Torches as Projectiles!

[Iustinus]

I have not heard anyone talk of this, but yesterday I successfully discovered that torches can be modified and used as projectiles. Yes, the problem is that they are also used when attacking buildings or thrown over the walls at sieges, but to me this is not a big deal.
I've thought about it and by editing explopage I would think you can turn the torches into axes. How about some dark age Franks throwing axes before they charge? ;)
The problem is anything I've edited in explopage puts black squares around other projectiles on the battlefield. I've darkened the arrows (so they look more realistic and look silhouetted against light backrounds) and this works fine but then the naptha explosions and torches have black squares around them, not sure what I did wrong.
Justin

[EatYerGreens]

Sounds like you changed a setting which has turned the palette entry which is supposed to represent "transparent" into black.

Could be that whatever paint program you used scrambled the palette entries for you. (From what I've read lately, PSP is notorious for this, in spite of being on the list of recommended tools. There is a workaround but I'm not the person to ask for the details).

I'm hoping that you have multiple MTW:VI installs and can simply copy the ruined projectile graphics from the original installation to your modded installation, since they are likely to be packed into a CAB file on the CD and not so easy to find & extract, short of a reinstall of the game which might overwrite all your modding work.

Anyway, with the originals back in place, run a custom battle and see if the black squares are gone. If not, it could be a problem with your gfx card.

"Latest Driver" is generally a good principle but MTW is an old game and it's best to stick with ones which are known to work. It's when new games don't like old drivers that you should upgrade them.

[Aenarion]

EYG u might be right. Though I guess if it hasn't happened to him before he did the changes, I guess it's not the gfx card; but more likely the modified files.

I'm not sure about this, but if u r working on VI, u can insert the disk and find the files on it (by right-clicking on the Disk E: and clicking exlpore), though not all files can be found there.

Hope it helps,
Aenarion

[Iustinus]

Hey!
I only get the black squares occasionally when using Ultimate Paint to edit LBM files. In fact, I get green squares sometimes when doing Uniticons- I think either I'm doing something wrong or the the program is messing with the palette. It's strange, because I've edited the sky textures many times without a problem, but Uniticons, Explopage, Deadpage textures, and Trees get black squares sometimes, I don't know why.
Thanks for your help,
Justin

[EatYerGreens]

It's definitely the transparency colour then. I've seen this thing of black squares around tree objects in another environment (I'm a Flight Simulator nut as well).

Try loading up a tree texture and see if you can identify the colour setting for the background and. Then load up some unit graphics to see if these are the same and finally the un-edited weapon items.

The important thing to note is whether the position of the background colour in the palette is significant, for example is it always the first colour?

I think the trick with the graphics programs was described in the LukMap thread. Load the campaign map (or a unit graphic) to initialise the palette correctly, then load the image to be edited but save it as a BMP format (no file compression, as it's the compression algorithm which screws up the colours), then use a separate tool to convert that BMP into TGA, BIF or whatever is required.