[FOT] Weapon/Item Portrait (Sprite) Editing Help

I only have the tactics demo, it's good as a combat action game but I don't count it as belonging in the fallout universe.
I guess I liked it despite it's divergence from the original, maybe because I used to be into Jagged Alliance 2 before I got hooked on fallout but I haven't really bothered to get the full version.

 

Oh, the demo is misleading. The demo is promising compared to the real game.

 

Fair enough, I guess that's one reason why I haven't bothered getting the full game.

 

Tactics Weapon editing

It's me SkynetV4 (moved so my previous SkynetV3 account was lost).
I'm trying to add some weapons and wanted to add some pictures. I got Spray 1.1, photoshop 7, BoSEE and some other tools. The problem I have run into is apparently easy enough to solve but I can't figure out how to solve it. I'm not very good using Photoshop but managed with Domin's Spray 1.1 readme to outline the guns I'm trying to add and made them into a channel, switched color mode to Indexed, 8bpp and resized the image to less than 130x52 pixels. I exported the palette too. When I try to import images on Spray, I get an access violation error at such and such address. Same thing when I try to import the palette as well. I looked on this forums, DAC's and radiated village forum as well but couldn't find a tutorial for a beginner.
I managed to made new recruits and add their stories, made them appear after a certain mission passed but seems like I can't figure this one out for the life of me. Any constructive help on this matter would be appreciated as if successful, I'll try to make a mini campaign or two for a fallout fanfic I'm trying to write.

 

Hey,

Do you have any idea where i could get the spray utility from ? I only found v 1.0, but it's not working properly. Any other tools for editing sprite files ?

 

bless you .

Damn, i looked everywhere, but didn't check the most obvious place

 

hi i'm going to create a new sprites but when i convert in photoshop gif to raw, spray10 when i improt image .raw show messege: Fatal Error

where i'm looking for help?

 

Try using spray 1.1.

You have made a copy of an appropriate sprite and importing the raw file into it? With Spray you can't make a sprite from scratch, you have to use one of the existing sprites as a template.


Or you can wait until next week.

 

I'm attempting to create a new sprite that features a new inventory picture.

I'm reading JJ86s tutorial and I have the requisite tools.

However I'm a little uncertain about his instructions at certain parts.


Are you supposed to make a background that is a specific color, not used by graphic you're importing, and once you've done that. Are you then supposed to copy/paste your graphic onto an image with the transparent background color?


I'm not very familiar with photoshop and graphic editing.

 

You could try using the fill tool to change the background colour. I don't have photoshop so I can't help you much there but try the sprite editor or the latest redviewer instead. Redviewer certainly was a lot easier to make new sprites with than messing around with act and raw files.

 

AFAIK, Redviewer is plagin for some 3D-modelling soft. Doesn't fit me, as i have old hardware with Matrox G400 (2D only )

And Spray 1.1 doesn't want to import my .raw images properly (i tried to prepare them 2 different ways, based on 2 different tutorials - JJ's and hunter's). Just messed up pixels in Spray window

Is there a 3rd way to make .spr weapon files?

 

Have you ever heard about Sprite Creator?

 

Nope, thx for mentioning.

I hope you didn't mean something like "Ahh, you never heard of it? Then i scorch you with a blaster!"

Just found it on your web-page, will try after some sleep Because your soft needs a bit different way of preparing images, and i don't have fresh mind to grab it right now...

 

Ok, Sprite Creator is quite better, than Spray 1.1
But there's a trouble - coz of my lame tech-level english i can't properly translate your complete guide on preparing bitmaps into situation, where i need only TWO pictures (guibig and guismall) for weapons/ammo.

I thought, "max of 256 colors" means, that in simplier case i just sum color palettes of my 2 images and check, if it <256... But now i import 2 images (64 color palette each) and second one gives a "too much colors in palette" error upon importing.

Well, maybe i'm wrong in way i count colors. I make 130x50 picture & alpha-channel in it. Then, RGB->Indexed, and there i select Local (Selective) palette and enter number 64 manually, Then, Indexed->RGB. I'm not sure, but i thought it will maintain 64 colors, so in most bad case i get only 128 colors from 2 images

Yep, i'm a moron, and i don't like a way of merging 2 images in one and than splitting them again

 

You aren't a moron. You just have to learn.

I'm just surprised you have never heard about SC. The first version has been released in May 2007.

To create 32 bit bitmaps you can use Gimp, Blender, Adobe Photoshop or 3ds Max. To reduce the number of colors, you can use RAD Video Tools, read the courses from my website.

Each image collection has its four color palettes for its four layers. Take a look at weapon sprites. "Guibig" refers to different image collection than "Guismall", this is a way to increase amount of different colors.

If you try to add a new image to an existing collection, note that this collection has already certain number of colors, mostly 256, so you can't add new different colors, you can add only identical colors.

Don't try to match up your images to existing color palette. It's a bad way. Create a new image collection or delete all images from collection's layer. Sprite Creator preserves layer's color palette until last image from this layer will be deleted.

For example: If an image has a lot of red tints and you will import it to a collection, next, if you will create a second image which has a lot of green tints and you will try to match up this second image to the exported color palette which was created from the first image you will get bad results. There is no color palette optimisation.

Single sequence can use only one image collection, so guibig and guismall are two sequences so you can use two image collections.

If you import two images into one image collection every new color is added to color palette. SC accepts exactly 256 different colors (not less than 256) for a collection's layer. For example: image1 has two colors AA and BB, image2 has also two colors AA and CC, their sum of different colors is equal to 3. Image size is unimportant.

If you would like to create an animated sequence, you have to have one color palette for a layer. This one palette must contain all different colors that can be found in all images that have to form an animation. You don't have to merge images into one big image. There is very easy way and gives great results, use RAD Video Tools and read here how to use this tool.

 

Hm, now it's ok. Sorry for that disturbance, i've read all about RAD Tools (and i even remember it was somewhere at my PC, for viewing .bik). I'm really sorry, that i didn't encountered your site in 2007 On this forum most treads are about "spray, spray and some more spray".

My problem was in

because i've think that importing new image into SAME layer of SAME collection erases former palette. You see, it's much easier to use old sniper rifle sprite and just replace Guibig and Guismall, instead of making new file from zero. Mea culpa

P.S. Thx for explaining, anyway.
Offtop: Will gather this info for some more serious russian mod-site later, i don't like the curent "education level" of our modders...

 

With SC you can create new sprites or edit existing sprites. Add new image collection and import images to its layer, edit image offset. Edit a sequence (for example "guibig") and just change used collection.

The newest RAD Video Tools can be downloaded from http://www.radgametools.com/.

 

Is there some way to get Sprite Creator working on a system that doesnt support 1024x768?

My laptop (my only comp besides my smartphone) is 1024x600. My old one was able to do 768 with a desktop larger than the viewport but this one doesnt even present the option, and im unwilling to mess with the display drivers and potentially mess it up.

Right now im using Spray and have been (spraying and praying) ever since the early 2000s but now that im getting back into FOT editing I would like to take advantage of the new editors available.

I thought the "FT Tools 2" sprite creator would be the ultimate answer but from what ive heard you cant do much with it (except change the Step Speed, which is vital for making fast projectiles).

 

Is there a way to extract all the spritesheet for the game?? i want to have all those, with all animations...