Posted: Sun Mar 10, 2013 4:25 am Post subject:
Pallettes
Subject description: How to
How can I create/edit pallettes?
I am doing some work with Alpha images in TS and when I copy my images over to the new pallette it uses the wrong colors in the same pallette. You might know what I'm talking about cause it happens when you copy voxels in Voxel section editor over that are red and it uses the same red but from the other color selection. _________________ MODDB Profile: http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-second-tiberium-war QUICK_EDIT
would it be possible with this editor to change the anim.pal to have a better red? _________________ Free Tibed!
EA for worst company of the decade! QUICK_EDIT
Yes, you can change the palette as you wish. Just remember to put it then in a mix file so the game finds and uses it. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
Ah thank you, I find the Tiberian sun Palette colors not very good for some uses like tiberium explosion animations. _________________ MODDB Profile: http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-second-tiberium-war QUICK_EDIT
Also you might need to reimport all the animations since you'll be changing the anim palette since some animations will be using some colors you might have replaced. _________________ ~ Excelsior ~ QUICK_EDIT
Actually all I was doing was blacking out all the unused colors in the Alpha palettes so when I copy a image over to SHP editor it only uses the correct alpha colors. Changing the original color palettes I'd only do if I was to start a total conversion mod from scratch.
Anyways this is what I was testing out:
Here is the new alpha palette if anyone needs to make creating alpha images easier:
Actually all I was doing was blacking out all the unused colors in the Alpha palettes
There are no unused colors.
index 127 is neutral brightness
128-255 is additive lighting (brighter)
0-126 is subtractive lighting (darker)
The refinery front light look pretty cool. Too bad alpha images don't work with cloaking fields. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
1. (Avoidable) When too many alpha's overlap it causes a visual glitch, but that can be avoided as long the alphas near or on the structure. (not like the alpha lightpost)
2. (Avoidable) When a structure is built and the alpha reaches over into the black unseen terrain it causes a visual glitch, again if the alpha texture isnt larger than the structure sight distance it will never cause this.
3. When the structure is stealthed the alpha disappears at random and doesn't come back. The only major problem with it, but I believe it is tolerable since it only effect nods and only lategame (in my mod). If anyone knows a fix for this please give me a shout!
1. already 2 overlapping alphas cause this.
When an alpha image is removed, it removes any alpha effect within the range of the alphaimage SHP canvas. Thus one alpha can remove another alpha. But only on the current screen. Once you scroll away and back, the cut alpha is restored again.
2. This is always problematic. E.g. enemy builds a building with alpha, then you can partially see through the shroud there, where the enemy placed the building.
3. When cloaked the alpha is disabled, but the screen isn't updated too. Thus you can still see the alpha. When you scroll away and back or open the game menu, the alpha is correctly removed.
But yes, the alpha is also removed forever and won't come back when the sgen is turned off.
That pallette they have for alpha images is strange, how am I supposed to convert an image I have made in photoshop with the highlights and shadows over to the alpha palette when the alpha palette has several entire ranges from white to gray? _________________ MODDB Profile: http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-second-tiberium-war QUICK_EDIT
That pallette they have for alpha images is strange, how am I supposed to convert an image I have made in photoshop with the highlights and shadows over to the alpha palette when the alpha palette has several entire ranges from white to gray?
There is no palette! The game uses directly the color-index for the enlighten/darken effect with index 127 being neutral.
You have to create your own alpha palette, to convert images.
Fullfnt.pal is one that comes close to the alphapal, but it is not the ingame used alphapalette.
Note: the game uses 6bit for the colors in a normal palette (64 red, 64 green, 64 blue shades for each colorentry), giving a total of max 64 shades of grey.
But the alphaimage ingame is using directly the pixel-palette-index, which is based on a 256 color-palette, thus allowing a range of 255 shades of grey.
That's why a new palette with a full greyscale also isn't giving you good results, because the greys go up in steps of 4 for the r,g,b values (see the blocks of 4 colors with the same grey in your fullfnt.pal). Which in turn produces non-smooth effects when you use this palette for the conversion.
Problem described here
Zero18 wrote:
Will this palette work on voxel as well too? And in RA2?
No, voxel can't use any alpha effect. Voxel always use unittem.pal /unitsno.pal.
Aydra wrote:
I believe Ares allows for alpha lights to be added to units from what ive seen on the preview videos
This is done via SHPs that are attached to the VXL. It's not the voxel itself having alpha-palette colored voxel. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
This is done via SHPs that are attached to the VXL. It's not the voxel itself having alpha-palette colored voxel.
It's done by attaching the alpha light to the unit, not some shp on it. Ares allows multi directional alpha lights on moving objects, without resorting to such "hacks". QUICK_EDIT
Alphalights are SHPs. But yes they are attached to a unit. But since we were speaking about VXL, i explained that the SHP is attached to the VXL and not the VXL itself creating the alpha effect.
No clue what you mean with "such hacks" though. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
Just to clarify for few, like LKO outlines, voxels do not use alpha palette as actual alphas never used one, we just use one to make the alpha images indexes wise.
Voxels will always use unittem/unitsno.pal + any additional theaters in RA2.
fullfnt3.pal is not proper alpha palette thus the horrible results. To save the time, here is my alpha palette, has the intended background color as 252,0,252 to avoid background issues, else all greyscale but yes has the 4 step issue which is basicly unavoidable given Westwood Pal format.
Ares provides mobile alphaimage for units including rotation.
Alphalights are SHPs. But yes they are attached to a unit.
I misunderstood what you meant, then. I know that alpha lights are shps, but i thought you meant attaching them to an shp that's on a unit. That's the "hack" i was referring to. QUICK_EDIT
@ApolloTD ah thanks, I was thinking of making a palette that was a single gradient from black to white to solve my problem but you've already done it for me! _________________ MODDB Profile: http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-second-tiberium-war QUICK_EDIT
Well I was planning on adding alpha images to all my structures but due to the problems listed above I've decided not to. It's a shame they dont function correctly, they could really enhance the game graphics. I only found that adding Alpha's to civilian structures to be fully functional.
Here's a few images of what I was adding to my next update if everything was glitchless:
Really great effects especially on the Hand of Nod. A real pity if they can't be added due to problems. _________________ Free Tibed!
EA for worst company of the decade! QUICK_EDIT
Well, every alphaimage improvement that is only on the building, could be included by simply doing these changes on the SHP itself.
But yes, it's really a shame. I would have used alphaimages for the TI buildings too if they would work better. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
guess a simple anim over the building wouldn't work? Or the building having the light in the building shp itself? _________________ Free Tibed!
EA for worst company of the decade! QUICK_EDIT
I've been using alpha images on building in D-day for years now & the only problem that I've seen is that they discolour the selection boxes... _________________
Well there are other issues than the sgen disabling the alphalight.
-If an alphalight is created under the shroud, the shroud is partially not working and you can see through the shroud
-if an alphalight is removed, it removes every alphalight effect inside the range of the canvas
-no damageframe for alphaimage
They aren't that big issues (no IE), but still noticeable and sometimes quite ugly. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
Could someone explain which palettes are used where in TS, Or is there a post explaining them? I want to change the palette for voxels and structures and want to know if its going to mess anything else up... _________________ MODDB Profile: http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-second-tiberium-war QUICK_EDIT
Buildable stuff usually uses unittem/unitsno.pal (voxels are hardcoded to use this palette)
Usually unbuildable stuff with TerrainPalette=true uses isotem/isosno.pal
Some animations with AltPalette=yes use unittem/unitsno too. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
I working on a new project and in order for me to have the right colors I decided to change unittem.pal to a custom made one. It's working fine for now but I've run into a problem with the voxels. It seems that some colors at different angles jump from one color gradient to another assuming based on the normals. Has anyone run into this phenomena?
Joined: 22 Nov 2010 Location: Iszkaszentgyorgy, Hungary
Posted: Sat May 04, 2013 6:37 pm Post subject:
Yes, WW's voxel.vpl is a mess and mixes gradients a lot.
I have a semi-fixed vpl, it still mixes blue with Allied blue tho and it also gives much smoother looks because of the color reduction. I can send it over if interested.
Otherwise just take Starkku's VPL tool from the Editing Tools and fix your vpl manually. _________________ "If you didn't get angry and mad and frustrated, that means you don't care about the end result, and are doing something wrong." - Greg Kroah-Hartman
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Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
=======================
WeiDU mods: Random Graion Tweaks | Graion's Soundsets
Maintainance: Extra Expanded Enhanced Encounters! | BGEESpawn
Contributions: EE Fixpack | Enhanced Edition Trilogy | DSotSC (Trilogy) | UB_IWD | SotSC & a lot more... QUICK_EDIT
local.mix _________________ "If you didn't get angry and mad and frustrated, that means you don't care about the end result, and are doing something wrong." - Greg Kroah-Hartman
=======================
Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
=======================
WeiDU mods: Random Graion Tweaks | Graion's Soundsets
Maintainance: Extra Expanded Enhanced Encounters! | BGEESpawn
Contributions: EE Fixpack | Enhanced Edition Trilogy | DSotSC (Trilogy) | UB_IWD | SotSC & a lot more... QUICK_EDIT
wow, it would take me forever to fix it. I guess I'll just mix match em relatively close because getting the colors exact looks impossible. _________________ MODDB Profile: http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-second-tiberium-war QUICK_EDIT
Joined: 22 Nov 2010 Location: Iszkaszentgyorgy, Hungary
Posted: Sat May 04, 2013 8:54 pm Post subject:
I can still send over my VPL. _________________ "If you didn't get angry and mad and frustrated, that means you don't care about the end result, and are doing something wrong." - Greg Kroah-Hartman
=======================
Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
=======================
WeiDU mods: Random Graion Tweaks | Graion's Soundsets
Maintainance: Extra Expanded Enhanced Encounters! | BGEESpawn
Contributions: EE Fixpack | Enhanced Edition Trilogy | DSotSC (Trilogy) | UB_IWD | SotSC & a lot more... QUICK_EDIT
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Pallettes
