[C3C] Help Adding Civ Colour to a Unit

[576190]

Hi All

I could use a little help, I'm using this unit: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Ranger.zip
for three different Elven races and while it does have Civ colour, it's only slightly on the quiver.

I've followed a few threads and had a go myself, did not really understand what I was reading really, hence the results where poor, anyways...

If someone could please add a little more Civ colour to this unit or a link to a basic guide to do said task, I would be eternally grateful. thx

I have FLICaster and GIMP

 

[Vuldacon]

Hi 576190... Where the Civ Specific color is located on the Unit needs to be made with the Unit for best results. Unfortunately, Kinboat is no longer here. IF the Unit had, for example, a different color for the Cape, that could be made Civ Specific colored using Gimp or any good graphics editing program. The Problem is that due to the limited colors in the Civ Unit palettes (160), many of the same colors are used in many different areas of the unit. If you try to re-color a certain part on the unit, that color will change in many different areas of that unit rather than where you only want it to change.

Can yo not see the Civ Colored Area in game? I know it is not much but it should work OK. After All, it is the same Unit for the Civs you give it to.

 

[Jorsalfare]

Here is a sample of the default flick after a quick civcolor-adding session . I used Flicster and Gimp since you mentioned that you used those programs. It's not perfect, but is this along the lines you were thinking? If it was, I can try to describe the method for you. I had to re-learn myself a bit, since it's been ages since I last did this (and a couple of Windows-versions as well).
Regards Sigurd

 

[576190]

Hi Vuldacon, in game the Civ colour are so slight on the Quiver it's only visible in a few of the positions, not ideal.

I did have a go at recolouring the hood and cape it did not turn out well I do not really understand how to go about it, although I'm willing to learn, it's kind of confusing...

I did try following this https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/tutorial-changing-colors-in-existing-units.253651/page-2
For a complete recolour, unfortunately it was not done using GIMP struggled to find equivalent commands....

Jorsalfare, wow great! yes I would be more than happy with this, well done.

If you could point me in the right direction I'm not too bad with FLICster & GIMP not great but I can usually get there.

I'm more a stick with it grind it out pixel editor, not much natural talent I'm afraid.

 

[Vuldacon]

576190... The Cape is differently colored than other areas of the Unit so you can Recolor the Cape.
Make storyboards.

Make storyboards of all Flcs and save the Default.pal Palette.
Open the Default Storyboard in your graphics editing program.
Analyze the cape for Dark and Light areas and select Blue Civ Colors from the Palette that match the Light Dark areas of the Cape.
Place those colors on the Storyboard using 10 pixels large so you can see them better. I used 7 Civ Colors.
Open the Palette for the Storyboard and select each color on the Cape and replace that color on the Palette with your New Civ Color.
When you have changed all of the Cape Colors, save the Palette as 1Ranger or what ever name you want.
Save the Storyboard. Open all of the other storyboards for the Ranger and Load your New 1Ranger Palette using Maintain indexes.

Open each Storyboard that you recolored and load the Default .pal palette to each Storyboard and Use Nearest Color Matching. The Civ Colors that you placed on the Cape will then use the same Civ Colors on the original Palette.

I Colored the Cape and made the New Flcs for you in the Zip.

 

[Jorsalfare]

Here's my attempt at writing a tutorial:

This tutorial is written spesifically for the unit "Ranger" by Kinboat. With some modifications it can also be applied to other units as well.

I have used the software tools GIMP and Flicster. In GIMP you'll need to activate the Colormap-tab in the Toolbox.
Also the tool "Select by color Tool" may need some fine-tuning to make it select exactly what you want it to (the "Tool options" dialog). I use it with "Antialiasing", without "Feather edges", Threshold 15 and "Select by": Composite. Other settings may even work better.

1. First I had a look at the unit and it's colormap. This revealed that the colors of the cape/hood was fairly distinct and did not appear on other parts of the unit - this makes it a LOT easier. Also, the cape/hood is clearly visible in all the unit's directions, so I chose this as the target area for civcolors.

2. Open the flic in Flicster and export it to storyboard with colormap 4 (the green one for aztecs in vanilla game). This is beacuse the part I want to add civcolors to is in a greenish hue.

3. Open the storyboard in GIMP and save the colormap as for instance "Ranger_green" or something easy recognisable.

4. Use the "Select by color tool" and mark the cape. Holding down [Shift] while clicking will add that color hue to the selection rather than make a brand new selection. [CTRL] will de-select the colors you are clicking.

5. You can also add single pixels, but this is an extraordinary time-consuming method! When you are satisfied with the selection, choose the "Hue - Saturation tool": Colors -> Hue-Saturation (without de-selecting anything - you can of course crop the selection and paste it to a new layer for further adjustments there).

6. Increase the lightness so it matches the green in the civcolor-part of the colormap (the first 16 indexes). I believe around 25-28 increase should be about right, but you'll probably find out the optimum level by try and error.

7. De-select all areas and convert the storyboard to RGB (Image -> Mode -> RGB).

8. Convert it back to indexed, but specify that a custom palette should be used - namely the one you previously saved "Ranger_green". Remember to UNCHECK the box "remove unused and duplicate colors"! Otherwise the colormap will be totally messed up. GIMP will now assign the colors in the storyboard to the nearest match in the colormap. If you have adjusted the green cape right, the nearest matches should be the indexes reserved for civcolors.

9. You can tell GIMP to overwrite the existing file, making it available to Flicster (which of course are still open in storyboard-mode).

10. In Flicster refresh the storyboard and check that it looks OK in different civcolors and unit directions.

11. Export the storyboard (with original palette) to a different name (no need to overwrite the original file in case you want to make further attempts).

The flc-file should now be ready to use, and after doing similar modifications of all flc's for that unit, it should be ready for (civ III) in-game action!

Hope this was understandable and helpful. Just ask if you found something to be unclear/confusing.

Regards Sigurd

@Vuldacon: Didn't mean to "compete" with you - I just didn't see your post until after I posted my own reply.

 

[576190]

Ok, and thank you

giving it a go now!

 

[Vuldacon]

576190... Did you Download and try what I uploaded Above?

 

[576190]

Wow Vuldacon wonderful.

To be honest in my excitement of Jorsalfare guide I missed your post!!!

Many thanks this is really great and probably saved me 30 hours plus at least. Still must work through Jorsalfare guide, it's slow going but I'm learning a lot as well.

Thanks to both of you

Mark.

 

[576190]

Here we go in game, they look great and are clearly different enough even when viewed from the front, despite my choice of Civ colours.

I just can't believe how quickly you produced this!!!

Final got round to reading your detailed instructions, looking forward to giving it a go.

Thanks for your time and effort, appreciated.

Mark.

 

[Vuldacon]

576190... Yes, it is easy to miss posts.
The entire procedure took about 10 to15 minutes to change all Flcs start to finish. I use Paint Shop Pro 9. Different than the Free Gimp Program so if you are going to stay with Gimp you might as well use Gimp Tutorials. That and or extrapolate from the procedures I posted on Post # 5.

Have Fun Modding