Report, edit, etc...Posted by Aurrin on 2006-02-20 at 00:48:56
Okay, here's what I have found thus far:
Glow files for the protoss try to mimic transparency with RGB addition. That is given an image, ( R1, G1, B1 ), and a glow layer image ( R2, G2, B2 ), it simply slaps the one on top of the other to get a resultant image: ( R1+R2, G1+G2, B1+B2 ). You can see this for yourself in photoshop by using the difference blending option. Take a screenshot of, say, the nexus glowing, and a screenshot of it dark. Take the glowing one into photoshop, add the darkened one as a second layer on top of it, and set the blending options to 'difference'. Most of it will turn to black, but you should be able to see some funky-looking colors where it was glowing. (Note: for the protoss nexus, you have to catch it on the 'dark' state of the animation when it's building a probe, which may not be easy.) If you extract the bitmaps out of the .grp glow file for the nexus, it should be fairly obvious that these are the same. (There's also a way to reverse the process in photoshop with the 'linear dodge' blending option, by the way.)
Up until now, everything looks good. But here's the tricky part. When you want to put this into starcraft sprites, the *difference* between the darkened color you want, and the lightened color you want may not be on the palette at all. Even if it is, I can't seem to find a good way to difference the light state and the dark state while remaining within the color palette. The problem is (nearest I can tell) Starcraft will crash if R1+R2 is greater than 255 (or any of the other components), instead of setting it to 255 and going on. So if you take the difference between the light state and the dark state, and then convert that to the palette, if photoshop 'rounds up' on any of the colors to fit them into the palette, and that causes it to go over 255 when added back to the dark color, then it will crash the game.
Has anyone figured out how to get around this, or will I have to just keep looking?
ADDITION:
....anyone?
ADDITION:
Hmmm....
Well, given that no one seems to have an immediate answer, I've begun coding a small C++ project to check/modify the glow bitmap against the dark bitmap to make certain it actually works. The read side is coded and debugged, once I finish the write side of it and do a few misc. things, then I'll upload it.
Glow files for the protoss try to mimic transparency with RGB addition. That is given an image, ( R1, G1, B1 ), and a glow layer image ( R2, G2, B2 ), it simply slaps the one on top of the other to get a resultant image: ( R1+R2, G1+G2, B1+B2 ). You can see this for yourself in photoshop by using the difference blending option. Take a screenshot of, say, the nexus glowing, and a screenshot of it dark. Take the glowing one into photoshop, add the darkened one as a second layer on top of it, and set the blending options to 'difference'. Most of it will turn to black, but you should be able to see some funky-looking colors where it was glowing. (Note: for the protoss nexus, you have to catch it on the 'dark' state of the animation when it's building a probe, which may not be easy.) If you extract the bitmaps out of the .grp glow file for the nexus, it should be fairly obvious that these are the same. (There's also a way to reverse the process in photoshop with the 'linear dodge' blending option, by the way.)
Up until now, everything looks good. But here's the tricky part. When you want to put this into starcraft sprites, the *difference* between the darkened color you want, and the lightened color you want may not be on the palette at all. Even if it is, I can't seem to find a good way to difference the light state and the dark state while remaining within the color palette. The problem is (nearest I can tell) Starcraft will crash if R1+R2 is greater than 255 (or any of the other components), instead of setting it to 255 and going on. So if you take the difference between the light state and the dark state, and then convert that to the palette, if photoshop 'rounds up' on any of the colors to fit them into the palette, and that causes it to go over 255 when added back to the dark color, then it will crash the game.
Has anyone figured out how to get around this, or will I have to just keep looking?
ADDITION:
....anyone?
ADDITION:
Hmmm....
Well, given that no one seems to have an immediate answer, I've begun coding a small C++ project to check/modify the glow bitmap against the dark bitmap to make certain it actually works. The read side is coded and debugged, once I finish the write side of it and do a few misc. things, then I'll upload it.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by BroodKiller on 2006-02-21 at 14:52:48
Hmm...looks good, although I never was much into SC gfx at all...
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Aurrin on 2006-02-25 at 00:11:30
Well, mixed results. I did manage to create a program that would do that, but unfortunately that isn't enough, it seems. I don't know why, but it still crashes. My only two guesses on it at this point are:
1) Only certain colors can be used in a glow sprite, period.
2) It's constrained in file size to something small
I'll put up the program I built if you want to play with it.
Does anyone have any information regarding protoss building glow mods?
PLEASE?
ADDITION:
Or at the very least an address where I can email blizzard and see if they'll be nice enough to tell me?
1) Only certain colors can be used in a glow sprite, period.
2) It's constrained in file size to something small
I'll put up the program I built if you want to play with it.
Does anyone have any information regarding protoss building glow mods?
PLEASE?
ADDITION:
Or at the very least an address where I can email blizzard and see if they'll be nice enough to tell me?
Report, edit, etc...Posted by nirvanajung on 2006-02-25 at 00:20:42
did u understood complete about class of pallete for image?
there are several pallete class in item of *.dat file,
when use dat edit (including Asnall) could see pallete propertice in image.dat section
there are several pallete class in item of *.dat file,
when use dat edit (including Asnall) could see pallete propertice in image.dat section
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Aurrin on 2006-02-25 at 01:30:37
Well, I've tried changing the glow sprite in images.dat to have the default palette, which is what my images are saved in. Still crashes.
Is there any way I can get the other palettes?
Is there any way I can get the other palettes?