[graphics]

[minozake]

Because the faction logos seemed ot cause this problem, should I redo the troublesome logos using SMAC palette colors, or is there some other issue going on that needs ot be fixed in some way? (Or am I just indexing to the palette in the wrong way.)

faction.pcx has a special palette, unique to anything normal and even to faction2.pcx and faction3.pcx.

To save a palette, you may need to enable the palette dialog box. Hit the left arrow of the "Layers, Channels, Paths, Undo" window, then "Add Tab", then "Palettes" (screenshot for clarification is included).

Then right click the Palettes dialog, then "Import Palette...", and import from the image (you must have it open to do so).

Remember to use a palette for faction.pcx, and a different palette for faction2.pcx and faction3.pcx (they use the same palette).

Hope that helps. Any more questions, I'd be happy to answer. I'm pretty good with Gimp.

 

[Pickly]

Minozake's advice has mostly helped, in the faction graphics are now working properly again apart from a blue box around cities. (Thank You) I still have the "blue box around cities" though. (and buster's uncle's advice already seems to have been followed by changing the palette.) Would I just need to try something like refilling in the background color?

Edit: Trying the paint fill to adjust the background color hasn't worked, but do I seem to be on the right track with this?

 

[Buster's Uncle]

I'd say so. Try opening an official faction like the Gaians, sampling their background color and filling with that.

 

[minozake]

Alternatively, you can add the "Colormap" tab (in Gimp), which should in theory work. Just select color index 255 and fill the square with that instead of using the color pick. Maybe this is what you were doing, and this is just a redundancy.

I'm speculating that Alpha Centauri may not care what the colormap saved as is, and will in-game just force a colormap by the indices. I'll test this out. I am not sure if my speculation is what actually happens.


EDIT: Confirmed. I changed to a very different colormap and overwrote a default faction. No colors were out of place.

On another note, my Paint doesn't seem to be able to open PCX (not that I can use it and Gimp at the same time, anyway). Oh well.

 

[Pickly]

I did try using the 255 color, still didn't work to get rid of the blue boxes.


I've just stuck the files on apolyton for now, but will upload them here if anyone wants to look (am out of ideas as to what is going wrong, after reading the apolyton threads as well.)

 

[minozake]

I found the problem.

The problem in Gimp is that if you fill with a color that is byte-wise identical to another color, the color that has the lowest index has precedency. This isn't normally a problem, except for index 208 which does not act as the alpha color.

The workaround to do is select color 208 and change the color. It will be #ff00ff. I set it to #ff00fe in order that I can't tell the difference between the pinks, just in case I need it.

In order to confirm that your color is the correct one, use the color pick and look in the colormap dialog when you click on a pink. If the color index is not 255, then you need to change color 208.

I'd recommend updating the colormap so that this trouble doesn't arise. It won't affect anything in-game since the game forces its own colormap.

Gimp gives me a headache. I am going to go up and file a feature request to the devs now.

 

[Pickly]

Thanks for the advice, it worked perfectly.

(Now I get to find images to use for cities, which seems like it will be somewhat difficult when matching what I have in mind for how the faction cities appear.) Plus cleaning up some other images possibly.

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

Does anybody know how to edit the .flc files that appear during diplomacy? I can open them in the Gimp, but what's the procedure for saving them?

 

[Buster's Uncle]

Does anybody know how to edit the .flc files that appear during diplomacy? I can open them in the Gimp, but what's the procedure for saving them?

I wish I knew, too. Anyone?


At any rate, a while back, Alexander challenged me to turn the shot below on the left into a SMAC-style leaderhead- and make it "more futurey". I didn't get around to it until today, and I'm open to suggestions as to what to do with it... Anyone?

 

[Buster's Uncle]

I wanted to mention a time-saving refinement in technique I've worked up to in processing photos into leaderheads- it's mostly the fiddling with the color balance that gives them the painted look. Real skin has a lot of different colors to it, but skin in paintings tends to a simpler palette. Bringing up the reds, yellows, and magentas of skin at the expense of the cyan, greens and blues- then reducing the color saturation so it doesn't glow in the dark- takes you a long way towards something that looks painted. Most of the rest of the trick is carefully selecting the shadows- especially around the nose- darkening them, and carefully blurring the areas that are not the eyes, nose lips, and eyebrows- and to a lesser extent, any wrinkles. (RL is higher-resolution than a painting, and too much detail in the skin is another visual cue that it's just a photo.)