Unit Animations: the cut-and-paste way! (Kryten???)

[Exsanguination]

Aye... but I don't want to redraw the edges

It won't be that hard for me to redo the whole model as I've got all the separate parts saved as individual files; so all I have to do is copy + paste. Do you have any idea what I did wrong in the first place?

You mentioned not to c/p anything with the magenta background. makes sense, so I went ahead and tried it using the alpha blended palette pasted onto the alpha blended palette. I got the green speckles all over. (note: I am transfering .psp files [the cut-out torso/horse/etc] to the CavalryDefault pcx Storyboard - might this be the problem?)

Could you perhaps write out a simplified all-in-one tutorial? Starting from opening flicster to cutting and pasting in PSP to exporting the final product from flicster? you don't have to say specifically how to do anything or any of those shortcuts, just what steps to do. right now I'm moving back and forth all over this thread and into the flicster manual, chances are each time I do something I'm skipping something or other.

If worse comes to worse, I shall redraw the edges. That was the most time-consuming part of this project.

Just thought of it: Should I be cuttin' and pastin' directly on to the exported storyboard? I have been creating a new 66x69 image and creating the unit there (with a magenta background); then pasting that image on to the storyboard. Also, i have all the parts as individual files (like I said above), including the shadow (scout torso, horse, spear, shadow). Is there a problem with copying the alpha-blend shadow from one image to the storyboard (also in alpha-blend)?

Gosh... this is so much stuff.

EDIT: Do you have any Instant Messengers? I think this would be a lot easier if we were talking real-time... instead of hoping to catch the other online.

 

[Kryten]

I'm afraid I don't have any instant messages.

But we will get this sorted. Justed give me a few moments.....

 

[Kryten]

Originally posted by Exsanguination
Just thought of it: Should I be cuttin' and pastin' directly on to the exported storyboard?

Yes!

Staring right from the begining, here's how I would create your unit:-

1) use FLICster to open the Cavalry FLC with only one frame

2) dispay this newly created Paint Shop storyboard (don't change the magenta background)

3) use any tools you like to remove the bits of the Cavalryman you don't want

4) copy and paste the MAGENTA version of the Scout onto the horse (notice: no shadows involved so far)

5) save the storyboard and look at it in the FLICster 'clock-face'

6) if ok, then change the storyboard to the grey/Alpha.pal background and start playing with the shadows

7) when satisfed, copy the frame (with the shadows) into the other frames, using the 'mirror' tool on half of them

8) final steps: save the Paintshop storyboard and "Export"-"Export" Flicster.

The golden rule is this:- ALWAYS work with a magenta background. ONLY change to the grey background when you want to copy and paste something that has a shadow in it.

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Sorry this took so long.....I was going through the steps on the screen myself to make sure I got them right.

(I don't know about you, but I'm knackered! I'm afraid Kryten needs his downtime.
I'll be in touch tomorrow. See ya )

 

[Exsanguination]

Haha! It works! I found out exactly what I was doing wrong: I either pasted the whole horse (shadows and all) into the magenta background (which failed), and then went back and did the same only this time with the alpha blended palette. Aye... stupid me. Can't I follow directions?

Oh well, here is a whole troop of our lovely Paeonian Horsemen:

PS - Should we call him the Paeonian Scout, Paeonian Ranger, or Paeonian Horseman? I've heard/read all three versions.

Next up: Thracian and Thessalian Cavalry.

 

[Exsanguination]

I'm making the Thracian Heavy Cavalry a combo of horse #5 (from your catalogue ) and a spearman. You mentioned when I was making the Paeonian Scout that I should have used the Cavalry as a base because it has a similar palette. Does the same go for all units? If so, what would the best palette be to use for this combo?

 

[Kryten]

Oh EXCELLENT! I love it!
You know, creating a new unit is a lot like giving birth (...at least, so I'm told )
They are both painful....but they are both worth it in the end.

Names: 'Ranger' sounds too modern, 'Scout' might confuse people, so I'd go for 'Horseman' or maybe "Paeonian Light Horseman".

Next Unit: I just did a quick check, and horse #5 (Mounted Warrior) does use a very similar palette to that of the Spearman.
And so does the Warrior, which also has the advantage of not having a shield and looks a bit more 'barbarianish' (but you would need to give him a 'Thracian' H16 type helmet and change the axe for a spear: just copy W5 from the 'catalogue' and paste it ON TOP of the final figure.).
But it's up to you.

Here's another Paint Shop tool you'll find invaluable:-
When you 'select' or 'freehand' an area (Paint Shop calls this creating a 'floating' image), you'll notice that you can only manipulate INSIDE the moving dotted line; the outside is sort of frozen while the 'floating' section is active.
Pressing SHIFT+CTrl+I 'inverts' the situation so the the area inside the dotted line is frozen and you can only manipulate the area OUTSIDE.

This is how I use 'inverting':-
Using the Mounted Warrior as my current active FLICster storyboad base, I'd copy and paste my man directly over the top of the Iroquoi, but leave this 'floating' section active.
I can still see bits of the Iroquoi, so I 'invert' then use the 'dropper' and 'paintbrush' to paint/pink these offending bits out.
When I'm happy, 'invert' again and save.
Job done.

 

[Kryten]

Sorry that took so long. I lost my connection right at the end and had to type it all out again.

 

[Exsanguination]

I just color pink over everything first. then I start pasting .

 

[Kryten]

Well you can.....but why use an undercoat when you've got thick non-drip paint?

 

[Exsanguination]

It's easier .

Well here is the Thracian Heavy Cavalry. I just just whipped it up - it the spearmen on top of H5. I didn't give him the helmet you said - should I? It shouldn't be too hard. I hope I didn't screw this one up!

PS - I think we should open a new thread for all the Alexander the Great Scenario Units, so we're not juggling things between this thread and the official thread. It would also help clean up the 'official' thread, so we don't have to throw all the pictures in there. what do you think?

 

[Kryten]

Another good one!

Just a small point: it's not really important but I'd have them sitting just a little bit lower on the horse. He looks like he is standing up in his stirrups.....which won't be invented for another thousand years. But that's just me being picky.
And yes, I think he should have a Thracian helmet. After all, it will be a bit odd if the Phalangite, Agema, Hypaspist, Peltast and Companion all have Thracian helmets, but the actual Thracians themselves don't!

I agree about starting a new thread for these '2D' units.
This thread could be used for any cutting-'n-pasting problems and for other people who want to know how it's done, as well as for posting tips and tricks.

("By the time you've typed this Kryten, he'll probably have another figure done!")

 

[Exsanguination]

Originally posted by Kryten
Another good one!

Just a small point: it's not really important but I'd have them sitting just a little bit lower on the horse. He looks like he is standing up in his stirrups.....which won't be invented for another thousand years. But that's just me being picky.
And yes, I think he should have a Thracian helmet. After all, it will be a bit odd if the Phalangite, Agema, Hypaspist, Peltast and Companion all have Thracian helmets, but the actual Thracians themselves don't!

I agree about starting a new thread for these '2D' units.
This thread could be used for any cutting-'n-pasting problems and for other people who want to know how it's done, as well as for posting tips and tricks.

("By the time you've typed this Kryten, he'll probably have another figure done!")

Thanks . I shall make the changes you suggested. I couldn't tell whether or not he was too far down or up, so I just hoped it looked right . It won't be hard to move him down a bit. What bothered me was his feet hanging off the edge. Should they do that? Or should I cut them off?

The new thread shall be created.

 

[Kryten]

There are a lot of very useful things that can be done with the PaintShop Pro 'retouch' toolset. However, you will find that almost all of them cannot be used directly on a FLICstered frameset/storyboard, so a little bit of simple preperation is required.

How to Make Scale Horse-Armour or Turn Flesh & Cloth into Metal:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(This may look complicated. It's not. I'm just not very good at
explainig things, so all the steps below are a little long-winded.
But once you've followed them all through you'll how easy it is.)

1) click 'open' to create a new image with a size of about 300 by 300 pixels, with a black background and with an image type of 16 million (24 bit) colours.
This will be our work area where we will paste our 'floating' selections so that the 'retouch' tool can manipulate them.

2) I needed something that looked a bit like fish scales to start with, so I pasted two copies of the "Persian Winged Sun disk of Darius III" that I made for Exanguinations Alexander the Great scenario into the new work area created above, but I left the upper 'floating' section floating (see the picture below: image 1).

3) next, I clicked on the 'retouch' tool (it's the one that looks like a pointing finger underneath/next to the red & blue 'colour replacer' tool)
A 'tool options - retouch' popup window has now appeared (if you can't see it then simply press the 'O' for optons key on your keyboard).

4) set this popup window with all the settings as shown below and simply click on the 'floating' section about a dozen times.
All the colours are gone and the picture has become black & white, or metallic looking (I use this method to turn flesh/cloth into mail armour .

5) in image 2 below you can see that I've copied a section of the left wing and pasted it lots of time to make a large checker-board scaly area.

6) in image 3 I then pasted a Cossack horse (minus the rider and shadows) into the work area and begain the add the scale armour to it. This can be done by copying-'n-pasting, but it's much quicker and more precise to use the 'clone brush' tool.

7) Using the 'Clone Brush': click on the 'clone bush' (it's the two paintbrushes icon above/next to the red & blue 'colour replacer' tool). You will notice that the popup window has changed to show this new tool's settings.
Set the size to 1 and everything else to 100.
Now hold down the 'SHIFT' key and click the paintbrush cursor on to anywhere in the scaly metalic area created in step 5 above. You will hear a 'dong' sound to show that the 'clone' brush is active.
Release the 'SHIFT' key and use the left mouse button to paint the scale armor onto the horse. Give it a try....good ain't it!....

8) ....but the effect does look a little flat and needs some shading.
So in the last image below you can see that I selected the 'retouch' tool again, but this time changed it to the 'lightness down' option, set the size to just 10 pixels and the hardness to 1, then left clicked 2 or 3 times in the bottom left part of the horses chest protection in order to shade it.

I think it looks rather nice.

 

[Civanator]

hey Kryten, know what, all you have to do now is save the picture you posted and use the colors that is a way i "cut" time off things.

 

[Exsanguination]

One problem: I don't have that emblem for the 'fish scales'.

That won't work Civanator - you need a 24-bit color pic, and the one Kryten posted is only 256 I believe.

 

[Kryten]

Originally posted by Exsanguination
One problem: I don't have that emblem for the 'fish scales'.

Oh yes you have.
Have a lood at the 'regional resources' that I posted recently in "Alex the Great:scenario" thread.
It's two rows below timber, copper, tin, bronze (sword), and three rows above the Indian war elephant head with the bronze tipped tusks.
Also, have a look at the Bactrian regional resource.

 

[Exsanguination]

haha, I thought I had to have had it somewhere!

 

[Exsanguination]

Well this is very odd...

This never happened before... take a look:

If I paint over the knight entirely (like I like to do ), this happens when I switch to the alpha.pal. If I do it your way (inverting), it STILL happens. Is it just the knight palette? Or has PSP7 gone crazy?

EDIT: I tried it with the rider storyboard/palette and it worked out fine. Should I just continue with this storyboard as a basis? Or is there a better palette to use (this is the Bactrian Cavalry)?

 

[Exsanguination]

Well I "solved" the aboveproblem by switching storyboards (like I said). I switched to the hoplite palette since it seemed pretty clsoe and used blue as the default civ color. Well, I came across another problem. It was when I made the shadow. First, let me show the world the basic colors used in shadow-making:

Legend: R/G/B
155/115/115 (darkest)
128/128/128
141/141/141
154/154/154
166/166/166
179/179/179
192/192/192 (lightest)

The last one is the background color in the alpha.pal palette.

Well, after I transposed my model on to the blank Hoplite storyboard, something very strange happened... (keep in mind I DID paste the shadow on the alpha palette): everywhere I had colored the color 179/179/179, in the normal default.pal palette, it wasn't the typical 0/255/0 lime green, but some odd, discolored green:

I checked the hoplite palette and 179/179/179 was the second-to-last color in the last row (shadow colors). So that wasn't the problem... do you know?

--Ex

 

[Kryten]

Sorry for the delay, but I was trying to recreate the problem.
I think I have, and I've found a (partial) solution.

I think the problem was caused by the fact that the different artists who made the original Civ3 animations all used different palettes (which is why some units have 'green' shadows and some have 'red' or 'blue'), and what looks 'pink' to you and me is in fact slightly different depending which palette you use.

I just experimented using the 'dropper' tool on the 'pink' background of the Cossack, then tried to 'pink-out' the man in the Knight storyboard. I got the same effect as you posted.
But we can save your Bactrian.....

1) change the Bactrian background to grey (like the picture that you posted) and click on the 'colour replacer' tool

2) hold down the Ctrl key and right-click on the colour that you want to get rid of ('pink' in this case)

3) keeping the Ctrl key down, now left-click on the colour you want to replace it with (background 'grey' in this case)

4) now release the Ctrl key and double-left-click anywhere to make all the offending 'pink' disappear.

You will have to replace the shadows by hand howerver, but at least the colours will now look right in both the 'grey' and 'pink' backgrounds.

(Note that double-left-clicking replaces that colour right across the whole storyboard. So if you only want to replace a colour in a single frame, or in a smaller area, then make that area a 'floating' selection first, because only the inside of a 'floating' area can be manipulated as the outside is frozen)

That should do it.