PERFECT SPRITE EXTRACTION

[Sombre]

Foodstamp said:
Bah, you got me excited. I thought you had found a way to extract the attack sprites too.

Attack sprites are easy for the most part - just adjust an arm and a leg, shift the weapon a bit etc.

[Juzza]

Sombre said:
AND it's going to mean any random fool

I wonder who he meant when he said that!! *shifty eyes*

[VedalkenBear]

Well, if someone can tell me a graphics program that can open and manipulate a .tga file, I might be able to get something done.

As it is, nothing I have seems to work.

[Sombre]

I use Paint Shop Pro, but people here seem to like GIMP, which is free. Just google for it.

[Gandalf Parker]

alot of people use IrfanView (I think its free) as a viewer so that you can see the graphics in the maps folder easily. Very handy when you are batch-generating maps. An added benefit is that it offers to "save as" to many formats. So you can convert the tga to a bmp, use paint, then convert it back.

[VedalkenBear]

IrfanView? All right, I'll check into that, Gandalf, thanks. (All I need to do is change the filetype.)

I might look at GIMP too, but I'm really not that good at art. Pixel-by-pixel in Paint is about my limit. ><

[Endoperez]

I use MsPaint for the extraction because it's very quick to use and to open. Once I define the image size to 64x64 it's very easy to paste, copy unit, ctrl+n for new 64x64 blank, paste, edit and save. I could do the same in Gimp, but it opens much more slowly.

I use IrfanView to open Paint-saved .bmp files and to save them as targa files Dominions uses.

I use Gimp when I need to change the colors of the unit or of (some of) its equipment. It's easy to change e.g. all blue of a Ranger's (LA Ulm) clothes to green. The things you want to be able to do are:
1) use the color changing/shifting tools, and the blurring tools
2) use various selection tools (by area, all similar color, the magic wand selector tool) to restrict e.g. the blurring or the color shift into just parts of the sprite
3) use the basic tools for pixel-by-pixel editing to change one weapon to a different one, or to make a shield or change the shield's type, or to add a symbol, or to make an attack sprite.
4) use layers.


Examples:
You take a LA Ulm Ranger: a crossbowman clad in green. You choose a correct option from the toolbar and get to a window that lets you change all blue in the picture to a different hue, e.g. green. the boots are now discolored, so you paste another ranger into another layer, copy the original boots and paste them on the green one. Ta-da: a William Tell the Marksman!

You take a Vanir, and remove the horse. You take a Wyvern. You select the Wyvern's wing and move it into a separate layer. You add the riderless Vanir to a third layer. You realign the layers so that the rear wing is behind the Vanir, but the front wing is before him. Ta-da: a Wyvern Knight!

[Foodstamp]

You make it sound so easy. I may take a stab at graphic editing.

[Gandalf Parker]

Using a paint program is fun but learning layers sucks IMHO

[Endoperez]

Foodstamp said:
You make it sound so easy. I may take a stab at graphic editing.

I have a week of free time. I might make a few simple tutorials, mainly about which tools of Gimp you want to use.

Many nice tools affect the whole layer, so I move copy sprites into new layers pretty often, then use recoloring tool to change their color. Sometimes I have two-three layers of these recolored sprites, with various transparency settings, so that one makes a Great Eagle red, another (recolored orange and with high contrast and adjusted brightness) gives its wings bright red-yellow tips, and a third is another red eagle, almost transparent, that softens the deep shadows of the high-contrast layer a bit. SAttached, and shown below, is a double-size version of a sprite I posted into Fiery Caelum thread. Don't use this jpg in mods!



EDIT:
As for Gandalf's comment...

I can make new layers, and paste content into them. I can also adjust their transparency level. That's all I do with layers, and it already allows all kinds of tricks. At least with Gimp's interface, it isn't hard.