CtP Avatars

[Hueij]

Transparent backgrounds

As far as I know jpg's don't have a transparent background, only gifs...

[Keygen]

Locutus, I usually use photoshop to edit images but PSP is good also.
Jpeg images do support trasparency. Maybe you should try to delete the background that already have. Simply select it with the appropriate tool and press the delete button and the background is off. Then if you try to save the image it should normally appear as trasparent.

BTW, does the sprite tool extracts still images from the sprites in CTP1 or is there any other tool?

[Locutus]

Keygen, I already deleted the backgrounds, that's the very first thing I did once I got the units. Saving as GIF or JPEG doesn't changes the transparant areas with whatever color is the current background color of the palette though, so that doesn't work. If I export as GIF in PSP I get to see a special export-utility which has 2 tabs devoted to transparency issues, allowing me to save my unit as a transparant GIF. The JPEG exporter doesn't have these transparancy tabs though, only a tab that sets the compression rate (and some other unimportant details).

Ok, I'll download Photoshop tonight and give that a go (downloading big files on mid-day is a wee bit too expensive for me). If that doestn't work with JPEGs, I'm gonna assume Heuij is right (quite frankly I don't recall ever seeing a transparant JPEG) and go with GIFs instead, making the best of it.

No, the Sprite Tool unfortunately doesn't work 'the other way', I used the screenshots Martin Guhmann made from the Great Library of CtP1 (so CtP2 modmakers could have CtP1 unit graphics in their mods) as basis, those have an all-black background which is very easy to remove. CtP2 graphics will be tougher, as their background in the GL isn't quite as homogeneous but that's why I'm so glad that Immortal Wombat is helping out.

[BeBMan]

Scenario Avatars also?

Sorry, I´ll not threadjack, but this thread brings me to the idea of having custom units from scenarios as avatars. I do not only think of my own, also units from other popular scenarios deserve being available as avatars (e.g. from Captain Nemo or others, if they agree). I think many scenario fans would like such avatars.
Are you interested to see some examples, MarkG? Then I can mail you some...

[Immortal Wombat]

CTP fan-created units

...and if so, because the units were creted using the CTP1 spritetool, I'll let you do those Locutus
The CTP2 ones take ages to do each one

[Locutus]

IW, once I'm done with the CtP1 ones I'll help you out with the CtP2 ones. But first I want to see if I can get the CtP1 ones right...

Bebro,

I think if you do that with Civ2 scenarios the end will be lost: there's hundreds and hundreds of units (perhaps even thousands and thousands), you'd be better off giving everyone custom avatars. And if you only want to take the best ones, which ones do you take and which ones do you leave out? In case of CtP it would be possible as basicly only the Morgoth units would qualify and he only made 8-10 or so units and they are at the same time of even better quality than the official Activision units. (Perhaps BleuO's Amazons could be used as well but I fear that may go against this site's no-porn policy )

[BeBMan]

Hm, you´re probably right, with scenarios we would have more avatar graphics than posters However, it was just an idea...

[Immortal Wombat]

Thanks Locutus, I've done about a quarter of the units, so I hope to be finished by Sunday. I'm finding quicker methods all the time

EDIT: Locutus, what happened to the Apolyton Borg location ?

As a sneak preview,

[Locutus]

Damn, I didn't know Photoshop was this big, more than twice as big as PSP. However, I also found 5 seperate websites on graphics that confirmed that JPG doesn't support tranparancy while I couldn't find any other source that claims the opposite (other than Keygen), so I've given up on the JPEGs. I'll finish the last batch of GIFs tomorrow, now I'm gonna go in town to celebrate the great victory of my favourite football team

Edit: FC Twente, MY football team, won the Dutch Cup for the first time in 25 years, that needs to be celebrated My Borg location will return when I'm finished celebrating (if ever )

BTW that unit is looking GOOD!
Edit 2: what settings did you use to export it as GIF? It looks much better than my units...

[Immortal Wombat]

Congratulations to FC Twente then

Er... settings on the GIF...

Default really, Using the "transparent GIF wizard", using existing transparant areas -> colour of background = white -> web-safe colours only -> top quality over image size -> finish.

I think the quality of my units is good because they are so hard to do. I have to draw round each one individually in white, so I make sure each part is just as good as it can be before moving on.

Shame about the *.jpeg s but it means my *.gifs are ok. I'm nearly half-way

[Immortal Wombat]

I'm done, and I've mailed the avatars to Markos.

[Locutus]

Man, you must have put in all day to have them done so soon!

I'm also done with the CtP1 ones (your settings really helped me out Wombat, many of them look much better now). I'm mailing them to Markos in a minute. I think I'll do Morgoth's units too and mail those to Markos as well. I'll leave it up to him to see if he wants to post them or not.

[Locutus]

*bump*
Markos, we sent the files to you days ago, why are they still not posted?

[Immortal Wombat]

Grrr

[] Yeah, I "put in all day to get them done so soon", and now their not even up [/]

[Immortal Wombat]

Thanks Markos
Is there any order to their placement though? Its quite difficult to find the right one.