Modifying unit direction

[Nanuk]

Unit direction as in SW, SE, NE, etc..

I'm making nuclear bomber units for my scenario like the Atomic Bomber unit in the WWII In The Pacific scenario. But the unit is marked as a nuclear weapon to give the effect of using it on the AI. However, nuclear weapons launch in the SW direction. This looks really goofy in-game when using airplanes.

I've got the animations down perfectly otherwise, I just need to swap the N direction of the flc with the SW to make it look right in game. Is this easily done with just the flc, or would I need to ask the mod author (Wyrmshadow) for the files to be able to storyboard the directions myself? I don't think Wyrmshadow takes requests, so hopefully there are other ways.

 

[chickenx4]

What unit are you working on?

 

[Nanuk]

Wyrmshadow's B-52H is being used as the nuclear bomber. Among others.

 

[Jorsalfare]

Use Flicster to make a .pcx storyboard ("with borders" makes it easier to re-allign the frames when manipulating the directions). Then you can use paintshop or gimp to swap the directions you want, and use Flicster to rebuild a new .flc from the modified storyboard file. Also Civ3FlcEdit can do the job, but somewhere in here I think I read that it duplicated one frame, making the movement in the resulting flc a bit jerky. I use Gimp (which is free), and it is important to not mess with the colormap and format (indexed). Flicster is not bug-free either, and can have problems if the animation comes too close to the right borders of the frames.

 

[Nanuk]

Use Flicster to make a .pcx storyboard ("with borders" makes it easier to re-allign the frames when manipulating the directions). Then you can use paintshop or gimp to swap the directions you want, and use Flicster to rebuild a new .flc from the modified storyboard file. Also Civ3FlcEdit can do the job, but somewhere in here I think I read that it duplicated one frame, making the movement in the resulting flc a bit jerky. I use Gimp (which is free), and it is important to not mess with the colormap and format (indexed). Flicster is not bug-free either, and can have problems if the animation comes too close to the right borders of the frames.

I exported .pcx storyboard with borders using Flicster. I opened up the .pcx file with gimp, and a copy of it as well. I cut out a single frame using rectangle select tool, zooming in to be sure I have it lined up just at the edge of the border, and then pasted into the original .pcx file and again made sure to pinpoint match at the inner edges of the borders. I did it across the entire direction so that all SW frames matched all N frames. Upon opening the .fxm file with Flicster, the image is all garbled up. I retried this time making sure to exactly match edges. Unfortunately the issue persisted upon completion of second attempt.

Am I doing it wrong?

 

[Jorsalfare]

Sounds like you're doing it right. Last time I did this, I cut out the entire strip for the directions, but otherwise did the same. Are you sure it's still properly indexed as an .pcx-file? I recall that sometimes Flicster could behave like you deswcribe, and I believe I could avoid it (most of the times) by exporting the storyboard without borders. This makes it of course more difficult to align the strips afterwards. Make sure Gimp doesn't remove unused color in the colormap when exporting.

 

[Jorsalfare]

Just recalled: Flicster can export the storyboard as separate files for each direction (Filmstrip PCX) . I haven't tried it, but it is possible that after having done that, you simply rename the concerned files and re-construct the .flc without actually modifying them with Gimp. Sorry for the delayed extra-info - I haven't used Flicster for ages, and I needed to dig around on my hard drive to refresh my memory.

 

[Nanuk]

Just recalled: Flicster can export the storyboard as separate files for each direction (Filmstrip PCX) . I haven't tried it, but it is possible that after having done that, you simply rename the concerned files and re-construct the .flc without actually modifying them with Gimp. Sorry for the delayed extra-info - I haven't used Flicster for ages, and I needed to dig around on my hard drive to refresh my memory.

I finally came back to give it another shot when I noticed this same thing myself. I actually just exported them as individual cel files each, deleted the SW files, copied the N files, and renamed them to be SW.

Flicster has done it again. Making me go "it can't be this easy, can it?"

then,

"Wow, I can't believe that worked."

Works in game, too.