Box around my cities

[PlutonianEmpire]

Hello all, I'm new to Apolyton.

Anyhoo, I have paintshop pro, and I have done absolutely everything I can think of, from editing the pallette thousands of times to changing the background color to following networknode's tutorial, with no luck, and I'm still getting the blue box around my cities for my custom faction.

Can anyone help, please?

[GeoModder]

You can solve this, but not sure if I remember the procedure correctly...

If my memory serves me right, you best import (copy/past) your new base graphics on a blank default file for this (one with the grid outline for bases and diplo stuff ready), take a color sample of the background color somewhere in the file that you have NOT placed new graphics in and spil that out in the rectangles you just placed your custom base graphics in. Altho the initial background color of your custom base graphics and that of the default file look the same, SMAC considers it to be different, hence the re-coloring after placing your custom graphics.

[PlutonianEmpire]

Just tried it. I took an existing's faction file, placed my stuff over it, saved it as my custom faction thingy.

Didn't work. Still got the boxes.

[Chaos Theory]

You may have tried this already, but ensure the background bright pink color is actually palette entry 0xFF (255). There's another entry for the same color at 0xD0 (208), and lots of programs will assign bright pink to have the first index. Change one of the two, ensure the palette isn't reordered at all, and use the color in slot 0xFF. Incidentally, this is why the expansion factions have purple instead of pink as the background, yet function normally - purple has slot 0xFF in those files.

[PlutonianEmpire]

I switched 208 to have the exact same purple that 252 has. Is that what you're asking me to try? I tried something similar earlier today, but still got the box around my cities.

[PlutonianEmpire]

Alrighty. I think I'll post the pcx file, and perhaps someone can help point out what I'm missing?

[dmm1285]

if you're using paint shop pro

mouse over the background color with the eyedropper tool. If it's not I=255, go to your pallete and replace the 255th color with light pink or some color you don't need, then use the replace color tool to put the light pink in, that should get rid of the box.

[wgabrie]

Oh Dear, the blue boxes in your file got dithered. Some things to check out. In the Color Setting of Photoshop is "No color managment" checked? Also remember to check any tools for anti-aliased options and turn them off when editing Even the selection tool. And even if you're going to "index color" the file later. Finally, are you running that file in Photoshop with indexed mode and the color table from palette.pcx?

• If not open "palette.pcx" and save the color palette.
• Duplicate a working faction file and load it into Photoshop in indexed mode (with the color table you saved from palette.pcx), also load your "plutoemp.pcx" and set that file to RGB color.
• Use the Magic wand tool (0 Tolerance, No anti-aliased, No contiguous) and select the background color.
• Make sure the layer isn't set to background, if it is you won't get the transparancy you need (If it is double click the layer to unlock it), then press Delete to erase the background.
• Now copy each city, plus the leader heads, and logos into the duplicated faction file, making sure not to copy any of the blue borders from the "plutoemp.pcx" because they may be the wrong color or out of alignment. (use the box selection tool on both the "plutoemp.pcx" and the duplicated faction pcx to select/copy/paste the box you want to insert an object into. It helps a lot with the alignment of transparent items)
• Finaly, Load up the color swashes and load into it the color table you got from palette.pcx, then using the pencil tool draw one pixel of pure black (0,0,0) and one pure white (255,255,255) anyware, and then select a dark and light color from loaded swashes, finally use the paint bucket tool (0 Tolerance, No Anti-aliased, No contiguous) to fill them in, then cover them over with the transparant color.

Oh my that's a lot to do, well to make it easy I've done all the steps myself. The resulting file is attached and waiting to be tested.

[PlutonianEmpire]

it works! thank you!

Oh, and I use paint shop pro, instead of photoshop, but the photoshop tricks might work in paint shop pro as well, right?

[wgabrie]

Oh sorry, I misread paintshop as photoshop.

Having never used it myself I don't know enough about paintshop pro to be of much help with its settings.

I do know that SMAC is very picky about colors and the color order. It's best if you can find a way to grab the color palette from a file like palette.pcx which has the colors in the correct order. Then make the program only draw with those colors without dithering them. Also true black and white are treated as transparency in some files so finding a shortcut to color all black/white pixles to one of SMAC's off black/white will really help.

[PlutonianEmpire]

it's okay.

again, thanks for the fix! much appreciated

[DrazharLn]

Thank you v. much i had this problem too and was going to give up making my own faction all together before i found this article!!

[Giradius]

Hello everybody, first time posting here

I have got into AC again after not playing for a while and have created a couple of custom factions, however I have the problem of blue boxes around my bases as well.

I am hopeless with paintshop pro (using PSP 9), I managed to do the cut and paste stuff, but can barely manage anything more than that, despite the instructions so kindly provided, I am still a bit unsure of what to do.

If the problem is simply one of using the wrong background colour, then maybe there is a simpler solution, I loaded a working faction (hive) and used the eyedropper to get the background colour and simply replaced the purple/blue background of my factions with the gaudy pink, however now my bases have a pink box around them instead.

Here are my two factions...

The Eurondan Alliance: A eugenics obsessed faction, led by one of the Unity's medical officers (an expert in genetic disorders).

((Stargate fans may recognise the name (and leader) of this faction))

The Transhuman Imperative: A technocratic fascist dictatorship, primarily motivated by "improving" the human race through technology, they are led by a former unity science officer who left the University because he found them too restrictive.

((Anybody who has played Tiberian Sun will know this factions leader))

[gwillybj]

I fixed your files, but I don't have a Zip utility (just an unZipper). If you'd like me to email them to you, PM me your address and I'll send them on over.

Also, I bumped a relevant thread about editing pcxs:
Faction Colors, Palettes, PCX files

[Giradius]

Thanks gwillybj, that was most kind of you.

I sent you a private message with my email address.

Now I am registered on this site I will probably post quite a bit, I am always interested in tinkering, custom factions or units or mods etc, and despite a lack of programing or computer art skills, I am always ready with ideas.


Thanks again folks.