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I've never really figured out how to make PICT's of any kind for any EV game or plug, and now I'm kinda interested. So how do I make one? And if you can't really give me a good answer that's fine.
------------------ If you knew my precise record on my game you'd think I'm an Azdgari, but I'm not. Just the commander of a small mercenary fleet that favors the Azdgari. Ships include: 3 Aradas including my own, 2 CW's, and 2 Laziras.
Post this on the EV plug devolpment board, you'll get a better answer there.
------------------ "One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all into the darkness and bind them, in the land of mordor where the shadows lie." Check out the upcomming Lord of the Rings Movies at (url="http://"http://www.lordoftherings.net/home.html")http://www.lordofthe...s.net/home.html(/url)
(Reaches for an English/Voinian dictionary...)
Pict: One of the northern tribes that resisted the Roman empire. Pict: Also a file format for graphics.
Tiff: Something lovers have when they argue. Tiff: Abbreviation for Tagged Image File Format. The ones that EV-Edit seems to like.
What you actually need for EV and EV:O, if I'm not mistaken, is TIFF files. There are lots of paint-type programs which allow you to convert a graphic from PICT or whatever into TIFF, though; don't worry.
When I started doing ship graphics I was using a horrible old 3D rendering program called Extreme 3D, which insisted on saving everything as Micro$oft bitmap files (.bmp). Bleh! Those are totally uncompressed files, and really waste space.
Anyway, it was simple enough to build a 3D model and create a 36 frame 'movie' in which the ship was seen to spin about its centre, turning to clockwise in ten degree increments.
In Photoshop I drew myself a simple TIFF picture which was square, with ten lines dividing the space up into 36 equal boxes. It is important that the size of each of these boxes is a multiple of eight pixels; ie a ship sprite can measure 24x24, or 64x64, but it can't be 30x30.
I copied and pasted each frame of my tiny movie into the spaces on my grid. Any space around them, I blacked out. Thus, I had a single picture with 36 views of the new ship on it. I saved this as a .tiff file.
I selected everything, and told Photoshop to applt the filter 'blur more'. This spread the images slightly - made them a little fatter. Then I repeatedly used the 'lighten image' feature, until my sprites were completely washed out. They appeared as white spaces, shaped like the ship but slightly larger. I converted the picture's colour depth to binary - each pixel either completely white or wholly black... and thus I had my sprite mask. With the 'holes' in the mask being slightly larger than the ship itself, you get a thin black line around the edge of the ship when you fly over another graphic, which looks nice.
And that's about it! Of course, I also created a hail image, shipyard picture and scanner picture, begun in the 3D package, suitably reworked in Photoshop and saved as .tiff files. It was then fairly simple to fire up EV-Edit, load in my graphics and assign them to a ship. I did this on a special, seperate installation of EV:O, because EV-Edit is (or at least was) notoriously buggy, and I didn't want to suffer a crash and wipe out the version that I use for play.
Other thoughts:
Note that EV:O only uses a standard pallette of 256 colours, so if you try something too elaborate it might not come out well. EV:Nova will be better in that respect.
I don't use Extreme 3D any more. Who would? Some developers use Strata 3D, of which there is a freebie version. I use Solidworks, which is great but unfortunately only runs on a Windoze box.
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Cool. Thx.
I'm just a beginner in the field of gfx, but I downloaded strata and I love it. It's free, easy, and pretty powerful. If you don't have it already, get it. 3d.com
------------------ Is the answer to this question 'no'? Chaos to the enemies of the Azdgari
Quote
Originally posted by Arada Pilot: **I'm just a beginner in the field of gfx, but I downloaded strata and I love it. It's free, easy, and pretty powerful. If you don't have it already, get it. 3d.com **
I've never actually used Strata, but Nova6 has, and he likes it. However, I like using Bryce 4. Quite powerful, makes excellent and awesome PICTs, and is pretty much easy to use.
------------------ To Escape Velocity: Nova and Beyond! -------------- Millennium. Its coming, prepare for it. Coming to the (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiaSW.com/games/ev/chronicles.html")EV Chronicles(/url).
Man, i downloaded Strata 3d but it unfortunately requires OS 8.5 or higher, and i've only got 8.1. Sucks to be me...
------------------ FLOBBLEDEEFEE, that's what we said when we were mad or frustrated, we said it because we were idiots. A bunch of inbred, illiterate, cro-magnons, blowin' our noses on crusty handkerchiefs, waiting in line for our heads to burst into flames. That's the way it was, and we liked it! -Signed, A Grumpy Old Man
Man, that stinks. I have OS 9. Well, I hope you get to upgrade to a higher OS someday.
Originally posted by Captain Carnotaur: **Man, that stinks. I have OS 9. Well, I hope you get to upgrade to a higher OS someday.
**
Yeah. I have OS 9.0.4 (on both of our G3s and iMac) so I usually don't have problems running programs, except for old ones. Personally, I don't like Strata, I don't even like the layout. I guess I just grew up on Photoshop and can't get away from it. I have never used Bryce, though, but I want to download the demo soon.
~Captain Skyblade ---------------------- Visit my EVO website! (url="http://"http://artworks.tmgmedia.net")http://artworks.tmgmedia.net(/url)
Hey, I downloaded Strata 3d and it says I have to register and stuff and I haven't even used it yet. Maybe I downloaded the wrong thing but it is the Strata 3d application and it won't let me use it. Any suggestions?
------------------ "Never think you've seen the last of anything."
I agree with Captain Skyblade. Strata is very dificult to use, especially if you're used to somthing else (I make all my ships in Bryce, which is very easy to use once you get past it's strange interface). I find that strata is inflexible, and trying to get an object or vertex point in the exact spot you want it in is a royal pain in the @$$.
------------------ "Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger."
Originally posted by Captian LeGrenadier: **I agree with Captain Skyblade. Strata is very dificult to use, especially if you're used to somthing else (I make all my ships in Bryce, which is very easy to use once you get past it's strange interface). I find that strata is inflexible, and trying to get an object or vertex point in the exact spot you want it in is a royal pain in the @$$.
Alright. I wanted some verification on that. I didn't know if Strara was just pretty user-unfriendly, or if it was just me. So Bryce is much more easier to use, you say? I haven't heard a negative word against that program, only that it isn't the best with making ships. Thanks!
~Captain Skyblade --------------------- Visit my EVO website! (url="http://"http://artworks.tmgmedia.net")http://artworks.tmgmedia.net(/url)
Originally posted by Feast: **Hey, I downloaded Strata 3d and it says I have to register and stuff and I haven't even used it yet. Maybe I downloaded the wrong thing but it is the Strata 3d application and it won't let me use it. Any suggestions?
No. To download Strara, you have to register a user name and all. I was hesitant about it at first, but don't worry about it. Register yourself as the Strata website, then they'll e-mail you with a registration code. Then you're ready to roll...