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Re: Improving Original JA2 graphics [message #183961]
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Sat, 03 May 2008 20:41
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Khor1255 |
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Messages:1817
Registered:August 2003 Location: Pleasantville, NJ |
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Right.
You obviously have to get rid of any part of the existing gun image that is going to stick out into your new image.
The options for doing this are:
A)first make a base image of all merc animations with a rifle (some smaller weapon animation may have to be redone as well. Maybe not) erasing any part of the gun that might exterd passed the sihouette of the smallest new gun image layer.
Make your 'floating' weapon animations.
Then add the gun layer over the rifle-less 'base' animation..
= simple but a lot of extra work because all the base animation would have to be redone.
B)make silhouettes of each weapon type but use a different transparency colour for areas of your weapon layer that tells the program to overwrite any 'underlying' pixel with the transparency colour. This way any longer or wider part of the old image would overwritten by background transparency where necessary. It could be as easy as the transparency using it's own palette colour but just adding a few pixels of the base transparency colour to any area the old rifle image protrudes passed your new silhouette.
= maybe the better way but I'm not sure if it is possible
In either case you would - of course add the mussle flash at the end of each animation direction just as it is done in the existing animations.
Any ideas?
Could the second method work or should I start 'erasing' rifles from animations?
Is that more clear?
[Updated on: Sat, 03 May 2008 22:10] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Sergeant Major
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Re: Improving Original JA2 graphics [message #184075]
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Sun, 04 May 2008 23:07
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Khor1255 |
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Messages:1817
Registered:August 2003 Location: Pleasantville, NJ |
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I don't think the floating animations could be completely recycled due to likely differences of stance and height, etc. With any luck a very small amount of adjusting will be all it takes but that still means seperate layer files for each body type. Maybe not.
I would really like to hear from lisac here before I do anything to prevent redundant or erroneous work.
He has likely not visited here today. I think he is Austrian which means English is maybe not his first language. These boards may not his main point of contact with the Ja community. I would venture to say Ja Basis might be but that is a guess.
In any event, if I don't hear something from him in the next day I will work on a standing female animation (probably the one where she is holding the weapon then raises and fires since I think that would have all the essential elements) erasing the weapon. I will then make a floating smg animation since this should look remarkably different than the generic long rifle silhouette in existing animations.
I would also like to make a helmet layer but if you do not want to get in to that yet even for testing purposes I understand.
Remember that I work pretty damn slow so....
I hope in the meantime lisac has something.
[Updated on: Sun, 04 May 2008 23:10] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Sergeant Major
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Re: Improving Original JA2 graphics [message #184120]
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Mon, 05 May 2008 02:53
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lisac |
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Messages:92
Registered:July 2006 Location: Austria |
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Damn, people, I let you alone for 24 hours and you fill the thread with 20+ posts... Jokes aside, I'm finished with this hard-working weekend, time to do something useful for the game.
"Floating weapons" - there's problem with those. Actually, we need everything floating. According to my original idea, each "merc"-type sprite should consist of several "floating" areas. The initial value was 6 (head/hair/beard, torso/vest, arms/hands, legs/feet, weapon, helmet), meaning 6 layers. Which means that a weapon held by female merc PROBABLY WON'T be the same layer as the same weapon held by strong male merc. I need more time to think this through...
This makes the filenames convention very complex, also there's a bunch of graphical stuff to be added, but the results are "optimal".
Gotta go to bed now, I'll continue tomorrow.
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Corporal 1st Class
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Re: Improving Original JA2 graphics [message #184208]
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Mon, 05 May 2008 20:23
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the scorpion |
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Messages:1834
Registered:September 2004 Location: CH |
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lisac
small comment on your updated design document (on the issue of palettes): the dark red color as refered here
Hair or Unused (???)
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Sergeant Major
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Re: Improving Original JA2 graphics [message #184234]
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Tue, 06 May 2008 03:06
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lisac |
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Messages:92
Registered:July 2006 Location: Austria |
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Khor1255Since you are here, what would be a good file or set of files for me to work on?
To be honest, I have no idea :whoknows: My concept foresees that all sprites should be recreated in 3D, then converted to 2D. I'm starting with the female merc sprites tomorrow, so all I could recommend you is to start working on one of the male merc animation sets... However, bear in mind that those animations sets will be remade in 3D and converted to 2D eventually, just like the others.
If you want to provide quick layered sprites for BirdFlu, you could try decompositing one of the existing male merc animations and send it to him - for testing purposes, of course.
BirdFluWhat if we would define "attachment coordinates" for layers or objects in an animation...
Certainly one of the features we need to discuss about. The problem is the merc's position and the way he/she holds the weapon, including all 8 directions. The advantage of using the same weapon layer for all mercs (F, M, S) would be a great deal, however I can't say if this shall be possible without further modeling/animation set creation. My estimation is, that the most of the animation sets (or at least a great part of those) will be available to use the same weapon layer. The same applies to helmet layer, but (most probably) not to armour layer - as BirdFlu said, the different models cause this layer to be more specific than the others.
the scorpionsmall comment on your updated design document...
You old nitpicker :bluegrin: Anyway, you're probably right, they wouldn't throw away dozens of colours in the palette just like that. However, the inconsistency of the developers can be seen everywhere - in the source code, filename convention, even the unimplemented features... Nthing to wonder about, they've made mistakes with the palettes too, I'm pretty sure.
Talking about palettes... Question for Birdflu: Can we count on the engine-driven recoloured palettes in the "new layered sprite system" or not? In other words, is it going to be possible to recolour a layer in the fashion the whole sprites were recoloured in the original game or not?
This is important for us to take the proper approach with the creation of the new sprites... I guess.
Thanks goes to the scorp for pointing out the issue with the palettes :newstuff:
Schedule for tomorrow: I'll make a new female model and set up the default scene in LW3D (camera, lights, zoom, aspect etc...), try to rig the character (set up bones, inverse kinematics) and eventually try to make an animation set.
Wish me luck :ok:
[Updated on: Tue, 06 May 2008 03:06] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Corporal 1st Class
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Re: Improving Original JA2 graphics [message #184237]
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Tue, 06 May 2008 03:30
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Khor1255 |
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Messages:1817
Registered:August 2003 Location: Pleasantville, NJ |
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You completely lost me there. I guess I am going to have to wait for you to do it.
The way I see it, all we have to do is take existing sprites and erase the parts that do not apply to each layer.
For instance:
For the base animation you would only erase the gun (this would be sort of trick because not only would you have to use background colour to erase any of the weapon that went outside of the sprite's silhouette but you would have to erase the weapon that overlapped the body with appropriate body shade.
No big deal but way more involved than the other layers.
Birdflu just wants the base layer and the accompanying weapon layer to make his tests.
I get the feeling if I do it my way and you do it another it could end up being a hassle on his end.
That is the last thing I want to happen here.
Oh, and good luck.
[Updated on: Tue, 06 May 2008 03:31] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Sergeant Major
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Re: Improving Original JA2 graphics [message #184272]
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Tue, 06 May 2008 15:35
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Shanga |
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Messages:3482
Registered:January 2000 Location: Danubia |
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Speaking as someone who experienced the pain of modifying graphics for UC, pixel by pixel sometimes, it's not worth it.
All animations are actually frame-by-frame exports from a 3D program, as I later discovered (when I got into 3D stuff myself). Such program allows you to export BMP files of each frame. I dont remember if they used Maya or 3D Studio, but something around those parts. To modify the animation you would need the original 3d model and a bit of info of the settings they used (although they can be guessed by trial and error) such as lighting and camera position.
At one point I was able to replicate a model of a vehicle animation quite decently, but hit the wall when we discovered that STI's were at least two kind (aka static tiles and animations). The tools we had back then supported only static STIs so the project was scraped. You see... you can have all the 900 frames ready, but if you dont have a tool to re-assemble them properly into an animated STI all it's for nothing.
Bottom line, thumbs up lisac, thats the way to go! :rulez:
QUESTION: I've been away for a couple of years so I am a bit behind... has the STI/JSD animation been cracked?
[Updated on: Tue, 06 May 2008 15:47] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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