Tunch Khan said:
Is there a way you can share your work? At least what you have so far?
Well I would and I will, but it is all still in a shape you will not want in your game. My headgear still sit slightly wrong (as "hair" is put on top of "head" this is an arduous trial-and-error labour), I still have ears on all turbans and I have to redo everything to fit the correct palette.
But I'm getting there. Downloaded Paint Shop Pro demo to have a more useful tool.
I am replacing the six rather excentric 'dark' haircuts in the "hair" file. One moorish type tarboosh, an afghan model turban (cretonne, worn over bonnet), a kurdish helmet-and-chain model, a muslin turban modelled from a Khiva Emir, a dervish haircut and a slightly anacronistic Otman turban-around-a-fez model. All were rather satisfying, but destroyed when converting to usable palette. Also working on the mouths (since these files contain the beards - an extremely important item of vanity from Baghdad to Cordoba).
As for the ladies, I have recently (tonight) suffered a grevious setback in my project converting Myros mod to trans-Dardanelle apperance. For a minute there, they all looked like sisters of Aishwarya, but it turned out the parts don't fit at all. Have a lot of testing to do if I am to finish thiat one at all, and I am contemplating a return to the simpler, cartoonish style of the original graphics instead. They are all dressed in various outfits from contemporary art, turkish, persian, berber etc, none has a covered face.
Lessons learned (noob type useful-to-knows):
- Graphics come in certain order when presented, namely (not 100% sure here) head, nose, eyes, mouth, hair, ears, miscellanous. Thats why my turbans have ears. Not sure if miscellanous comes over or under hair. Will show soon, as I use a chainmail neckpiece on the kurdish helmet, resting on the shoulders.
- Graphics are placed in relation to eachother, using the same frame. Thus if you move a nose (in that file) 1 cm down, it will show up on the chin (in-game) and so on. The trick of course being to find the exact right placing of your mod.
- Graphics use a specific palette. Haven't found the origin file yet, but I stole it from an existing bmp file and it works fine.
- Remember to save bmp in 256k (8 bit), or it won't show at all in the game.
You can basically replace the whole image - like Myron did indeed - but a word of warning is that the piecing together is hellish (fit to place, fit colours). Original graphics already fit (more or less - the bald hairgraphic should be erased as it does not fit). You can insert bmp's of real persons too, no problem, except fitting noses and eyes becomes even more hellish, not to mention tone of skin etc.
But, I'll be back, with usable mods.
Regards
Moritz
