Help with editing unit icons

[macsen rufus]

If you've got Photoshop you can try another route, but I've had mixed results on anything with faction colours. I keep meaning to try out the PurpGrab method but haven't quite got around to it yet

Generally for reviewpanel icons, if I'm modifying an existing one, I export to BMP with BIFreader, open in Photoshop and again save the palette (it's in IMAGE > MODE). Then I do the editing as required, reload the colour palette (or convert to indexed using the saved palette if I've had to change it to RGB to do the edits), save as a BMP (again 256 colour) and put it back into BIFreader - but there can be occasional black spots. I find it helps to set the second colour in the colour table to something outrageous that you won't use (I go for turquoise ). Do this by opening up the colour table of your image, double clicking on the second colour (ie colour 1, as it starts at 0), then setting the RGB values. As far as I can tell this seems to be some sort of secondary (or possibly part) transparency colour, hence why I chose a colour that won't appear in the actual image.

If your background came out not transparent it seems like the colour value might be slightly off - check the colour table of your BMP (in Photoshop) and if necessary adjust colour 0 to "008000" in the HEX box (IIRC: 0,128,0 in RGB), resave, and re-BIF-ify it.

It's definitely worth investing some time in studying Photoshop's colour mode menu, and building a library of colour palettes, saves a lot of heart-ache in the long run

[Revenant]

That was fast, thanks.

And just one question:

What to do if I want to create review panel icon from battle icon?

Should I simply load it into photoshop, convert it to BMP and then continue as you wrote?

[Revenant]

Generally for reviewpanel icons, if I'm modifying an existing one, I export to BMP with BIFreader, open in Photoshop and again save the palette (it's in IMAGE > MODE). Then I do the editing as required, reload the colour palette (or convert to indexed using the saved palette if I've had to change it to RGB to do the edits), save as a BMP (again 256 colour) and put it back into BIFreader - but there can be occasional black spots. I find it helps to set the second colour in the colour table to something outrageous that you won't use (I go for turquoise ). Do this by opening up the colour table of your image, double clicking on the second colour (ie colour 1, as it starts at 0), then setting the RGB values. As far as I can tell this seems to be some sort of secondary (or possibly part) transparency colour, hence why I chose a colour that won't appear in the actual image

I did it precisely as you wrote, but there are those ugly black blobs, always at the same places. I did a try, took one icon, did not change anything, only went throught all procedure. I did it several times and blobs are always there. I do not think the second color has anything to do with it.


You are able to create transparent icons without black points?

[macsen rufus]

Another idea to try: open your BMP copy of the unit icon in Photoshop, open up the colour table and make the background colour transparent (you do this with the little eye-dropper tool that is IN the colour palette box - you can select colour from the picture or the colour table to do this) then click OK. You should now have your little guy on a transparent background. Select all and COPY.

Now make a new file (50x50px) with the 008000 green as background colour, and paste into it. You should now have your little guy on the green background. (You might end up with an RGB file at this stage so just convert to indexed using the correct palette in your new library of palettes ). Then save as BMP and convert back to BIF. Load up the game and see if it's any better

[Revenant]

Thank you, but this do not help.

The black spots are somehow created by BiffReader during conversion, but they are not visible in it. I read about this problem in a lot of other topics concerning icon editing, but nobody came to solution, at least I did not find it.

Somebody reccomended to create points of those background "parchment" colours of MTW to mask them, so I will try it.

[dimitrios the samian]

Excellent topic !! Mac you 'r a modding whiz .

[macsen rufus]

I know in the info_pics, little black spots occur where there is a single transparent pixel in the image, but big blocks work okay. I'm sure it has to do with the transparent / semitransparent pixels (semi doesn't work as you end up with a green outline...) It's a while since I made any new review panel graphics, but I manage to get them without black spots somehow... however i do tend to use a limited palette (ie vaguely monochrome) and load from successful palettes (I know using the word palette in two senses is confusing.... ) Erm, I use a limited colour range in the image and use proven colour tables. Hope that's clearer. And come to think of it I often go through a grey-scale/re-colourise process as well, which is fine if you don't want faction colours. If the worst comes to the worst then I fix things pixel by pixel in BIFreader, although the problem does seem to lie in the way BIFReader deals with single pixels.