Cut and paste creation issues

[Predator145]

I'd like to do some cut and paste units to serve as place holders. Some units I can do without any issues:

But others are problematic as either the magenta refuses to blend in properly in game or the color gets messed up. It seems to depend on what material I use to C&P. Does anyone know the rhyme or reason behind that?

And so I tried creating a new story with just 1 frame for the default animations. I've done so to create "empty run" animations for cruise missile ability units in the past. But this time this bombard unit assembled from the AoK bombard cannon and Shiro's mexica cannon crashes my game using that newly created story. I highly suspect it's the AoK bombard cannon material that's problematic as I then tried to CnP the assembled unit onto the mexica cannon default storyboard. It refuses to be exported.

 

[Blue Monkey]

There is an excellent tutorial thread by Vuldacon that covers unit palettes. your answer is quite likely in that thread.

 

[Vuldacon]

Predator145... it appears to be a palette issue where the Transparent Colors go and perhaps also where the Civ Specific Colors go.

 

[Ozymandias]

There is also an older (last in line in the Tutorials section) by uttajaz7 called, "Unit Making Tutorial: Poser" (I did say it's old) but it has an easy to read (and "translate") for C&P-ing for Units

 

[Vuldacon]

Copying and Pasting Units is as simple as using the correct palette and how the palette is applied... Maintain indexes because that is how the Unit Game Palettes work.

Another thing people do not take into consideration is when they copy and paste images for the units_32 game file.

If the units_32 palette has Not already been correctly applied to an image that is being copied and pasted, when the image is copied and pasted to the Game units_32 file the image can pickup the colors that are the closest match incorrectly.
Because the Game Palette has colors that are the closest match in the Civ Specific colors and also in the non Civ Specific colors... the pasted units_32 image will have Civ Specific colors in areas where they are Not suppose to be as well as Non Civ Specific colors in areas where Civ colors are suppose to be.

 

[Predator145]

There's this very common issue of Flicster having "Run time error 70" after changing colors with the color map on GIMP. What's the cause of it? It makes the whole sheet useless as Flicster now refuses to export.

 

[Vuldacon]

Predator145... Probably the Palette order, indexes were not saved correctly.
Post a Screen Shot of your palette.

 

[Predator145]

With this howitzer, I have the common issue of the supposedly transparent shading green showing up in game. I could simply remove the color all together. But that leaves the unit without a shadow.

This is the problematic color map:

Swapping 255 magenta with 254 green results in the green staying but the magenta not blending in. So that's a no-no. So I've trialed and errored with swapping 208 with 255. This ends up with the 208 next to the magenta 255. So I swap 255 magenta with 208 green again to have the 208 green be the last slot:

This has worked in the past with another unit. But this time Flicster refuses to export:

My pallet saving procedure is as follows: I rearrange the color map. I export the pcx file to the unit sheet. Then I use Flicster to open that new sheet's storyboard then export that storyboard to the flc file. That's how I've always done it.

So what rearrangements do I need to do here to make the green go away and ensure the magenta background stays proper? Concrete square numbers would be appreciated.

 

[Vuldacon]

I assume by looking at the Unit Palette, the "Smoke and Shadow Shades" are all Green. Some of the Original Units use Green (R 0, G 255, B 0) or Red (R 255, G 0, B 0) that way. The Game uses the Alpha.pal Palette and all of those Green Slots are indexed so they will show the Alpha.pal colors for the "Smoke and Shadow Shades in game... But when loading the Original Palette to the storyboards, you must use Maintain indexes. If you load to nearest color matching (Same as Copy and Paste), the first Green color slot will be used for all of the same Green colors and the indexes will not be correct.

I am not clear about exactly what all you are doing concerning the Unit and the palette... is this a new unit? If not, did you change the colors on the original palette? Did you load the palette to the Storyboard and maintain indexes or just copy and paste the storyboard to a new storyboard with your new Palette on it?
If you just copy and paste a unit storyboard to a new Storyboard with a new Palette and all of the Smoke and Shadow Shades are Green on the palette, the smoke and shadow shades will not be correct.

The first Palette was correct with the Magenta in the last palette slot #255. The Next palette has slot #208 at the end of the palette and that should be #255. The Pure Magenta ( normally R 255, G 0, B 255} has the correct number but that slot is not at the end of the palette. The Color is (R 239, G 54, B 249). That is OK if all of the Storyboards use the same Magenta Color for the Background.

All of the shadows and smoke colors will be # 208 Green from the 1st palette because when you copied and pasted the Unit, That Green Slot was the 1st Green of that color on the palette and was used for all of those Green Slots... THAT is why it is important to load such a palette that has all smoke and shadow colors as Green by using Maintain indexes. That way it is Not the Green Color that matters but it keeps the palette indexes correct. You can see this in Flicster with Units that have the Shadows and Smoke colors as Green...When you click on Alpha Blend you will see the correct smoke and shadow shades.

Specifically, all of the Smoke and Shadow shades are not correct. It is an index problem.
I will start a conversation with you to try and help.

I do not use Gimp but I recommend asking Blue Monkey or others here that use Gimp for assistance.