Tiresome bifs

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

I like added to shields and weapons to bifs. However, i'm getting a little fed up with drawing them, as there is 24 frames, worst of all the high res ones. Is there a faster way of doing this? Cheers http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Ithaskar Fëarindel]

Open up your bif and then select "export all frames as bmp". You should get 24 bmp's named like this:

(filename)_f1.bmp
(filename)_f2.bmp
(filename)_f3.bmp
" " " " "
(filename)_f24.bmp
(Don't change these names or move the files.)

Open up a paint package and draw your new weapons/shields on the first bmp (_f1) then use a selection tool (Magic Pen for example) to outline just the swords/shields, hit copy and then paste it "as new selection" into each of the other 23 files.

Go back into your bif, select "import all frames from bmp", select the (filename)_f1.bmp and it should import the other frames too.

[Duke John]

Actually a BIF has only 12 frames. But since there are low and high resolution ones, you get a total of 24. I should advise you to put the grid on if possible with your painting program. With the grid you can be certain that the copied shields are in the exact same position. Without the grid you will probable make mistakes and takes longer to do.

Once you're done with the high resolution ones, you can reduce the size by 50% to get low resolution and save as UnitBifName.BIF (without the _H). That's what I do, it will save you time in most cases.

Cheers, Duke John

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

Thanks boys. Things are going great and quickly and some good units are being made for my mod which has been delayed due to other commitments but it will out soon.