Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Starman01 on February 03, 2004, 12:36:29 pm
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Hello,
could someone please give me hint how to create briefing icons ?
I found no tutorial outthere. (Unfortunately the interface-tutorial does
not give much information on briefing-icons)
Technically I already got it working, problem is just that the icon
is not displayed correctly (for example the icon is messed up or
nearly black, and I can see the background shimmering through).
I think it will help, when you can tell me, what the specs for the
pcx-files are, before I convert them into an *.ani with ani-build.
(BTW, I'm using Photoshop 5).
Thanks for the help :)
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I'm pretty sure you convert them as a single-frame ani in greyscale. Could be wrong about the length, but I know they must be grey for the game to apply hostile/friendly status to them.
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You have to use a special palette for all briefing icon frames (it's technically 256 colors but only the first 16 are used); this palette can be taken from any of the original briefing icons. The main icon files have two frames, a normal one and a brightened one, while the fade icon files use four frames that steadily decrease in brightness.
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Sorry, I already tried that out.
I use two pcx-files, *0000.pcx and *0001.pcx, both are identical.
The images are saved as 8-bit, greyscale, using photoshop 5.
The resulting ani-file looks O.K. like the other briefing-icons, but mine is
displayed black in FRED (the shape of the object, the background is
also a little visible, I mean a black square around the object) Also my
icon is a little to big, but I guess i can compensate that by resizing the
pcx-files.
Any other clues ?
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did you try using pure green for transparent parts?
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Maybe the area around your ship is some color really close to black but not pure black, which is what I think it needs to be. It might be worth trying green as well, but all the default icons seem to use black.
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AFAIK they need a special pallette (like the HUD and some other stuff). simply look at one of the standard V frames, and use it.
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I already said that... :p :D
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Originally posted by CP5670
You have to use a special palette for all briefing icon frames (it's
technically 256 colors but only the first 16 are used); this palette can
be taken from any of the original briefing icons. The main icon files
have two frames, a normal one and a brightened one, while the fade
icon files use four frames that steadily decrease in brightness.
That was the clue :) .I now messed around with this strange palette
from the original anis, and finally I figured out how to build the icons
using photoshop.
Green background wasn't working at all, that will result only in a black
square, but I can simply load the palette (which I saved before) and
then paint it black, and finally copy my ship-shape into the files.
Icons are now working fine. Thanks for your help, guys. :)
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you know,, it would be a great help if you would make a coherent story out of this, and add it to the wiki. (link is the text under my name).
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Did you mean me ? I guess I could do that, however than I can
explain it only on the photoshop-interface, I not sure if it works
the same in Photopaint, or the other programs, but it would be
similar though.
But It will take some time, cause I have way to much work momentarly.