Camo effects on ToT units – the dirty way

[Catfish]

A discussion of 15-bit ToT units in the Speculative Units thread led to the proposal of applying 24-bit “skins” to existing 8-bit Nemo-style isometric units. I posted a few examples of recoloured units showing how you could quickly and easily create camouflage effects using textures from the Paint Shop Pro library. This perked the interest of Fairline and Curt Sibling and I was asked to detail the procedure.

I’ll be using Paint Shop Pro 8.01 to demonstrate the method, but the same technique can be used in Photoshop. The following assumes basic knowledge of PSP:

1. Open up your units file in PSP. If it uses the 8-bit Civ2 palette, go to the <B>Image</B> menu -> <B>Increase Color Depth</B> -> <B>16 Million Colors (24-bit)</B>. In this example, we’ll use Nemo’s Panther tank.



2. Isolate the unit you want to work on if it’s in a large units file. Copy and paste as a new image. You’ll want to make the image background uniform – it makes it easier to select the parts of the unit you want. Most units have magenta (#FF00FF) and purple (#875487) backgrounds. Use the <B>Color Replacer</B> tool with tolerance 0 to ditch one of them.

3. Using the <B>Magic Wand</B> tool with tolerance 0, select all the background (magenta) areas.

4. Hit Ctrl-Shift+I to create an inverse selection. Now only the unit should be selected.

<B>Note:</B> You can also select units using Ctrl+A and then heading to the <B>Selections</B> menu -> <B>Modify</B> -> <B>Select Color Range…</B> Change the reference colour to magenta, tolerance to 0, softness to 1, and check Subtract Color Range.

I’ve added a script to make it easier to select units from the transparent background colours. You can download it here. Simply extract it into your C:\Program Files\Jasc Software Inc\Paint Shop Pro 8\Scripts-Restricted folder (default path). You will find a new script called UnitSelection in the <B>Script</B> toolbar. Select it, hit run and there you go. It will select units from most Civ2 units backgrounds without having to first modify them.

5. Before recolouring, you’re going to have to deselect parts of the unit you don’t want modified. For example, in the tank unit shown below, you don’t want to recolour the shadow, tracks, machine gun, exhausts or insignia. Use <B>Magic Wand</B> to select/deselect large areas of uniform colour, like shadows, and the <B>Selection</B> tool for more intricate parts. There’s no real way around this. Just hold down Shift to add to a selection or Ctrl to remove from a selection when you’re working with these tools.



6. At this stage there is a whole bucket load of effects you could apply to the unit, many of which I’ve never tried. However, for this example, I’ll stick to a basic recolour and texture.

7. Go to the <B>Adjust</B> menu -> <B>Hue and Saturation</B> -> <B>Colorize…</B> You will be presented with a dialogue box. For most military vehicles, I suggest using a Hue value within the range of about 10-70 (brown to green). For the Saturation value, I’d suggest anything up to about 60 – it depends how strong you like your colours. Hit OK and the current selection will change colour. If you do this in 8-bit colour, the whole image will change.



8. Now we want to add some fancy camouflage effects using textures. PSP has 52 default textures located in C:\Program Files\Jasc Software Inc\Paint Shop Pro 8\Textures (default path) – you can add more if you want. Go to the <B>Effects</B> menu -> <B>Texture Effects</B> -> <B>Textures…</B> You will be presented with a dialogue box like the one below:



9. For this example I chose the Bark texture, sized at 84% and applied a light brown colour (#D7C9C9), with the remaining settings left on default values. The result is shown below. My suggestion is experiment! I would recommend that you don’t use a Depth value greater than 1 and that any texture colours should be very light.



10. Paste the selection back on top of the old unit and you’re done.



11. Some of you may want to use these units for regular 8-bit Civ2. If you do so, then you must load the Civ2 palette. Obviously there’ll be a loss of quality. For those who don’t know how to load the Civ2 palette: open a regular Civ2 graphic file (stick to units.gif – there are a few palette variations around) and go to the <B>Image</B> menu -> <B>Palette</B> -> <B>Save Palette…</B> Call it something meaningful like Civ2. Open your 24-bit graphic, go to the <B>Image</B> menu -> <B>Palette</B> -> <B>Load Palette…</B> and select Civ2. Done.

Edit: Corrected colour depth and added selection method - see Mercator's comments below.

[Harry Tuttle]

Good god, the talent base on this forum just keeps growing... Very nice!

[techumseh]

Looks great. I followed right along, until I realized that my version of PSP (5.01) did not have the texture function.

[fairline]

Fantastic - very useful guide Catfish

PSP version 7.04 has the texture features - I'm going to give this a go after work.

Can't wait for your gfx conversion guide

Maybe I should get into the spirit of this and make a guide for drawing isometric tanks and planes...

This needs to be put somewhere permanent - can that be done please Tech/Leo?

[techumseh]

OK, I downloaded the trial version of PSP 8.0. Here's my first effort with Catfish's technique. The unit is an Austin-Pulitov armoured car converted to a half-track. It's one of the units from the upcoming ToT scenario "Warlords of China, Struggle for Unity - 1916-1937". The one on the left was done in the original Civ2 palette. The one on the right has been "catfished".

[Catfish]

Originally posted by techumseh
OK, I downloaded the trial version of PSP 8.0. Here's my first effort with Catfish's technique. The unit is an Austin-Pulitov armoured car converted to a half-track.

It's a great unit techumseh, but I'm not sure if the texture filter is terribly useful here. It's a technique better suited to creating mottled or striped camouflage patterns. The second unit looks more like a straight recolour than a camo version.

I don't really have a shading technique for improving the plain metal isometric units. It's probably a pixel by pixel job. Someone like Fairline would be more useful to you here.

Originally posted by fairline
Can't wait for your gfx conversion guide

If I write anything about photo conversions, it won't be a straight tutorial like the one above. There are no hard and fast rules about creating units - the source material is too variable and often simple trial and error is my method. Of course there are some filters I use regularly and others I hardly touch. So it will probably consist of a list of tips or ideas.

[curtsibling]

Excellent stuff, Catfish!

This is what we need! Unit workshops!

I must go and grab PSP 8...I am using some kind of 1940s version I think...

To our Moderators: Any chance of this being a sticky thread?

[Catfish]

Originally posted by curtsibling
I must go and grab PSP 8...I am using some kind of 1940s version I think...

To our Moderators: Any chance of this being a sticky thread?

Well, Curt, you are still living in the 1940s aren't you? Luftwaffe pilot and all that.

I think the moderator has run out of stickies - had to remove sticky status from the FreeCiv graphics thread to add a new one - don't ask me.

[curtsibling]

LOL!

Life isn't easy here in 1942!
I have to convert my graphics from black and white photos to gif!

[techumseh]

The AP 1/2 track actually has some texture, although it's pretty subtle. I tried a more aggressive camo, but it distorted the appearance, esp. the round turrets. Even so, the process adds a lot of depth to the color scheme.

Here is my second try, a British MK A Whippet in Japanese service, early '20s:

[Mercator]

I hate to get repetitive (also posted this in the other thread), but...

ToT graphics are NOT 24-bit, but "only" 15-bit. That's still 32768 colors though.

Oh, and a little improvement on your excellent guide there. Selecting a unit can be made a little easier:

1. Select the entire 64x64 unit box.

2. Go to Selections > Modify > Select Color Range (PSP8) or Selections > Modify > Transparent Color (PSP7) and remove the background colors. You'll have to repeat this for all background colors.

Even more... If you have PSP8, before you do step 2, start script recording, and save your script after all background colors have been deselected. All you need to do next time is select the entire unit and run the script.

PSP8 tip: In the Select Color Range dialog, move your mouse over the Reference color and hold down Ctrl. The color dropper is now in Sampling Screen mode so you can simply click on the color that needs removing. This works with all other "color boxes" too.

[Palaiologos]

Why is this supposed to be effective on ToT only?

I replaced some of your units on a MGE units.bmp and everything appears ok...

[Mercator]

I have no idea, the only drawback for non-ToT is the slight loss of quality because of the reduced amount of colors.

[Catfish]

Originally posted by techumseh
The AP 1/2 track actually has some texture, although it's pretty subtle. I tried a more aggressive camo, but it distorted the appearance, esp. the round turrets. Even so, the process adds a lot of depth to the color scheme.

Yeah, well that's how I started doing it. I wanted to create a kind of "fake" depth to existing units - obviously all 2-D graphics have fake depth, but you get the drift. I got the idea about applying textures to ToT units after working on much larger tileable textures for another game. In this case, I was blending a greyscale texture layer with a coloured one. Experimentation is the key.

Originally posted by Mercator
ToT graphics are NOT 24-bit, but "only" 15-bit. That's still 32768 colors though.

I didn’t invent this figure – I’m sure I read it somewhere. If it’s erroneous, as you say, I’ll correct it in the guide. Originally, I thought it was 16-bit – Harlan Thompson told me that around 4 years ago.

Originally posted by Palaiologos
Why is this supposed to be effective on ToT only?

I don't recall saying ToT only. Point 11 mentions using them for standard Civ2, but as Mercator says, there will be a loss of detail. The results of the procedure are likely to be less effective.

[Palaiologos]

What i meant was that if you create the gfx with the ToT advanced pallete and then paste it into a MGE units file, it appears ok.

But....

There is a difference. The minute you paste that gfx to a bmp with the 8-bit MGE pallete it looses some of its quality.

First i am loosing my hair and now my eyesight!
Damn!