\GraphX.dll") not found
err:module:import_dll Library LTSCR12n.DLL (which is needed by L"C:\\ProgramFile s\\Civ3Flc\\GraphX.dll") not found
err:module:import_dll Library MFC42.DLL (which is needed by L"C:\\ProgramFiles\\ Civ3Flc\\GraphX.dll") not found
err:module:import_dll Library GraphX.dll (which is needed by L"C:\\ProgramFiles\ \Civ3Flc\\Civ3FlcEdit.exe") not found
err:module:import_dll Library MFC42.DLL (which is needed by L"C:\\ProgramFiles\\ Civ3Flc\\Civ3FlcEdit.exe") not found
err:module:LdrInitializeThunk Main exe initialization for L"C:\\ProgramFiles\\Ci v3Flc\\Civ3FlcEdit.exe" failed, status c0000135

There probably is no way without you having to spend lots more hours on this but I would really like this to get this to work on my Linux machine. (So I'dont have to boot up windows and do it from there) I'm using the latest build.

I think it could be a problem where you've instructed the program to look for the dlls. I'll continue to play with the possible locations of them to see if that will solve anything.

 

[Bjornlo]

I just ask you again: can you attach here the Storyboard - C3F file & image file?
I want to test it.


And, please, attach here one of the wrong scaling FLC animation, I mean your 5th plain before scaling.

I will send you a PM with my email.

 

[Cyber Dreyk]

There probably is no way without you having to spend lots more hours on this but I would really like this to get this to work on my Linux machine. (So I'dont have to boot up windows and do it from there) I'm using the latest build.

I think it could be a problem where you've instructed the program to look for the dlls. I'll continue to play with the possible locations of them to see if that will solve anything.

Well, installation trying to copy all necessary DLLs to the Windows System directory. I don't know how it's working on your Linux machine...
You can try to check install log file, which is placed in the directory where Civ3FlcEdit was installed (InstallLog_Civ3FlcEdit.txt)