Civ 3 Unit FLCs to be converted Part 2

Immortal Wombat · September 9, 2002, 18:19

The fact that the Civ3 images are smaller then what is required for CTP2 sprites and tgas is also a bad thing. This could get even worse if the images have to be cleaned up. Cleaning up a large image and then downscaling it can be done fast, the reverse is very slow and tedious work. And nothing guarantees that the ensuing sprites and tga's will look good in CTP2.

Ain't that the truth

I have done one though, at its normal size, and it doesn't look too bad. I think if all the units are done then the size difference won't matter, and it will take ludicrously long to do if you want to upscale each frame.
That would not be worth it, unless there was one unit that really deserved it.

Caranorn · September 10, 2002, 12:12

Ok, at least technically I can do this. I am now working to manually convert the bowman (Babylonian) flic from CIV3 to a CTP2 sprite. But this is very slow progress. So far I have only completed 15 frames with shadow (that is 15 finished frames or 30 tiff files). A CTP2 sprite without loss of data (reducing the number of frames) should have 180 frames and 360 tiff files. Once I get the hang of this I can certainly increase speed, but it will always remain a slow task.

What would be useful would be a program to do at least part of the work (it is very repetetive). Things that have to be done for every frame are: reduce file size to 96 x 72 pixels (yes this can cut some info off in some files, this is not scaling but cropping), change file settings from 256 colours to RGB, split the file in two (animation and shadow), change the shadow to black on white and create an empty alpha channel, change the pink and red colours in the animation to pure black, save as a TIFF.

All of that an be done manually, but it's a pain. I hope all Civ3 flics have the same number of frames and structure, then at least creating the sprite script should be easy.

This conversion is of course still much easier then creating an entirely new sprite

I will continue on this sprite later tonight and hopefully will have it completed by tommorrow.

Marc aka Caran...

P.S.: Attached the first 15 frames (these are attack frames). Unlike usually I used a Mac ZIP program, so if you can't open it that may be the reason (had no time to go back to the emulation and ZIP it there).

SMIFFGIG · September 10, 2002, 12:31

Downloaded it, these units are going look great in CtP2

And im so glad Canranorn is working on it too
great going

Pedrunn · September 10, 2002, 12:48

It really is a pain. but as you said the secret is keep the structure of the txt and only change the tiff names. Even if you have to repeat some gaphics to do so. After all the slic compress them so much that the amount of KB added because of this repeatition will be insignificant.
Although sea and air units probably uses much less gaphics so it is good to have another txt standard to them.

Great Work. The abbudance of sprite will give the modders and specially scenario makers so much more freendom. I am already thinking of what to do with these sprites

Caranorn · September 10, 2002, 14:04

Took me only some 10 minutes to do the next 15 complete frames. So now that I have the hang of it it should go faster. Though I can't guarantee anything till teh first full sprite is done and CTP2 can use it.

Marc aka Caran...

Caranorn · September 10, 2002, 17:29

Ok, I have all the TIFF files ready for the first sprite, but unfortunatelly the script I planned to use won't work with makespr. So if anyone has a script for a real unit (not that darn cow without attack and iddle animations)), please post it here. Once I have all the data I should have no trouble to modify a script to fit the TIFF files etc.

For the rest, this bowman sprite should use 255 frames (multiply by 2 for the shadows). I used the attack animations twice, once as attack, second time as special. Once I get a full sprite to work I will probably make some adjustments (I might not have taken the best frames from the Civ3 flics, I wish we could get CTP2 to use 8 directions instead of the current 5). I managed to automate almost all tasks within Photoshop so that I should be able to finish future sprites quite fast.

Marc aka Caran...

P.S.: I will also create the targa files for each sprite as I go along, most likely I will scale those up (I assume Civ3 does not have any high quality graphics in addition to the flics).

Immortal Wombat · September 10, 2002, 17:35

What animations are you using, and how many frames does each one have? I'll make the script file up for you.

Caranorn · September 10, 2002, 17:46

I plan to include all types of animation in all sprites (that way the sprite can be used for any purpouse).

So Move, Attack, Iddle, Death (can there be a death and victory?) and Special.

The bowman has 15 frames for each type of animation, with the usual 5 directions (except for those animations requiring only 1). No frames are repeated.

And thanks, I'll continue downloading the Civ3 flics so I can get back to work on them tommorrow (night to down and upload, day to work on them, rated phone lines can be a pain

Marc aka Caran...

Caranorn · September 10, 2002, 19:47

Oof, I just tried to fix the script file some more (having found one of your (Immortal Wombat) earliercomments about these) and thought I got it all right. Now the makespr program finds a problem with my shadow files (I should probably run it once without, but too tired now). I am no longer sure whether these should have an alpha channel or not (the cow sprite seems to have alpha channels for the sprites), when I remove them makespr has a fatal error and has to be closed, with the alphas it encounters another problem.

What exact format should the shadow files be in? I have them as RGB TIFF with an white alpha channel.

I'll get some sleep now, if I still don't get it to work tommorrow I will first try to create that sprite without shadow, if that works I will simply restart all the work on the shadow files (as I must have created some error when I made them).

Marc aka Caran...

P.S.: Attached some shadow TIFFs as I have them now.

Maquiladora · September 10, 2002, 19:56

Does the alpha channel have to black on both the shadow and normal figure tiff?

Maquiladora · September 10, 2002, 20:23

I guess you didnt enlarge the civ3 flcs for the bowman? Ive started converting the Russian Cossack, and enlarging it to CtP size, alot of work, but its gonna look great ... i hope

Immortal Wombat · September 11, 2002, 04:37

alpha should be all the non-black pixels in the main animation, and all the black pixels in the shadow animation.

Maquiladora · September 11, 2002, 06:30

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
alpha should be all the non-black pixels in the main animation, and all the black pixels in the shadow animation.

ah okay, that sounds more logical, i seemed to have misinterpreted your guide there

Maquiladora · September 11, 2002, 07:04

Okay having inspected all the other sprites and factored in the amount of time i have i think the cossack would be too much work. Some of the sprites are too small, which makes it a real pain to add borders to. I like the English UU, Man-O-War so ill see how i get on with that.

Caranorn · September 11, 2002, 09:52

I have some questions and comments,

1) Should we scale these Civ3 flics up (120% seems about right) or not. I think we'll have to do this for every sprite, either at original scale or CTP scale. Otherwise the sprites will be mismatched. Scaling up may also place parts of some flics out of bounds (arrows from the attack animation of the bowman as an example, though I had to cut some anyhow) .
2) It might be interesting to get the Civ3 flics in different colours (the bowman, as a mostly Mesopotamian-Persian unit is fine in blue, but others won't, having all blue sprites will be boring as well). I for one have no easy way to modify the palets of downloaded flics (though I might find one if I dig deep enough). So if we want different colours we'll have to use either the flics from Civ3 direct (don't have a copy but am thinking to buy one just for this), or someone needs to start fresh posting the flics in appropriate colours. Some sprites could be done in multiple colours as well.
3) What Flics to use for the sprites, in general I plan a) attack for attack and work AA and WA, b) run for move MA, c) default for iddle IA, d) death for victory.
4) What exact directions to use. N = 1 and S = 5 is obvious. But from flic to flic we have to chose whether to use NW, W and SW for 2, 3 and 4 or use NE, E and SE instead (chose the one that looks best I'd say). If the NW, W and SW frames are used, the images will have to be flipped horizontally (else your sprite will move backwards;-).
5) I will need someone else's complete sprite script after all, mine still has errors. As long as all animations are included I can manage from there. Alternatively I could send finished TIFF files to someone to make into sprites, but the test-bowman takes up some 20 MB of space (compression would reduce thsi somewhat but would still leave a huge zip file).
6) Having got the hang of general work with these files I have now started work on the actual bowman (I decided to use different facings and animations then before) and will continue with the chariot (which is also fine in blue). After that I planned to do the cavalry (which would be better in red, white or yellow) and cossack (Maquiladora if you are still planning to work on that I'll leave it to you).
7) Without errors I think I'll take maybe 10 minutes to get all the relevant files out of a flic, another 10 minutes to convert them to RGB and TIFF format. No idea how long scaling will take if required. Duplicating the files and renaming all the files will take 10-20 minutes (duplicating goes fast, renaming is slow). Pink, red and green to black for Animations will take another 10 minutes. All but red or green to white and red or green to black another 10 minutes. Creating alpha channels for all files 20 minutes. Duplicating and renaming Attack files for Work files probably 20 minutes. So if all goes well I'll have a complete sprite done in 1.5-2 hours. Which means I could probably do 2-3 on an average day. Actually all of that does not count creating of tga files, but that shouldn't take long (on black background). If scripts have to be greatly modified that will also increase the time.

Off for a break from the computer now,

Marc aka Caran...

Maquiladora · September 11, 2002, 10:09

1) I think either scale all the sprites being converted or none, and seeing as you started work on the bowman without scaling, its best to just convert them at the same size. I tried to upscale the Cossack slightly, but seperating the shadows from the unit image takes aaaages to do after its been enlarged so.

2) I think definately some units need to be altered. Especially the modern units, they look bad with bright colours on. It shouldnt be too hard to alter the blues and reds in there.

3) Same as i was doing,

4) Im not sure about this, generally NE looks the same as NW, to me anyway, and using the Eastern ones means you dont have to flip them.

5) I havent got as far as the script yet so i dont know.

6) Yeah i like the look of the Cavalry one too

I started working on the Man-O-War and im not sure what complication a sea unit is going to throw up yet, with the water, but it seems straight foward. Okay ill start on the Cossack, without increase in size this time.

7) Increasing the size of the flic will merge the shadows with the pink and merge the unit with the shadows and pink so it will more than double the time of the shadows and alpha channel work, so im not going to scale the size up at all.

Caranorn · September 11, 2002, 11:08

Yes, I tried to scale one image up to test this. If I scale before I switch to the CTP colour scheme, I end up with a pixel wide border around each unit (I think those may be easily removed, again through automating the task, assuming the border is a single colour). If I scale after changing colours, I end up with ugly partial borders (which I doubt can be separated easily). In both cases I feel the quality of the Civ3 images suffers needlessly (they are not bad after all, just darn small).

So I for one would recommend not scaling.

Marc aka Caran...

P.S.: How about petitioning Activision, Firaxis and MS to use a common system and style in future to make our work easier;-) On that thought, how does AoE and AoK store it's sprites? I only captured them so far but found it an unrewarding attempt. If they could be extracted they would be as easy to work with as the Civ3 ones.

Maquiladora · September 11, 2002, 11:09

Okay i finally found a way to increase the size of the flc without merging the edges of the shadows an stuff. I saved the flc frames as 8bit targa files then, in Paint Shop Pro i worked out what 120% of the original would be and resized and the shadows and other stuff stayed the same, because it used its own palette. I dunno why i didnt do that before.

Maquiladora · September 11, 2002, 11:11

Cross post

Immortal Wombat made some sprites from AOE2. I think one was the battering ram(?).

Maquiladora · September 11, 2002, 11:17

Heres the original civ3 size.

Maquiladora · September 11, 2002, 11:18

And this at 120%

SMIFFGIG · September 11, 2002, 11:22

Three things, Maquiladora if that way u mentioned works well to increase the civ3 .flc's then i really think you should enlarge them

I think it would look alot better

I think you should recolour them too cause if there all blue it will look lame and boring if there re- coloured then i think they will look great

In MM2 there are 2 units from AoE1 the first is the catapult (or seige engine) as it called and it looks good as it has no movement animations (or no complex ones) just different facings but it looks good

Second is the horse archer from AoE1 and it looks shi t. Its like all pixely and stuff with black bits (only unit in MM2 that looks bad in my opinion)

SMIFFGIG · September 11, 2002, 11:25

Hey maquiladora that 120% image looks really good. I cant wait to see these units in CtP2 there going to look great. Its already by far the best civ game but its gunna be the ultimate civ game

(dont know the difference just that the second sounds better

)

Caranorn · September 11, 2002, 12:26

Yes, that ship upscaled looks good, though for some units at least scaling up means cropping part of the picture (or more work to align it and then get the center point right in the script).

Do targa files keep their own palettes? I will try this and see whether I can duplicate it. If so we should definitelly scale up all the time (with a few exceptions). If the targas store the palette and it's modifiable that would also allow easy modification of the unit colours.

Concerning the AOE sprites, I know there are at least two complete ones (the horseman is indeed horible, for a time I even avoided building that type of unit in MM). I also tried to capture some AOE pics last year but gave up seing the low quality it produced. But I am certain the original AOE and AOK material is sufficiently good to convert, if we could only get at it. (If I had those two games installed right now I'd go digging through their files once again).

Marc aka Caran...

P.S.: If we do scale up I might have spent the past 2 hours working on two sprites for nothing

On the other hand I got 2/3rds of my macros clean and working fine, so that time won't have been lost alltogether. I can now work most files as fast as my computer can read and write to the disk (plus the instant it takes me to hit the correct function key). Renaming is still the slowest thing by far.

Caranorn · September 11, 2002, 13:34

Ok, I got this to work in Photoshop too, so scaling up the pictures shouldn't be a problem after all.

So I'm all for the 120% increase.

Marc aka Caran...

Maquiladora · September 11, 2002, 13:34

I think for some units its easiest to just cut out the unit and "paste as transparent selection" (in psp) onto the white diamond that comes with makespr.exe but to make sure its pasted in exactly the same place with each frame, that will be time consuming, but worth the effort for some of the units.

As far as i know *.tga files do keep their own palettes, ive only been using 8bit uncompressed because thats all thats needed.

Ive got got AOK but i havent played it in sooooo long, i might have a look.

I think its okay to finish the Bowman you were working on, i dont think anyone would begrudge you all the work youve already done.

Maquiladora · September 11, 2002, 13:35

Cross post again, im gettin pretty good at this

So will you be increasing the Bowman to 120%?

Maquiladora · September 11, 2002, 13:59

Somewhat ironically in the example i gave of increasing the size of the ship (man-o-war) it seems that none of the Civ3 naval units need to be increased for CtP2, in fact some may need to be decreased, but it wont mean theyre too small because theyre actually made to be very large in Civ3 while CtP2 naval units are similarly sized to the ground and air units. Also i think Civ3 units can overlap tiles a little, not sure though.

Caranorn · September 11, 2002, 16:20

CTP sprites can overlap as well, not sure how much though.

I expect the main idea is to keep the same rules for similar types of units (foot, horse, air, sea etc.).

I have completed the bowman and chariot graphics and also did a quick scale up of the bowman (from the half finished civ3 scale one). I can't do anymore at this point till I get a useable script. I think I'll install AOK and AOE now to take a look at them.

Marc aka Caran...

Ekmek · September 11, 2002, 21:24

AWesome work guys. I'm stuck with dial up now, but if any flcs are needed I can post them, hopefully. BUt as a tip. If you go to forums.civfanatics.com and go to the creation thread you'll see more unit graphics and a library including AoK units that people have converted for civ3.