Converting Civilization3 unit animations

[zweihander]

This is a guide of CIv3 unit conversion.

1,Basic infomation about Civ3 unit graphic:

First, you can find civ3 units here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downlo...p?do=cat&id=23
http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=60

the unit graphic of Civ3 are in FLC format, now, download the FLICster. And open the FLC file with FLICster, you can view the animations in this program:

Now export them into PCX format, click Export, click Export Type, and use this setting:

Then set the Output Directory and click 'Export', you get 8 PCX file now.

2, See the PCX file
The PCX file looks like this:

Now, we have 3 problem that hinder us to turn the PCX into MTW bif format:
1, the background colour is not 0,128,0
2, the shadow colour is not black
3, this is most important, the Civ3 engine allow the edge of the unit surround by many semi-transparent magenta pixels, which represent shadows in Civ3 engine. But the MTW engine doesn't allow this, the edge of the unit must be 'sharp' in MTW engine.

3, Get rid of the problems
Now let's get rid of these 3 issues.

Open the PCX with GIMP

Change the picture to RGB mode (it is in IMAGE > MODE)

Set the Foreground color to 0,128,0 , and set the Background color to black.

Choose the 'select by color tool' on the Toolbox.

Further down on the Toolbox, uncheck the Edge Smoothing and reduce 'Threshold' from the default value of 15 down to zero. This will allow you to choose a single colour on the image instead of several similar ones.

Use the 'select by color tool', and click the center part of the shadow of a unit frame. Now you select the main part of the shadow, but still some shadow pixels around in lighter colour are not under your selection.

press Shift, and select the lighter colour shadow pixels around to add them in your selection, continue doing this until all shadow pixels of this PCX are under your selection.

now, press 'ctrl' and '.' at the same time, now all pxiels under your selection are fill with the Background color(black).

Use the 'select by color tool' again, this time we frist click the pink background. Now you select the main part of the background, but still some shadow pixels around the unit in lighter pink are not under your selection.

press Shift, and select the lighter pink pixels around the unit to add them in your selection, continue doing this until all pink pixels of this PCX are under your selection.

now, press 'ctrl' and ',' at the same time, now all pxiels under your selection are fill with the Foreground color(0,128,0).

Until now we're get rid of all the 3 issues we have mention above, save the PCX in a format you prefer.

4, Next step?
I want to say nothing more about the next step, chop up the image you have already deal with, create a new BMP file, and put the units into the correct place of the 12 frame of BMPs...

Please ask me if you meet any problem.