Varlin Saliptor
Does not hate the future.
THIS TUTORIAL IS FOR USERS OF THE GIMP 2.0 WHO WANT TO MAKE AND PLACE TECH ICONS IN THE GAME.
For this tutorial, I am going to teach you how to:
A. Make a tech icon for Civilization III
and
B. Locate the X-Y coordinates for placing the tech
Programs needed:
Gnu Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) v2.*
Civ3Edit
Microsoft Paint (yes, paint)
Part A: Creating a tech icon
Step 1: Finding an image
There are many different ways to create a icon. You can use an image from the internet, or create your own. For this tutorial, we will be doing the former.
Let us say we are doing a tech regarding architecture. For this tutorial, we will be using this image:
Image is in the spoiler
Step 2: Cropping the image
Open up GIMP. Use the Rectangle Select Tool and hold shift to select a large square of the picture. Now, press, Ctrl+C (copy) and then Ctrl+N (File->New). Press OK in the dialog that comes up. NOw, goto Edit -> Paste (or Ctrl+V).
You have now created a square crop of the original image.
As you will have no doubt noticed, the image is too large, but we will deal with this at a later time.
Next, apply any effects you wish (I will not be going into this here).
Step 3: Resizing the image
Next, goto Image -> Scale image
In the dialog, make sure that both the boxes say 128 (as below)
Press "Scale".
Step 4: Creating the Pallette
Just because the image is the right size, doesn't mean that it will work in-game.
We need a pallette with the correct number of colors for it to work in-game.
For this, goto:
"Image" -> "Mode" -> "Indexed..."
Then make sure that the number in the "Maximum number of colors" is 256
Step 5: Making the Pallette Civ-compatible
Civilization III reads the pallette entries to find the transparent colors. In GIMP, these two colors are the last two in the Color Map. To view and edit the color map, goto:
"Dialogs" -> "Colormap"
This dialog box should come up:
Double click on the color in slot 255 (shown above) and edit the following box to look like this:
Repeat this step for index 254 as well.
Some people will claim that the last two colors must be Civ-Green (0,255,0) and Magenta (255,0,255), or the pallette is not civ-compatible. This is a misconception born from the fact that the original game files had these two colors. In truth, the colors must simply be easily seen so that they can be taken out of the image.
Step 6: Optimizing the Image
Go back to your toolbar, and find the "Select region by color" tool (Shift+O)
Find the green in the image and click on it. Go back to your colormap and find a color that would fit in its place (usually 253 works) and use the paintbucket tool to color in the green.
Repeat until all of Index 255 and 254 is removed from the image.
Step 7: Saving and Creating the _small.pcx
"Goto File" -> "Save" and choose your desired location. In the box type in FILENAME_large.pcx.
Press OK in any dialog boxes that come up.
Now, go back to our old friend "Scale Image" (see above), and change the dimensions to 32. Resize, and then "File" -> "Save As"
Save it as FILENAME_small.pcx.
Congratulations, you have just created a tech icon with the GIMP!
For this tutorial, I am going to teach you how to:
A. Make a tech icon for Civilization III
and
B. Locate the X-Y coordinates for placing the tech
Programs needed:
Gnu Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) v2.*
Civ3Edit
Microsoft Paint (yes, paint)
Part A: Creating a tech icon
Step 1: Finding an image
There are many different ways to create a icon. You can use an image from the internet, or create your own. For this tutorial, we will be doing the former.
Let us say we are doing a tech regarding architecture. For this tutorial, we will be using this image:
Image is in the spoiler
Spoiler :
Step 2: Cropping the image
Open up GIMP. Use the Rectangle Select Tool and hold shift to select a large square of the picture. Now, press, Ctrl+C (copy) and then Ctrl+N (File->New). Press OK in the dialog that comes up. NOw, goto Edit -> Paste (or Ctrl+V).
You have now created a square crop of the original image.
As you will have no doubt noticed, the image is too large, but we will deal with this at a later time.
Next, apply any effects you wish (I will not be going into this here).
Step 3: Resizing the image
Next, goto Image -> Scale image
In the dialog, make sure that both the boxes say 128 (as below)
Press "Scale".
Step 4: Creating the Pallette
Just because the image is the right size, doesn't mean that it will work in-game.
We need a pallette with the correct number of colors for it to work in-game.
For this, goto:
"Image" -> "Mode" -> "Indexed..."
Then make sure that the number in the "Maximum number of colors" is 256
Step 5: Making the Pallette Civ-compatible
Civilization III reads the pallette entries to find the transparent colors. In GIMP, these two colors are the last two in the Color Map. To view and edit the color map, goto:
"Dialogs" -> "Colormap"
This dialog box should come up:
Double click on the color in slot 255 (shown above) and edit the following box to look like this:
Repeat this step for index 254 as well.
Many said:The last two colors MUST be Civ-green and magenta or it won't work!!
Some people will claim that the last two colors must be Civ-Green (0,255,0) and Magenta (255,0,255), or the pallette is not civ-compatible. This is a misconception born from the fact that the original game files had these two colors. In truth, the colors must simply be easily seen so that they can be taken out of the image.
Step 6: Optimizing the Image
Go back to your toolbar, and find the "Select region by color" tool (Shift+O)
Find the green in the image and click on it. Go back to your colormap and find a color that would fit in its place (usually 253 works) and use the paintbucket tool to color in the green.
Repeat until all of Index 255 and 254 is removed from the image.
Step 7: Saving and Creating the _small.pcx
"Goto File" -> "Save" and choose your desired location. In the box type in FILENAME_large.pcx.
Press OK in any dialog boxes that come up.
Now, go back to our old friend "Scale Image" (see above), and change the dimensions to 32. Resize, and then "File" -> "Save As"
Save it as FILENAME_small.pcx.
Congratulations, you have just created a tech icon with the GIMP!