Graphics

[Buster's Uncle]

Tutorial?  Oh, I'm having trouble juggling all my duties; I had a run of bad luck about random events triggering.  There's a whole, whole LOT of work that doesn't show to running a forum well, and it's automatically tougher to to get anything that takes long done when there's activity on the boards.  Good conversation is my real motivation for working so hard on building this forum, but the two aren't entirely compatible.

Too, it's hard to get motivated to do a boring little piece about diplomacy landscapes - it's so redundant with the mountain of stuff I HAVE already said about leaderheads.  Having someone asking after it IS very motivating, though, and I'll try very hard to get something up tonight.

The next one, the last in what I have planned for the series, should be more interesting; modding terrain & native life units isn't very difficult if you've mastered faction art, but there is a bit to be said about how to do it.

[Buster's Uncle]

Also, there's this:  you've read all the tutorials, yes?  Once the next two are up, have I left anything out?

I'm working towards a project to wrap it all up in a neat package as a sort of complete course of AC graphic modding, thus the entry on faction colors and the one on diplomacy landscapes, that cover pretty obvious stuff, but needed to be addressed for completeness' sake.  I plan to do up an introductory article, too, explaining some kindergarten basic concepts.  There's no predicting what any given user looking for this kind of information already knows.

So, have I left anything out?

[Buster's Uncle]

Same question to everyone who follows this thread and the tutorials at all - am I leaving anything out?

[Buster's Uncle]

Okay, sorry.  We've got a Game of the Month releasing tomorrow, and a good deal of my day was eaten by that...

[Rainbow Lizard]

How about the faction3.pcx file? How do I convert logos to that metal-style one used in the sky of those images?

[Buster's Uncle]

Basically, you want to turn the thing a (very slightly greenish) bright yellow with Color Balance and crank the contrast way up to bring out the highlights.  It'll take a little fiddling on your part, but isn't rocket science.

[ariete]

i remeber a section where you explain how do shadows for bases ... i wrong ... i try to search here but it isn't

[Buster's Uncle]

Solid black.  Not looks pretty black, actual all-the-way black, HTML notation 000000, is a semi-transparent color in SMAC(X).  Draw a shape in black, and you havbe your base shadow.

[ariete]

right and then i must overlap the bases to the shadowa, is correct?? there's not other meth??

[Buster's Uncle]

Correct, I think.  No better way occurs to me - this is one of those things that I never notice when I'm playing, and so don't bother to do to my bases. 

Kilkakon does notice, and does do base shadows, so when he sees this, he may be more help.  He's too polite to admit he thinks my work is sloppy that way.

[ariete]

initially i had even delete all shadows but then i ask me there's a reason if there are the shadows, the work appear more complete
these my first work are sloppy BU

[Kilkakon]

I draw the shadows on by hand... the only suggestion I can make if you are brave is to edit the palette so the shadow colour is something a bit nicer to work with (I usually go with pink shadows).

Remind me sometime to make better faction templates BU...

[Buster's Uncle]

Just bumping for the benefit of lurkers and other graphic knowledge-seekers - and I'm beginning to feel faint stirrings of a desire to do something productive, so a new Bases file may be coming soon...

[JarlWolf]

I need a bit of help with inputting my graphics I made for my custom faction.

The main issues im having is an error that when I put the faction pictures (The base pallets+leaderheads and icons, the death scene and others) I try to open/edit them with GIMP. It responds to me saying they aren't a PCX file. Any advice?

[Buster's Uncle]

Hmmm.  Post the file so I can look into it.

I gather you're using Facedit - I wonder if that has something to do with the problem.