Ah, yes, Dimitrios, the difference another ten folders would make

Talking of elephants, too, I would like about three elephant folders.... but it ain't gonna happen, sadly.... I think the most variety I can squeeze in is to render the one existing elephant at two differnt sizes to represent the Indian and African elephants for the eastern and western successor factions (as appropriate etc etc). Still need to try that out, but it's part of the 'to do' list.

On another front, it struck me that the African hoplites could be done quickly, and the reason is that the graphics are INDEXED. In fact I was so struck by the idea, I tried it out, and it took about an hour or so to get a rough and ready version done. As it was a 'suck it and see' exercise I didn't take as much care as I should have, but it pretty much works, and my 'Aethipioi epilektoi' are now in service to the Ptolemies. They are a bit paler than I wanted, and somewhat blotchy, but that's because I didn't do it precisely enough.

So the method is this:

  1. Extract all frames from the BIF to BMPs (use the 512x512)
  2. Open up in Photoshop
  3. Open up the palette and save the original (use a name like [BIF_H_1].act
  4. Then you need to use the eyedropper tool ON THE COLOUR TABLE
  5. Select a patch of skin tone with the eydropper tool - the corresponding indexed colour in the table (and on the BIF) will go transparent
  6. (This is where I cut corners - I just fiddled straightaway, instead I should have drawn up a list of tones and worked methodically)
  7. Turn OFF the colour table eye-dropper, then select the transparent table entry with the regular cursor (can't recall if single or double click...) This will bring up the colour selection dialog
  8. Select a new colour using the sliders, cursor or by entering RGB values
  9. When it's done, every pixel of skin tone 1, will now be changed to your new skin tone 2
  10. Repeat until all skin tones have been changed
  11. Check that no obvious 'non-skin' uses of those colours occur (shields especially - on this more later)
  12. When you are satisfied with the new skin on your first BMP, SAVE the palette again, to [BIF_H_2].act
  13. Open up the other 11 BMPs and now LOAD [BIF_H_2].act into them. Their skin will also be transformed instantly.
  14. IF the shields pick up any original skin tones (one did in my test) then simply copy the shields and weapons section (take the whole width of the BIF to make positioning easier) from a BMP with palette 1, and paste it into the ones with palette 2 - this will re-index the colours in the pasted section to the next nearest, and will get rid of any speckling or blotches.
  15. Switching between the two palettes will show you the changes more clearly
  16. Once you have your 12 BMPs, save them at full size, then reduce to 256x256 and save again for the low-resolution versions, then assemble new BIFs with BIF reader as per normal.


The upshot of the method is that you only need to change each colour once, and not for every pixel on every body in every frame

This method should also work for things like reversing the faction colours - but I think you would need to first make the changes, then convert to RGB mode, then back to Indexed mode and re-load the ORIGINAL palette. This would leave the new colours in the right place on the images and the colour indexes in the right place in the palette.


And the whole slinger question is not a distraction, no apologies required, DtS I think Yan's slinging 'action' looks far nicer than the original HTW version. If it could be applied to the existing bodies we have, that would be awesome.

My 'wish list' for slingers would be to add them to:

The 'Indian' BIF
The 'Biblical' BIF*
The 'Thracian' BIF (Duke John's one that I use for Thracian Peltasts, Agrianes and tribal archers etc)
The 'Greek tunic' BIF

and maybe even the 'Armoured Eastern Infantry' BIF (ie the body for Kardakes, Assyrians etc)

However, I appreciate it is a very different process starting a new model from scratch than it is editing an exisitng BIF plate. As I've never looked at the 3D modelling side of things, I have no real grasp on what the tools can achieve. For instance, can Blender (or whatever) 'backload' the BIF plates to reconstitute a 3D model, or is that asking too much of the magical software fairy???




* I just saw that will be in the 'Biblical 1' BIF Just the job for my new Arab Slingers (available only to the Ptolemies and Nabateans in the Successors campaign, sure they'll be worked back into other scenarios later....)