problems with Paint shop pro and citysprites

[centrifuge]

I've got paint shop pro 7, and am having problems with creating sprites. I make my city the way I want it to look, and create the alpha channel. The thing that I'm not sure of is whether the alpha channel is actually being merged with the city .tif corretly. Does anyone that may have paintshop 7, know the correct way to create a good .tif (including alpha channel) that will work in CTPspritetool? If so will you supply a brief tutorial? I've done a forum search, and have found others with similar problems that have found solutions, but what those solutions are still remain a mystery to me

Thanx,
C

[J Bytheway]

In PSP4, IIRC (though it's a long time since I made any sprites) using Masks -> New -> From image and then 'Any non-zero value' was sufficient. I do remember that I simply followed the instructions in Harlans sprite creation guide (there was an addition about PSP by someone else) and it all worked fine. It might be different in PSP7 (I did have a copy, but it expired...).

[centrifuge]

I was following Harlan's guide as well, but something funny happens, when I save my graphic complete with the alpha, it says that it has to save it as merged file. Then if I try to use the Ctp sprite tool, it says that I have a BMP with no assosciated alpha.

I read a thread dealing with something similar where IIRC, immortal wombat was having a similar problem. IW what was the fix???????

Here is the thread: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...ight=paintshop

[Immortal Wombat]

More recently, someone else was having the same problem, and the solution I presented was this:

Try this:
1) Draw/paste the pic into a 96*72 tif file. Try to avoid using black in the image
2) Select all black pixels (use the magic wand)
3) selections -> invert (you now have all non-black pixels)
4) selections -> save to alpha channel
5) selections -> select none
6) save.

thread

[centrifuge]

Thanks for the info and the quick reply to my pleas for help

I'll give it a try right now.

[centrifuge]

aaaaaaand Hoooly crap it works!! I was banging my head for hours, Thanks again!!

[Immortal Wombat]

do we get to see your city?

[centrifuge]

Sure, they aren't anything fancy, but I'll post them when I get home tonight.

[centrifuge]

Okay, here they are, they're Nazi cities from WW2 (obviously), as my first scenario/mod attempt with CTP2, I've been doing a remake of one of my favorite Civ2 scenarios(RedFront by Captain Nemo), the graphics are more or less the same as they were in Civ2, I just revamped them slightly and added the flag. Also notice the small "cities" or suburbs that are used to replace railroads.

[Immortal Wombat]

Hey! Nice ones... A little Civ2-ish, but pretty.

[Peter Triggs]

Hi, Centrifuge

Captain Nemo's RedFront is a state of the art CIV2 scenario. This is a great idea, but you'll really have your work cut out for you. Have you done a map yet?

Peter

[centrifuge]

Yes, I've got a map(mostly finished). I'm currently working on editing some terrain graphics, and city sprites. I've run into a problem with the city sprites however, because the editor only allows the placement of 3 different city styles, and the third is buggy in the editor. It starts with the asian sprite, but upon increasing the size it becomes the sprite of city style 1. I'm having a hard time with this, because all of my scandinavian cities, are looking the way that I want the Soviet's to.

Thank you by the way for the encouragement with this idea, and yes I know that I definitely have my work cut out for me. (Although, working from a model, makes the going a little easier)

C

[Martin Gühmann]

Actual all these buttons are buggy. For example you have a civ with the asian style and you but a roman style city on the map and increase its city size than it will change to asean style. Only conquered cities will keep their city style. Therefore the sollution would be to put a city of an civ with the right style on the map and conquer it. Than you have it.

-Martin

[centrifuge]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
Only conquered cities will keep their city style. Therefore the sollution would be to put a city of an civ with the right style on the map and conquer it. Than you have it.

-Martin

Are sure that this is the case? I'll have to try again tonight, but from the testing that I've done so far, the cities sprites seem to stay the same after being conquered. I'll check again to make sure though.

C

[centrifuge]

Martin,

My editor, doesn't seem to be buggy, the way that you mentioned. Though, the third button is definitely having problems.

C