PERFECT SPRITE EXTRACTION

[Endoperez]

Wow, it will be EXTEREMLY easy to grab sprites if you just change the GUI into something that is of single, even color everywhere and put GUI opacity into 1. Then just PrtScreen, paste, use color chooser to select all black that's ever-so-slightly hued by the background, change it into color of your choice. Then change the shadow, pure black, into magenta. VERY FAST!

[Sombre]

I honestly think this is so easy that we don't even need a sprite library any more - you can just get whatever sprite you need at any given moment.

I have just made two new units using this technique. The old way of doing things this would have been like an hours work or something, to get it this good. It took me literally 5 minutes.

The bmp with the two new units (which will be for ulm reborn) will be attached in a moment.

[Sombre]

I'd like to add that, now, if anyone needs any more complex artwork done for their mods (stuff that goes beyond changing the vanilla sprites a bit, making attack sprites etc) I will probably be free to do it, provided I like the mod.

Might be able to do some awesome stuff for padmassa, for instance, using vanilla sprites as a base.

[Endoperez]

LA Caelum unit sprites attached to this post. This is FAST! Choose unit, take screenshot, paste, select area tool, select unit, new window, paste, select eraser, select background color, erase background, move unit/shadow to nice position, save. I did most of these twice, due to not noticing the black area between their legs. INSANE SPEED!

[Endoperez]

Gandalf, or anyone else who happens to know the answer:

Would it be possible to do a shortcut for Dominions that first replaces guiborder2.tga with some other tga file, then launches Dom with a --postexec command that somehow replaces the new guiborder2.tga with the original? Or copy of the original, actually, but you know what I mean. It would enable one Dom directory to be used for both normal games AND for ultra-quick screen-grabbing of units, with the only difference being in the shortcut used to launch Dom.

I'm pretty sure it could be done with two .bat files, but I can't write those.

[Sombre]

I don't even think it's that important to be able to do them super fast - I mean even without changing the borders and whatnot you can still get the sprite out cleanly and make the shadow in under a couple of minutes.

I really think there's no need to go extracting all the sprites, since it's so easy to just get the ones you need from right clicking 'em on the recruit screen and following the method. The rest can be got from the monster file cabinet map. I mean having all the sprites to hand would be nice and all, but it would only save you a few minutes - modifying them to look different instead of trying to extract them is what takes the time now, as it should be.

For sure the biggest thing to happen on this forum. Crazy that we only just got this working.

[Juzza]

It may not be able to do attack sprites but other that I have to share with Sombres Excitement! now I shouldn't look so stupid with my silly animations!!!

[Endoperez]

Nah, I don't think this's the biggest thing to happen here. Those who can draw will still draw their sprites by hand, but perhaps a bit quicker than earlier. Those who are too lazy to draw still won't. The handful of would-be modders who don't want to spend their time making pixel-soldiers will get their mods finished, and might post them here. However, this won't start an explosion of mods - we already had that one! Really, I don't remember having seen this many active mod threads in DomII forums, ever. I don't know what the big thing was, but it sure must have been spectacular to have this kind of an effect!

[normalphil]

Endoperez said:
However, this won't start an explosion of mods - we already had that one! Really, I don't remember having seen this many active mod threads in DomII forums, ever. I don't know what the big thing was, but it sure must have been spectacular to have this kind of an effect!

For me, I'm pretty sure it's the eras and not having to overwrite an existing faction. All of a sudden there's a narrative, and the reason for me to make a mod isn't just to see how a given set-up plays, it's also a way to tell a story. Was never seriously tempted to make a DomII mod.

[lch]

Endoperez said:
Would it be possible to do a shortcut for Dominions that first replaces guiborder2.tga with some other tga file, then launches Dom with a --postexec command that somehow replaces the new guiborder2.tga with the original? Or copy of the original, actually, but you know what I mean. It would enable one Dom directory to be used for both normal games AND for ultra-quick screen-grabbing of units, with the only difference being in the shortcut used to launch Dom.

I'm pretty sure it could be done with two .bat files, but I can't write those.

Something along the lines of Code:

---

@echo off

ren "<path to file>\guiborder2.tga" guiborder2.old

ren "<path to file>\guiborder2.new" guiborder2.tga

"<path>\dom3.exe"

ren "<path to file>\guiborder2.tga" guiborder2.new

ren "<path to file>\guiborder2.old" guiborder2.tga

---

Batch files are like shell scripts, just a collection of commands that you would type into the command line window.