What's the trick to editting GameFont and GameFont_75?

[Gordon Farrell]

These files seem to be really touchy... sometimes my new icons appear in the right places, but when I try to replicate that success they don't appear at all.

Is it simply that the new images have to be pasted on in just the right way?

Insights from those who have mastered this arcane art deeply appreciated!

 

[Kael]

It involves sacrificing a goat.

Seriously, the trick is to correctly copy the little cyan dots and to have them exactly the right shade. Its what the program uses to determine if there is something in the box or not.

And the goat doesn't hurt.

 

[Gordon Farrell]

Thanks, Kael! I'm going out to get a goat right now...

Btw, do you use Gimp or another image editor?

 

[Kael]

Thanks, Kael! I'm going out to get a goat right now...

Btw, do you use Gimp or another image editor?

I use Photoshop CS2. But I think most people use GIMP.

 

[Gordon Farrell]

Ahhh... methinks the cyan dots you're referring to are the way Photoshop displays the positioning grid. In Gimp it's a gray checkerboard, and when I opened it in IconCool it's a magenta grid. After I figured that out, the whole process has gone a lot more smoothly... Now if I can just figure out how to get it to recognize my Holy City icons...

Edit: "Now if I can just figure out how to get it to recognize my Holy City icons..." Whoo hoo, just did it...

 

[QJaxun]

Edit: "Now if I can just figure out how to get it to recognize my Holy City icons..." Whoo hoo, just did it...

Id love to know how you got those working, having some problems with them showing the correct icon myself.

 

[Saarlaender]

if one works, the other should, too.. they're just next to each other .. did you add religions or edit the exising ones? is the cyan point there? Are all the lines intact?

 

[Gordon Farrell]

if one works, the other should, too..

Oddly enough, the holy cities can malfunction separately, I guess since they're separate icons. The question however seems to be the same basic issue of mounting the new images with exact precision on the background guide (cyan dots in photoshop, gray checkerboard in gimp).

 

[QJaxun]

Yeah, im using ps cs2, ive double and triple checked that the borders are correct. The problem is that it seems to be wanting to not only the holy city icon but also the image to the right of it. So for the first religion, Fire, it will show the fire holy city icon and the jewish religious icon which is directly next to it in the file.

I think im gonna try Kaels goat idea...

edit: Ive got 8 religions total.

 

[Gordon Farrell]

Just looking at it, Q, it seems to me the star on your fire icon is touching the edge of the magenta grid. But I see the star on the Jewish icon is not. If the Jewish holy city icon is functioning correctly then maybe you need to emulate the position of its star on the fire icon. Just a thought.

 

[spincrus]

@Gordon Farrell: Not the case. ANYTHING within the magenta border is fine, and touching the border doesn't alter it.

@QJaxun: I think having 8 religions is the problem. There was a Python script floating around to tell the game to actually go beyond the 7th religion when checking the religion graphics. Not sure where I've seen it, though. Do a forum search for "gamefont.tga" in the Customizations forums, and you'll find a thread to it. That's how I found it.


I still haven't figured out how to get the file to work. My new theory is, that even the alpha channel needs to have a grid. A black grid, namely 0,0,0 in RGB code. So if you've played around with the alpha channel and the black grid is 0,0,1 for example, then that might cause the shifting problems and many other problems in the file, when it's interpreted by the game.

It's only a theory, though.

 

[QJaxun]

Hm thanks ill try this stuff out.

 

[Gordon Farrell]

Qjaxun - I 'm having a similar problem with the two religions at the far right end of the row of icons, they're showing up attached to each other in the wrong places. But I only have seven religions so "eight religions" can't be causing it in my case. In the past I've been able to solve a lot of problems in the GameFont files by meticulously re-pasting the images within the limits defined by the background guide. I'm going to try this again and will report here if I get any results.

 

[Gordon Farrell]

I believe I can report with confidence that I have solved all of the problems I have seen crop up while editing the GameFont and GameFont_75 files. I no longer have icons sticking together or appearing in the wrong places and all religion icons large and small throughout the game now correspond to the correct interface and the correct menu. If anyone is still having problems with this I'd be happy to give what advice I can (remember, I may not have faced your specific problem!)... just post your questions here.

Whew, it was hard, but things got better immediately after I sacrificed that stupid goat...

 

[QJaxun]

I kind of gave up on getting this to work for now and moved on to other stuff. Sounds like you were having the same problem im having; icons sticking together or showing the wrong icon altogether, id be very interested in hearing how you got it to work (i was just going to wait till someone wrote a tutorial).

I tried repasting the icons without any change. I have a feeling its something to do with the alpha channel as this is the first time ive messed with one (using photoshop), so i was assuming that i screwed something up.

 

[Gordon Farrell]

It's all about mounting the new icons on the background grid with unerring precision. I rebuilt these files about six times before I finally understood the right technique for doing it and had the cut and paste skills to pull it off. I, too, wasw on the verge of giving up a few times, ready to accept the minor anomalies that kept cropping up among my icons. But obsessive-compulsiveness won out and I found I could do it.

First off, I discovered that any minor (invisible to you) error in mounting the icons will throw the software out of whack and it will start assigning icons randomly. But then I discovered that if you have a problem like two icons sticking together, it doesn't mean that the error in mounting was committed while pasting in those partricular icons. The error could be somewhere else.

Now I didn't use photoshop so a lot of specific tiips I can provide won't be useful unless you change to Gimp. You can dl it free at www.gimp.org. I did look at photoshop and I found (at a cursory glance) Gimp to be more precise and clearer at least as far as mounting stuff in the icon files goes.

One tip I can give is this (you may be doing it already):

1. Start with a fresh set of files

2. Save a fairly advanced game

3. Alter 1 set of four icons in the GameFont and GameFont_75 files. Save it in your mod folder.

4. Start your saved game. Check to see if a) the new icons appear and b) if any anomalies have appeared affecting other icons. If a) is no OR b) is yes, then...

5. You screwed up. Re-do those four icons. Re-load the saved game. Check again. Repeat this until you've got it right.

6. Now, very important: save the altered gamefont files before making any more changes.

7. Proceed to the next set of four icons. Repeat steps 3 and 4. If new problem appears, trash both files and start again from the altered files you saved, the ones that work.

8. When you've got your second set of icons functioning properly, save the files somewhere, and proceed to your third set of icons. Repeat as often as necessary.

This probably seems patronizing or something and I really don't mean to come off that way so please accept my apology if I do! But by applying this regimen strictly I was able to replace all the religion icons and holy city icons and have them run perfectly.

If you do switch to Gimp, let me know and I'll give you some specific technical pointers. Good luck!

 

[RED DIAMOND]

Thanks Gordon, but to be honest with you, Fraxis porked the pooch on this one too. The art files in civ games have a rep for being a little hard to work with, but this time it really sucks. I have tried this so many times, it is starting to make me not even want to play the darn game anymore.

Did you separate the alpha channel and mod that and then merge it. Just what exactly did you do to make it work in terms of "PERFECT" placement and color of the cyan dots. Everytime I cut and paste the borders and 1 square inside the paste blur and change colors. What is the trick to this thing?????????

 

[Gordon Farrell]

Did you separate the alpha channel and mod that and then merge it. Just what exactly did you do to make it work in terms of "PERFECT" placement and color of the cyan dots. Everytime I cut and paste the borders and 1 square inside the paste blur and change colors. What is the trick to this thing?????????

Red - I can't help you out with Photoshop. I did this in Gimp. In Gimp there is no magenta grid and no cyan dots. It uses a checkerboard system that I found to be very precise and in the end (after much trial and error) pretty easy to understand. I separated no channels so I don't even know what that means. I never used the merge function, either, although Gimp has one. If you decide to try again in Gimp I can give you some specific tips about how to use the checkerboard system, and I can tell you step by step how to copy and paste the way I did.

 

[RED DIAMOND]

Red - I can't help you out with Photoshop. I did this in Gimp. In Gimp there is no magenta grid and no cyan dots. It uses a checkerboard system that I found to be very precise and in the end (after much trial and error) pretty easy to understand. I separated no channels so I don't even know what that means. I never used the merge function, either, although Gimp has one. If you decide to try again in Gimp I can give you some specific tips about how to use the checkerboard system, and I can tell you step by step how to copy and paste the way I did.

Ok, got GIMP. Wow these checkerboards are different

 

[KingTux]

I use Photoshop CS2. But I think most people use GIMP.

GIMP doesn't seem to handle targa files too well yet (!). However, maybe GIMP can be used for editing these files in the future. For everything else, it works great, though.

GIMP just happened to be where I had first tried to approach this problem, but found out through a lot of trial and error that I would have to subject myself to the horrid beast that is Photoshop CS2 in order to do these. It sucks, as Gordon Farrell hints at.