[TUTORIAL] Unit Creation with Blender, Sandris_SBB, Gimp, TilesetPal 1.1, Paint Shop Pro and FLICster1 tutorial

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I'm going to show here unit creation process with ready-made Blender animated unit. All free softwares and files essential for unit creation are attached below.

achilles.blend it's a finished and animated Blender unit with a script which during rendering will export all 6 animations (default, attack, death, run, victory and fortify) to eight direction folders, you need to only change a highlighted path to the folder on your pc and start render... and then you will see all unit frames rendered for later process.

Next step is to combine all rendered frames into storyboards, default, attack, death, run, victory and fortify. Sandris's Storyboard Builder will do that for you in few seconds. You need to browse the folder with rendered frames and hit "create storyboard".
SBB tend to crash if you have to many subfolders, so try to make short folder structure, something like this: desktop\folder\unit frames\achilles

Next step is in Gimp. The storyboards are rendered on pink background which is a colour assigned for transparency however if you want to have a quick unit palette for Flicster which produce FLC files you'll need to render once again your unit but this time on grey background and also you need to change a dark blue civ colour to the same grey colour as background. From this grey storyboard you can extract 160 colours which you will need later for your palette creation.
In Gimp you need to combine 3 storyboard in one file as below:

Next step: convert combined storyboards to 160 colours, use default settings and press convert. Save a file as unit_grey.BMP

 

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Next step is to create a full colour palette for your unit. You need a TilesetPal 1.1 and a palette template - template pal.pal

Next step: Open the TilesetPal, press(top bar) Palette>Merger>File>Load Palette

Untick Link Selection position and drag a square over coloured tiles starting from left top corner to bottom right corner, then press button with right arrow. This will copy palette colours from template to internal palette window.

Next step: click in Palette Merger>File>browse your unit_grey.BMP and open in TilesetPal, it should look as below, you will see 160 colours exported from your storybaords.

Next: drag a square over your black tiles in internal palette window and press right arrow. This will transfer 160 colours from external palette window into internal palette window

Your internal palette should now have completed 256 colours essential for later process.

Draw a square over internal palette tiles and press left arrow>File>Save palette> as JASC palette file> Unit.pal

 

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Next step is to prepare files for Flicster. FLICster1.0.0.17_FullSetup needs a patch FLICster1.0.0.18 to work correctly, otherwise will freeze during export or animation view.

Open Flicster, press New and start creating flc files. Most of the setting you will see there can be left default. You need to change frame size 16x16 to 180x180. That's the size of each render frame, this is set in .blend file attached above. Use this size for all your flc files, attack, default, death, fortify, run, victory.

Next is frame count (default 1 ) - this is set in Blender too, number of frames each animation have. Most of my foot units have number of frames as follows: attack 15, default 15, death 22, fortify 10, run 10, victory 15.

Next parameter you need to think of is Base file name which is self explanatory, you need to name each file as before attack, default, death, fortify, run, victory.

The last parameter you might need to change is Default Delay (80ms). I use default setting for all flc animations 80ms except default_flc where I use 125ms. The other creators had this different, so you can experiment here a little yourself.

When you finish this you can start creating you first flc files (for now empty but will be filled in later process). Each file can be exported as pcx and flc, and saved in your unit folder. You will see in that folder empty storyboards created. In later process you will save storyboards (pink background) you created earlier with Blender over empty storyboards you created now . You will also see flc empty files with the same names as pcx files.
In attachment I added mine empty storyboards (pcx) plus flicster files (flc) wich you can use as templates. Feel free to open it but only press File Information and Export button. Pressing other button will crash Flicster at this stage.

 

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When all this is done you need to install a software Jasc Paint Shop Pro 8 or any other version you can find online. I tried Gimp and Corel Photo Paint but I was struggling to apply the palette, so I'm using the older tool.

Drop the storyboards on pink background into Pain Shop Pro and open the palette menu.

Choose Edith Path and browse the unit.pal palette you have created earlier, choose nearest colour matching and press load:

You unit will be slightly pixelated, this is happening because loaded palette decreasing the number of colours to use by Flicster to 256. Save the image, in my case I use default.bmp, as default.pcx - save this over empty default.pcx you exported earlier from Flicster. Repeat the process with remaining storyboards.

 

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Now, the last step should be quite rewarding . If everything you have done until now was correct, then open the Flicster - File>Open> browse of an empty flc file you created earlier, default for instance, and if you saved your storbyoard with applied palette over default.pcx now in Flicster you should see your unit.

Export it as default.flc and repeat this with all other storyboards.

Hope everything is explained clearly enough and will help you to create your first unit Good luck!