Civ 3 Unit FLCs to be converted Part 2

[Caranorn]

1) That sprite was just a test, the actual size I am planning for is somewhat smaller and almost identical to a CTP sprite (115% of original civ3, the test sprite was 125%).
2) The 115% sprites end up taking about as much room as the CTP sprites of similar type (I am now convinced CTP horses use larger sprites then 96x72 anyhow).
3) I have a lot of trouble adjusting the hotpoints (getting confused so I'll take a break now, it should be straightforward but for some reason I get it wrong most of the times with these larger sprites) (I have it almost correct in my current test sprites, probably good enough).
4) I might have a relatively simple fix for the black edges around the scaled up sprites, but I won't say anymore till I'm sure.

Right now I am progressing really slowly because I have to switch into the PC environment a lot to check the hotpoints etc. Worst is having to restart CTP2 all the time (playing is fine, but for testing purpouses this is really annoying).

Marc aka Caran...

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by J Bytheway
I seem to recall Faded Glory saying that he reduced resyncs in MP games by making sprites smaller (or something like that...). So big sprites might be bad news, or I might be remembering incorrectly...

I thought he manly changed the size of the *.tga's. The resyncs can also be caused by the shrinking process of *.tga's that is done in CTP2. Actual i the theory this should work without any problems, I know that in CTP1 there were alot more smaller versions for buildings and wonders.

-Martin

[Caranorn]

Ah yes, that's something I have been thinking too. For units there definitelly is room for a 4th size tga as I mentionned in another post. That would cut down on scaling within the game.

Marc aka Caran...

[Pedrunn]

**BUMP**

Any luck with the hot points.
I have some plans for the warrior.
Any chance of fixing it?

[Caranorn]

I'll look into it in the coming days. I haven't worked on this at all the past week. Once I return to it it should go fast again and I'll put the warrior up as next after updating the sprites I already did (plus the cossack which was half done).

Marc aka Caran...

[Peter Triggs]

Marc, you're doing an absolutely great job!

But, I can see one problem that's about to raise it's ugly head: what are we going to do about sprite numbers when we get more than 200 sprites?

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
But, I can see one problem that's about to raise it's ugly head: what are we going to do about sprite numbers when we get more than 200 sprites?

As long as we don't have the source code, the only way is to hack the ctp2.exe to solve this problem. Actual as ugly as not to solve the problem.

-Martin

[Pedrunn]

There are about 30 sprite slots to go (170-198). We could use those as modders starting using on their mods. After that if no fix have been managed i guess we are going to have to take some existing but barely used ones like the BlueO's, etc...

[Caranorn]

No one will have to use all the sprites after all. I for one, if ever I get back to actual modding, would only have use for one or two dozen of the new sprites, all of Tom Davies' and maybe 2/3rd the original CTP2 (and a few CTP1) sprites. I doubt that would exceed the 200 sprite limit. Though it's rather sad that such a limit exists (considering 6000+ years of history, 200 unit types is rather limited).

If the game can be hacked to exceed the 200 numbers that would be good, but only as long as it won't risk damaging other parts of the game. On the other hand I would not wish to get on the wrong side of Activision, so hacking to do anything but patch the game might be a bad idea.

Marc aka Caran...

[J Bytheway]

Modswapper could be extended to allow different mods to have their own sprite directory (by replacing civpaths.txt), and then the restriction would only be 200 in any one mod, rather than 200 overall. (Though it would make for larger ctp2 directories that shouldn't be too bad).

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Caranorn
If the game can be hacked to exceed the 200 numbers that would be good, but only as long as it won't risk damaging other parts of the game. On the other hand I would not wish to get on the wrong side of Activision, so hacking to do anything but patch the game might be a bad idea.

A hack patch could only posted here with the express consent of Activision, that should be clear, but I think we shoulld first wait what Vel's efforts bring.

-Martin

[Pedrunn]

But, I can see one problem that's about to raise it's ugly head: what are we going to do about sprite numbers when we get more than 200 sprites?

Plus scenario makers can use every number until exceed the whole limit. So the units will be a much bigger addition for them and avoid the request.

Modswapper could be extended to allow different mods to have their own sprite directory (by replacing civpaths.txt), and then the restriction would only be 200 in any one mod, rather than 200 overall. (Though it would make for larger ctp2 directories that shouldn't be too bad).

How hard to do this? This will be a major addition and the solution for this problem. We still have contact with the moswapper creator dont we?

[Immortal Wombat]

Yeah, Paul is still around. But it will make all the downloads bigger, or force them to include instructions for manually copying sprite files.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Pedrunn
How hard to do this? This will be a major addition and the solution for this problem. We still have contact with the moswapper creator dont we?

That won't be too hard, it is just replaceing one more file, finally I would like to have also the civ3.ldl included so we could mod the UI like the rest of the game.

-Martin

[Pedrunn]

That won't be too hard, it is just replaceing one more file, finally I would like to have also the civ3.ldl included so we could mod the UI like the rest of the game.

Terrific Idea

[SMIFFGIG]

That won't be too hard, it is just replaceing one more file, finally I would like to have also the civ3.ldl included so we could mod the UI like the rest of the game.

Could someone explain to me what this is and what it does please

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by SMIFFGIG
Could someone explain to me what this is and what it does please

The file contains some information about the UserInterface, e.g. button locations, which art to use for the UI, the size of the windows and most improtant it contains includes of other *.ldl files. This file is the script.slc and the gamefile.txt for the UI instaed for slic and text files.

-Martin

[Pedrunn]

eg. I have a modified choose advance to research screen where the list is bigger showing up more advances, Or a battleview without the retreat button, etc...

Shouldnt be a big change just add one more file in the gamefile list to replace the civ3.ldl with a *_civ3.ldl.

[Pedrunn]

Yeah, Paul is still around. But it will make all the downloads bigger, or force them to include instructions for manually copying sprite files.

why?

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Pedrunn
why?

I think the civparth.txt is like a the game file a list, instead of files it contains parths. Like the the gamefile.txt it does matter in which line you find an entry. If you now change a directory name then the game will search the sprites in a different directory. If it doesn't find there all the sprites then you know what happens and it is very unlikely that it will search for sprites in subdirectory even if it could be possible, otherwise I couldn't explain the odd effect I saw in an corupted scenario based game.

-Martin

[Pedrunn]

Cant you make a prefernce issue.
Go to CRA_sprites directory if nothing was found, got to sprites directory. If still nothing was found you can crash.

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
I think the civparth.txt is like a the game file a list, instead of files it contains parths. Like the the gamefile.txt it does matter in which line you find an entry. If you now change a directory name then the game will search the sprites in a different directory. If it doesn't find there all the sprites then you know what happens and it is very unlikely that it will search for sprites in subdirectory even if it could be possible, otherwise I couldn't explain the odd effect I saw in an corupted scenario based game.

This is true - but I suspect that the only mods which would need this feature wouldn't actually be using many of the original sprites, so it wouldn't make the file sizes much bigger. If it is a problem, perhaps Modswapper could do the copying of the sprites itself. I also noticed that changing civpaths.txt would allow for individualised tile files if any mods required radically different terrain that couldn't be supplied in the ApolTileFile.

[ahenobarb]

Originally posted by Caranorn


What exact format should the shadow files be in? I have them as RGB TIFF with an white alpha channel.

I haven't had time to read through everything here, but Does anyone know what .tif format is compatible with CTPII?

Should the tiff be uncompressed or compressed (& what type of compression if any; I've heard LZW is not right).

What color space, (CMYK or RGB) should the .tiff file be saves out as? Above it looks like RGB.

Thanks in advance.

[ahenobarb]

Doh! I'm using PSP 7.0

[Immortal Wombat]

I use (the default?): LZW compression, RGB

[Ekmek]

Has there been any step by step instructions for this? there are lot of good units that the civ3 community made that would be great to add like Balou's Modern Infantry.

[Ekmek]

is a sprite for the privateer/pirate ship posted somewhere?

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by E
Has there been any step by step instructions for this?

Only the ones I posted on page one.

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by E
is a sprite for the privateer/pirate ship posted somewhere?

No, i think thats just the image i edited to make the skull and crossbones more clear. Unless Caranorn completed it somewhere in this thread.