PERFECT SPRITE EXTRACTION

Gandalf Parker · #1 April 28th, 2007, 12:09 PM

Its pretty much what was done in Dom2 to create the library we had. Someone also created a macro which worked its way thru the entire All_Units game to save all of the units to a graphic named for its unit ID number.

We do have a complete collection for Dom3. Altho its a couple of patches old so a few might be missing. Its in the Tools and Tutorials link.
Dom3 Unit Reference v3.04

If I remember correctly there were like 5 filters that could be turned off in order to get the cleanest image-grab. The result tended to look ugly without the smoothing and shadowing effects that the game does, but the end results were better. If you edit a "smoothed" copy of an image, and then the game smoothed it again, it tended to be pretty blurry.

Sombre · #2 April 28th, 2007, 01:02 PM

I can't get that link working (the one pointing to the reference, not your one pointing to the thread) and I was under the impression the images weren't the right size.

Endo: I think you underestimate the difference between drawing a peltast with a new kind of shield by hand and just grabbing the shield from one unit and pasting it on another. Look at the hoch-hammer unit I made - it's basically a modification of the hochmeister, but in order to make that before I knew about this, I had to basically redraw the hochmeister himself. That takes a lot of time and effort.

Some of the mods on here have used some fairly shakey graphics. With this technique they can cut and paste and edit a bit using these graphics and make something which looks much better and fits with Dom3. Again, the difference between drawing from a very rough / blurry template or from scratch and just modifying an existing graphic is huge.

Gandalf Parker · #3 April 28th, 2007, 01:19 PM

Hmm worked just now for me using Firefox.

Editing sprites for this game IS much easier when there are some to cut-n-paste from. Making a combat image (the second sprite for the "combat" move in case there are lurkers reading this) is much easier by cut-n-pasting the arm into a new position. Making new sprites by changing some colors of a unit image, or pasting together pieces of different images, also helps. Even just having an example to use for sizing and such.

Of course eventually its good to draw your own but I think this is a great thing for that middle section between just changing the text and completely designing your own units. And it will be a particular help to the "improved nations" modders who are working with the nations that are already in the game.

Foodstamp · #4 April 28th, 2007, 03:19 PM

Bah, you got me excited. I thought you had found a way to extract the attack sprites too. Knowing the optimal settings will definitely reduce the time I spend on sprites if I decide to edit in game sprites.

Now if we can get the modding graphics limit cap fixed, I may consider replacing some of my reused sprites with custom ones in a few of my mods.

Gandalf Parker · #5 April 28th, 2007, 05:15 PM

I think he was emphasizing "perfect sprites" rather than "perfect extraction"

and I thought the sprite cap was worked out. Something to do with the order that the commands were put into the mod file?

Foodstamp · #6 April 28th, 2007, 05:29 PM

Quote:

Gandalf Parker said:
I think he was emphasizing "perfect sprites" rather than "perfect extraction"

and I thought the sprite cap was worked out. Something to do with the order that the commands were put into the mod file?

Really? If so, this is great news. I have been steering clear of adding new graphics because of this bug.

Sombre · #7 April 28th, 2007, 09:44 PM

Quote:

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.

VedalkenBear · #8 April 29th, 2007, 12:14 PM

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 · #9 April 29th, 2007, 12:41 PM

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

Gandalf Parker · #10 April 29th, 2007, 12:51 PM

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.