[Starman01]

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

[StratComm]

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.

[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.

[Starman01]

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 ?

[kasperl]

did you try using pure green for transparent parts?

[CP5670]

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.

[Lightspeed]

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.

[CP5670]

I already said that...

[Starman01]

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.

[kasperl]

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).

[Starman01]

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.