New Unit: TIE Advanced

[odintheking]

Hello, all. This is part GB conversion, part cut'n'paste miracle; the TIE Advanced, (Vader's TIE). This took me along time. I was going to do a run anim, with fire on the engines, but if you watch the movies, the TIEs have no flame! So, here is a preview. (Credits go to Chris85 for letting me "Borrow" his attack anim and teaching me how to extract stiff from GB, and whoever made FLICster.) Pedia and units 32 come later.

 

[la_dav]

woo,that's great!! I like it's laser!!

 

[polyphemus]

Odin, on the attack animation the lasers seem to be coming out the tie with a black outline. Is this because of the FLC2GIF conversion? It's in the SW and SE views.

 

[polyphemus]

OH, I forgot to say that nevertheless it is a great unit.

 

[Bjornlo]

Looks good.
For future consideration only:
For those that don't have fire, might I suggest using a "glow" similar to the twin engines on my f302? In the movies they use alot of motion blur and other effects to achieve a sense of movement. Effects we don't have access to in Civ3.
I feel your pain on the C&P. My first two units were entirely made this way (Me262 & Jeep w/MG)

 

[odintheking]

Well, on some anims, the lasers do have a black outline, but I'll fix that soon.

 

[Vuldacon]

That's a Good looking TIE unit...if you plan to add some more improvements, I agree with Bjornlo's suggesion to add a glow concerning engines. One thing Cut n Paste does do is add sharpness and contrast. If you are concerned about the black lines in the SW and SE directions of the laser, they can easily be removed from the storyboard, but you no doubt already know that.

 

[odintheking]

Ohhhhhh..... Is "cut'n'paste" is a program? I just thought it was a way of making units. No, I took someone else's SB, and deleted all their pics, then tweaked it in paint, then saved as pcx, then FXM, then flic. I'll just delete the black line in paint soon.

 

[Vuldacon]

no, "Cut n Paste" is a procedure...not the name of a program.

 

[Chris85]

It is a good effort, not bad for your first unit. The first few units are more like learning experiences rather than masterpieces. Here's how I think you can improve on the TIE Advanced:

- It could be resized about 15% smaller. It should be approx. the same size as my TIE Bomber

- Remove the Black Outline on the Laser SE,SW

- Parts of the Hull are picking up the Blue civ-color on the far upper left of the palette

- Draw in gunflashes where the lasers come out to make it look better. (Look at my TIE Fighter for example or any other unit I've made with lasers)

- In the Palette where you see the red color (R=200, G=50, B=50) that's the color for the engine glow on my TIE Fighter, if you want to add the appearance of engines. It should only take up a couple of pixels per engine as the TIEs don't give off much of a glow. (should only appear in the NW,N,NE views)

 

[odintheking]

Ok, I'll remove the hull civcolor thing, the black outline, and add an engine, along with posting the pcx's today or tommorow. As for the "laser glow" and the resizing, that will be much too hard, because this took me forever just to make this.

 

[Chris85]

I think you were a little misunderstood about what I meant about the laser flash thing. I think you were thinking of the illumination on the panels.

If look closely at this preview, right as a laser fires there is a small flash where the laser turret is located. That's what I'm talking about, I actually draw those in by hand and they're not difficult to make. I've uploaded a zip (the smallest zip ever) with a few of those flashes from my units which you can carefully cut and paste into your attack.

As for the resizing, we might be able to live with it or maybe I'll take care of that myself since it's not really that difficult.

 

[odintheking]

Ohhhhhh. Well, I used those flashes, and it looks good, plus, I got rid of that black edge on the lasers. But I still can't fix that civ-color thing without making the unit look bizzare, . I'll keep on trying.

 

[polyphemus]

Is this what your talking about Odin:

if so then just make sure that you don't include any of the clors in the circular region in the first row of your palette. I you need more help on palettes, visit my PEdit tutorial in my sig.