Leader Pics

[|S| MALiCE]

I noticed that there are alot of custom animated leader heads, but my question to the mod community is, is it possible to have "non-animated pics" such as Civ2 in place of the animation? Also, how would I go about applying the new pic?

[Bane Star]

Very easily, You'd simply open the flc file for the leaderhead, and replace each image with the one you want instead, yours being the same image for all images that the current flc has
You can find FLICster easy enough... program allows you to edit the flc file.

[Magius]

FLICster only works on the FLC unit files, not the leader files in the FLC directory. Is there another utility ?

[pdescobar]

@|S| MALiCE: As Bane Star says, you simply create a FLC with the same image repeated for all 121 frames; using a frame delay of one will minimize the file size. Some people say that you can get away with a single-frame FLC for a static leaderhead, but 121 has worked for me and I believe "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

@Magius: Most people I know use JASC Animation Shop to create "Standard" FLCs for leaderheads. It is a commercial program but has a 30-day free evaluation.

[Magius]

That's exactly what we ended up doing - but thank you for the reply.

[Bane Star]

Originally posted by pdescobar Most people I know use JASC Animation Shop to create "Standard" FLCs for leaderheads. It is a commercial program but has a 30-day free evaluation.

I beleieve this is a bad idea, the Civ FLC files actually run over the normal FLC standards, so if you use JASC you cut off the last 8 or 11 frames, effectively troops lose the go northwest animation and depending on your version of game/ptach either crashes or goes invisible for a few seconds.
I use JASC myself (owned version) to make and edit my stuff, but I need FILCster to put it back together.

[pdescobar]

Bane Star: We are talking about leaderhead animations here which *are* standard FLCs in every way. I agree that unit animation FLCs are an entirely different animal and anyone who uses anything but FLiCster for those is asking for trouble, but that's not the focus of this discussion.

[|S| MALiCE]

Yes, well what I did was take a static pic of a known leader, and (using Jasc) copy/pasted the pic "121" times over each frame. I did this for every leaderhead, and it worked! I'm not big on the animations, I think Firaxis made a mistake by taking a game with such a highly demanding micromanagement engine, then add in "animations" which increases turn delay and lags the mircomanagement. It's not severe, but I still think a good strategy game can be done without corny little animations.

So, I now have leader pics (static) of each custom civilization and it works great! My scenario is looking very nice.

[Bane Star]

pdescobar: Ok... coolies I didn't know that, I was merely re-gurgitating what others had told me about the civ FLC files..

[|S| MALiCE]

It's all good!

Thanks Bane.

Mal.

[Dan421]

I've been finding this forum very useful so thanks to everyone. I have been having a problem with the leader pic I created. It appears fine when you go to select the civilization I created, however in game anytime the graphic should appear I get a big black box. I have created both a big and small picture and used the other premade leaders as a reference for size. Any ideas?

Also, does anyone know where they store city and leader names for a civilization? I wanted to add my own for the civilization I created.


Thanks,

Dan

[|S| MALiCE]

Originally posted by Dan421
I've been finding this forum very useful so thanks to everyone. I have been having a problem with the leader pic I created. It appears fine when you go to select the civilization I created, however in game anytime the graphic should appear I get a big black box. I have created both a big and small picture and used the other premade leaders as a reference for size. Any ideas?

Also, does anyone know where they store city and leader names for a civilization? I wanted to add my own for the civilization I created.


Thanks,

Dan

Ok first, the reason why your Leaderheads are showing as "Black Boxes" is because your leader pics aren't saved properly. I had the same problem when we took the original leader pics, stamped over them with the new pics, and we saved in "full color RGB" mode. The correct format that your leaderheads and most other in-game graphics have to be saved in, would be "indexed color" or some variation. But here's the best way to do this, just take your "original" pics, load them in a program like PS7, then see what "format" they are in. Make your modifications, then make sure you save it in the exact same format.

Second, if you load the CIV3 "Editor" and then click on the "Scenario" drop down menu there will be "3" options that you have to "check". They are....

Custom Player Data
Custom Map
Custom Rules

Once you have checked all three, you can then goto the "Rules" drop down, and click on "edit rules" or "ctrl-R" for short.

Once in this menu, click on the "Civilizations" tab, and there should be a panel/window with "City" and "Leader" names.

Good luck.

[pdescobar]

Some clarifications: the static leaderhead images should all be 256-color PCX images and the last 2 colors on the palette (first 2 in Photoshop) should generally be unused on the image to prevent transparency issues. The animations are in FLC format and should also have a 256-color palette with the last 2 spots unused.

Also, if you only need to get at the rules you should only check the "Custom Rules" option. Checking the other options when unnecessary could potentially result in strange behavior such as every map size being restricted to 8 civs or having a blank map.

[|S| MALiCE]

Originally posted by pdescobar
Some clarifications: the static leaderhead images should all be 256-color PCX images and the last 2 colors on the palette (first 2 in Photoshop) should generally be unused on the image to prevent transparency issues. The animations are in FLC format and should also have a 256-color palette with the last 2 spots unused.

Also, if you only need to get at the rules you should only check the "Custom Rules" option. Checking the other options when unnecessary could potentially result in strange behavior such as every map size being restricted to 8 civs or having a blank map.

Ahh, I wasn't aware of that. Thanks.

[Dan421]

Thanks for all the help guys. It worked like a charm once I converted the pictures to 256 color.