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Outstanding work as always, Onyx. I especially like the stations.
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Originally posted by Onyx: **Also, it shouldn't be hard at all to EnRLE the files the way they're set up, and there are a couple cheap photoshop tricks one could do to create engine glows without any hand-painting. **
So what are these "cheap photoshop tricks?" I've been trying to think of an efficient way to do this for all the three-quarters-view ship sprites from Cold Fusion. I haven't tried this yet, but I could import a sprite to PS, select engine areas by color, and then paste that to a new layer for modification. However, I can't see how to add glowing exhaust (that trails the ship) except perhaps by converting the engine glow sprites to movies and adding a radial blur or some such thing -- but Photoshop can't work on movies, can it?
------------------ (url="http://"http://home.comcast.net/~drtrowel/")Dr. Trowel's E.S.W.P.(/url) -- Featuring Cold Fusion Graphics for EVN Override, and an EVN/O outfit bug fix. Very Good Stuff: (url="http://"http://www.dreamwave.evula.net/")Dreamwave Studios(/url) (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/ubb/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&number;=31&SUBMIT;=Go")Bomb's Plug-in Guide(/url) (url="http://"http://www.evula.com/escape_velocity/")EVula's Lair(/url) (url="http://"http://w00tware.ev-nova.net/")NovaTools(/url) Om Noppo Noppo Om!
(This message has been edited by Dr. Trowel (edited 12-01-2003).)
Originally posted by Dr. Trowel: **So what are these "cheap photoshop tricks?" I've been trying to think of an efficient way to do this for all the three-quarters-view ship sprites from Cold Fusion. I haven't tried this yet, but I could import a sprite to PS, select engine areas by color, and then paste that to a new layer for modification. However, I can't see how to add glowing exhaust (that trails the ship) except perhaps by converting the engine glow sprites to movies and adding a radial blur or some such thing -- but Photoshop can't work on movies, can it? **
<<DISCLAIMER: This is written for everyone's benefit, and to not leave anyone out I am only assuming that you have Photoshop and ResEdit and have messed around with them before. If the level of this tutorial insults you, it most certainly was not written with such intent.>>
Well, you're kind of close to what I was imagining. I should mention that Photoshop cannot work on movies, and the process by which you can obtain a Photoshop-friendly version of your sprites is thus: 1. EnRLE your movie file, I'm assuming people can read its documentation and figure it out. 2. DeRLE the result, for static sprites. 3. Copy the resulting PICT resource to the clipboard, paste it into Photoshop.
Now you should have something that looks like this: I've chosen the "ringtail" of my own collection. Its canopy color is similar to its engine glow, which is a common problem you'll run in to.
Now, we need to isolate the blue of the engine, so we'll perform a selection of a specific color range by choosing Select > Color Range..., click upon the additive eyedropper in the dialogue box, and click around in the blue of the engines. Adjust the fuzziness so that all the engine blue is selected. You'll end up with a selection somewhat like this:
Now, you'll notice the canopy is also selected. Enter quickmask mode by hitting the "q" key, and paint out the canopy selections. You should be left with just the engine glow selected now. You might want to do a very slight guassian blur to this selection while in quick mask mode, just to make things blend better.
From here, there are many routes we might take. I am using Photoshop 7, and with the tool of Adjustment Layers I can far more easily do the tasks I am about to describe. I don't want to be too prohibitive, though, so I'm going to assume you at least have a new enough version to perform layers (3 and up, shouldn't be too much to expect). If you do have 7 or later, I suggest playing around with Adjustment Layers if you haven't already. Anyhow, onward!
From now on, if we hated the blue of the engines we can change their color if we so choose, or if you want the original appearance to be the "active" state and a darker, desaturated version to be inactive, we can do it all using the same technique.
Copy the selection to the clipboard, create a new layer, and paste. This ensures precise alignment with the main sprite layer. From here, you can modify these pixels however you like. Here are some examples:
Now, that may be enough for some. If so, you're going to want to create a solid black layer between the base sprite layer and your engine effect layer, flatten your image, copy it to the clipboard, and paste it back into the ResEdit file that DeRLE generated. If you wanted the darkened version to replace the idle graphics set, do the same procedure minus the black layer. You want the engine glow sprites to be just the engines, and to exclude the base ship (this may go without saying, but you never know). Also, don't forget to make masks for the engine effect sprites, while I'm on the "things you should know by now" route.
For those of you seeking to further the glow effect with some "overglow", there are a couple things you can do. The first option is to expand our engine glow layer (select transparency of the layer by command-clicking it in the layer palette), re-paint the enlarged selection area with whatever color you desire, deselect, and guassian blur the thing a little bit, get that Nova-ish fuzzy feeling. The problem with this is that, where there was no source glow, there will be no "overglow". That is, when the ship is facing straight left or right, the effect will be nonexistant for these retrofitted sprites, whereas the Nova ships display evidence of engine thrust quite noticably at similar angles. A slight visual discontinuity will result, but if you're okay with that, by all means go for it. Your other option is to hand-paint the glows where they should exist but don't, which would take a bit of time to be sure. Personally, I don't want to put that kind of effort in when it might be quite superficial. Here's what I got out of the first method, adding a second, smaller layer on top to add whiteness to the middle of each glow: And here is a download link for the Nova-ized version of this one ship, the only one I will do for you. (url="http://"http://www.pacifier.com/~kkey/ringtail-nova.sit")http://www.pacifier....ngtail-nova.sit(/url) For the others, you're on your own.
I hope this gives a strong enough hint.
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Originally posted by Onyx: ** I hope this gives a strong enough hint.
**
Well, that was helpful as hell, actually. I was always wondering how to do those.
Of course, you do make it look easier than it probably is..
_bomb
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Wow. Sombody give Onyx a point. Or a cookie. Or a cheeseburger. His choice.
And Onyx, get that tutorial up on your web site forthwith! If you don't want to, hopefully somebody with an established help collection will add it in. If no-one else will host it I'll put it on my E.S.W.P., though I'm hardly high-traffic.
I was hung up on figuring out how to make the "blast" extend backwards out of the ships' engines. Now I see that going for that effect would just cause more problems, since flight directions in which the engine "mouths" weren't visible would have no basis for extrapolation and would therefore be missing trails when they should be visible.
Did what I just wrote make sense? I dunno. Anyway, what Onyx wrote helped a lot!
------------------ (url="http://"http://home.comcast.net/~drtrowel/")Dr. Trowel's E.S.W.P.(/url) -- Featuring Cold Fusion Graphics for EVN Override, and an EVN/O outfit bug fix. Very Good Stuff: (url="http://"http://ev-nova.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2832&sid;=43627ead61761e7f19060b00c14c739c")Big Nova FAQ(/url) (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/ubb/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&number;=31&SUBMIT;=Go")Bomb's Plug-in Guide(/url) (url="http://"http://www.evula.com/escape_velocity/")EVula's Lair(/url) (url="http://"http://w00tware.ev-nova.net/")NovaTools(/url) Interests: The Good, The Bad, and The Loopy.
Originally posted by Onyx: ** <snip> **
Me is impressed. Very useful to probably all but me, I'm stuck with Photoshop 2.1.3 (from waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in 1993). No layers for me, still when I do my overhaul of software I'll have to have that handy for reference.
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Originally posted by Starbridge42: **Me is impressed. Very useful to probably all but me, I'm stuck with Photoshop 2.1.3 (from waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in 1993). No layers for me, still when I do my overhaul of software I'll have to have that handy for reference.
Check out Photoshop Elements. I don't use it myself, but it's been described as having 90% of Photoshop's power, and I've seen it for as little as $40 after rebate. V.1 had layers -- even adjustment layers -- and I wouldn't think they would have removed the feature in V.2. See here for reviews: (url="http://"http://www.macaddict.com/issues/0106/rev.elements.html")V 1 review(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.macaddict.com/issues/0212/rev.elements2.html")V 2 review(/url)
(This message has been edited by Dr. Trowel (edited 12-02-2003).)
Originally posted by Onyx: (thanks pipeline, email is pending)
I did indeed receive your communication, Onyx, but no response to my letter. Did it reach you, and was the content of any use or interest?
All the best,
Dave @ ATMOS
Good to know people are diggin' the tutorial and all. I'll be adding it and the examples to my shipyard fairly soon. I'd be interested to see what direction other people take it, too. If you make some engine glows, go ahead and email them to me and I'll post them on the site. Always good to promote the versatility of these graphics, not to mention simply cool to see.
Dr. Trowel- You hit the nail on the head with the problem of Photoshop engine glows. I tossed by samle graphic into the normal Nova scenario, and it actually was a barely noticable nuance, fortunately. The ship iteslf holds up pretty well against the Nova sprites, too, except it lacks that signature crispness.
Starbridge42- Definitely look in to PS Elements if you're still running 2.1.3(!). I can hardly imagine my workflow without layers. Funny how that is.
pipeline- Email is away, sorry 'bout the delay.
Also, if anyone makes their own Nova-ized versions of these ships, and you feel like sharing, I'd be happy to post them on my shipyard. Just drop me an email.
Now, do you need to add engine glows to the ships, or will they work fine without?
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They'll work just fine without. They'll look pretty odd with all the other ships flying about with engine glows, but there you go.
Originally posted by lotsofblackflags: **Now, do you need to add engine glows to the ships, or will they work fine without?
You can certainly use Onyx's graphics without adding engine glows, and they will still look awesome.
Nothing in the Nova engine requires that every ship have an engine glow. They're also not required to have animations, running lights, or shield effects, but these things do add pizzazz!
Depending on the particulars of the sprite, a lot of the pointers in Onyx's tutorial are going to be helpful in adding lights to ships, too....
You know, I almost added running lights to these ships back when I first made them, but decided it wasn't necessary at the time. If I had only known...
Tutorial will be added to the site this weekend. Thank you all for your comments and suggestions, and if you have more thoughts, lay 'em on me.
Awesome Outfit graphics, Since I borrowed several of your outfit graphics from this for the latest version of Reset Missions I'd like to know who to list in the credits on the Readme, do you want to be listed by your e-mail address? or name? or simply by webboard username?
please let me know either here or via e-mail KagatoAC@Hotmail.com
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Since this thread already includes Onyx's great tips for engine glows, I'll drop my tips on adding cheap and easy ship-specific shield graphics here, for anyone who finds them.
The simplest way to add shield effects to an EVN ship is to simply repeat the resource numbers for the ship's main sprite in the shan's fields for shield and shield mask. Since the engine apparently "adds" color values from the shield to the values for the ship itself, the ship flashes brightly when hit by fire. It's not fancy, but it works just fine, and it won't bloat your plug's file size because it doesn't actually add any resources. I've only tried this with a whitish ship -- the effect might be even stronger with a darker one, but I can't confirm that right now.
The second simplest method is to apply a photoshop filter to a copy of the ship's base sprite. You can get a neat effect with the a "plastic wrap" filter, but others can be interesting, too. You may want to use the "maximum" filter on a copy of the mask for the ship graphic so that the white cut-out holes grow a bit; this will allow the shield effect to extend slightly beyond the sides of the ship so that it looks like the shield is a form-fitting sheath encircling the ship.
That's not nearly as detailed as Onyx's tutorial, but perhaps it might be useful to somebody else out there who's trying to make the most out of old EV & EVO sprites.
Man it has been......probably 2-3 years since I've posted on any EV webboard. I don't even recognize anybody anymore lol. I thought I would just say hi to you all. Nice to meet ya.....again. BTW Onyx, I've known about your free shipyard "stuff" for quite the amount of time now. Heh, I remember I left my plugin in the downloads section of EV saying I was going to finish it. Ha! When I have time to do better graphics....I will.
ImmortalFirefly
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