The Rocky Mountain Civilization II Site Presents: Editing UNITS.GIF Using PSP

[Martin Gühmann]

INTRODUCTION

There are so many questions and problems out there about editing gif files in Civ II, I finally decided I’d try and write a basic “How To” Tip. I’ll go over some basic principles, then end up with a step by step example. This tip will not make you a good artist.

UNITS.GIF

There are several gif files in Civ II, all of which can be edited. UNITS.GIF gets the most attention. It is the file that stores the images (pictures) for all of the units displayed in Civ II. It is directly related to the description of each unit and its characteristics found in RULES.TXT. The units also use specific sound files (.WAV files) found in the SOUND directory of Civ II (or one of the scenario directories if you have the Scenario CD). Changing the units in Civ II’s UNITS.GIF without understanding these relationships will not produce the desired results.

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The UNITS.GIF file provided by Microprose gives some important hints on editing the file at the bottom of the file itself. These include the following:

TRANSPARANCY

A gif formatted file allows certain colors in the color pallett to be defined as transparent. This means, those colors do not appear when the “picture” represented by the gif is placed in a file and used. Instead, whatever is already in the background appears where those colors would have been. In Civ II, the last three colors of the color pallett are the colors defined as transparent. This is hard coded. You can change the pallett when editing a unit, but you must insure that the last three colors are the ones used in the “transparent” areas of the unit. Civ II is hard coded to find the units in the particular locations that are represented in the file, UNITS.GIF, where they are surrounded by the “green” boxes.

LOCATION

Microprose uses two of the transparent colors to surround each unit in such a way as to show a “diamond” for the units position. You can not violate the lower part of this diamond. (The darker, purplish color at the bottom of the units in the stock UNITS.GIF). It does not matter if only one of the “transparent” colors are used to surround the unit (you will see this in some UNITS.GIF files from the net. It is just easier to make out the diamond if two of the transparent colors are used. Again, you can not create a unit that extends below the diamond, if you do, strange things happen.

PSP USAGE

Paint shop pro is an excellent, shareware tool for editing gifs. IN working with Civ II, it has one major limitation. That is that it places a control block in the gif file if you do a “Save As”. Civ II vomits when it hits this control block. You will get an error message. If you ingnore it about 12-15 times (or so), you will ultimately get into the game, but you will not see any units. You can avoid this by simply copying the original (or good) UNITS.GIF (or other gif file) to the location you want it BEFORE editing using File Manager. Then, when you are done editing, use the “Save” command. Then PSP saves it as it was.

There are many tools in PSP for editing. Basically, you pick the foreground color you want to edit in (from the strip menu) and then use the pencil, the line, the fill, the spray, etc. to work in that color. We find the “fence” and the “lasso” extremely useful for copying and moving portions of one picture to another area for editing. You fence around, or lasso around, an area, then copy (from the “Edit” menu).
Then you can experiment with the various paste options (New Selection, Inot Selection, etc.).

EXAMPLE

Here’s a simple example of editing UNITS.GIF for any scenario for the scenario CD. If you do not have the scenario CD, then you’ll have to end up moving your original UNITS.GIF file to a safe place and editing in the UNITS.GIF in the main level Civ II directory. You can use the same directions, although it will be different units you edit.

1. Using file manager, make a copy of the UNITS.GIF file in the ALIEN directory under the SCENARIO directory. Call the new copy OLDUNITS.GIF.
2. Go into PSP and open the UNITS.GIF file in the ALIEN directory under the SCENARIO directory.
3. Under the “View” command, zoom in to 6:1.
4. Pan to the lower right corner of th file, where you will see a heavy truck with a beam weapon mounted on the back. Using the fence tool, make a fence around this truck, fencing in the entire area all the way to just on the outside of the green border.
5. Under the edit command, execute the “Copy” command.
6. Now, pan up in the file to the FRAAG (I believe) vehicle which is also on the far right, but the scond row from the top.
7. Use the “Edit” command and pick the “Paste” option, and “Paste as new selection”. The image you copied will come up in a fenced view. Move this image until it overlays the FRAAG vehicle perfectly (with the green lines lining up) and then click. (If you make a mistake and are off, then hit the undo option under edit and attempt the paste again.
8. Go to the “File” menu and “Save” the file
9. Exit the file.
10. Play the ALIEN scenario. When a FRAAG vehicle is developed (or for any already in the game), you will now see the new picture you put in its place.

These steps can be experimented with until you get good at it. For example, you could edit the truck before copying by using one of the other tools and some different colors. Then copy it. If you mess up, then rename the OLDUNITS.GIF back to UNITS.GIF and you lost nothing. 

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Hope this helps.

Jeff Head
The Rocky Mountian Civ II Site
http://www.nebonet.com/headhome/jeffciv2/index.html
jeffh at nebonet.com