I tried different palettes but the creature is still losing a lot of details.
I have a couple of questions:

1) How to create a specific palette for this creature and apply it to eliminate weird colors?
2) From a VCMI guide it says that Heroes is using the 8BPP palette, but when I select it I get errors in Photoshop. It says:
"Must be between 000000 and FFFFFF. The closest value will be choosen" then it sticks to 000000, so it has no effect.
3) Is it possible to import those very colored creatures without 3DSmax (I can't activate it) or I better stick at simpler ones when using Photoshop?

As i said the best way to make a palette is working with textures, but in ur case i think it would be enough to make a screenshots from almost side of the creature (front, back, right/left and may be top and bottom) in wow model viewer and then place all this images in one layer in photoshop and then make a palette from all this.

Thanks. I will somehow raise a few stupid questions, but I can't see another way to learn:

The Photoshit is giving me the option to open the image in Image ready for choosing the palette. I can export the image from WOW as BMP only, RGB.

This is how it comes from WoW, I only resized it for show


The options I have:

Create the main palette
Delete the main palette
Compile to the main palette
Save the main palette.


The palette is applying when changing image from RGB to indexed colors, right? My creature does not lose quality when doing this, but when importing in game.
I created a main palette from the new layer.
Then I save a new palette for this unit, but...what I do after that? I applied the new palette to the unit and it didnt changed, so I guess I was wrong. In what having a specific palette from this unit colors will optimize the unit?

Isn't Def maker applying its own palette so it deletes mine?

DEF maker or DEF tool? DEF maker cant work w/o palette and DEF tool could create the one for u if u are using RGB images.
U can create palette in photoshop w/o using image viewer - in PS palette is created when u are converting to RGB.
Before applying a new palette to the image - convert it to RGB before (if its in indexed colors).

Def tool but I always use indexed images, so it does not change it then.
Applying a new palette to an image: it is only when I convert it to indexed from RGB that it asks me which palette to use.

So, the process would be:

1) Extract bmp from all units angles
2) Open Image ready and delete main palette, creating a new one with the first screen, then add to the fresh created palette the palettes from the other angles
3) Convert the creature images to indexed colors and apply the new palette when doing this

This is right?

Another matter: the creatures I extracted come with 255 colors. Is it a way to reduce them to 155 or so? I am asking this because your creatures have about 155, and it seems 255 is looking weird/too many

Another annoying thing is that I don't know where that damnt main palette is. I created a new layer and pasted inside all creatures frames from all angles. Then I added them to the main palette and saved it both as main palette and on the desktop as ACT file.

Now when I am asked which palette I want it shows this:


So, which is the main palette among those...I choose "another" then I selected the ACT file on the desktop.

(19.09.2009 00:44)Valery Wrote:  1) Extract bmp from all units angles
2) Open Image ready and delete main palette, creating a new one with the first screen, then add to the fresh created palette the palettes from the other angles
3) Convert the creature images to indexed colors and apply the new palette when doing this

This is right?

No, as i said u dont need image ready.

1. Just create for example 4 bmps of different units angles.
2. Create a new file in photoshop and place all of this 4 bmps as the layers in this newly created file.
3. Convert this file to indexed colors and save the palette for later use.

About colors.. No, the more - the better in current case - the more colors u will have - the more detailed image u will get, so dont decrease them. As for palette preset imho "local adaptive" is good enough.

Your advices helped a lot and I got my first def working and palettes worked great. Can I have feedback about it so I can see how to get better?




Infantry Download -> wonder what better name I could find for it...

It replaces the Zealot, I did not yet test the ACF to see if it working with other shooters but zealot OK.

The most annoying problem was that almost all frames had to be repositioned in Def tool, because they were out of hexes, dunno why. That was very long to fix. The strange thing is that the frames went well in Gif animator but showed (some of them) as out of range in Deftool. And once I fixed them in Deftool they did not work anymore in Gif (blank screen)

Well, if u are speaking about the feedback from my side, then i am afraid i cannot tell too much... As u probably know i make wow units in 3ds max and dont like very much units made through WMV.

As i know Ivor started recently make units from wow through WMV too, so u can try to talk with him about this experience.
Here is the link to the thread:
http://wforum.heroes35.net/showthread.php?tid=846

About repositioning... As i know DEF tool has a very easy abilitity to do this.

I understand, but 3Dsmax is quite impossible to buy and still creatures without it are acceptable. Or I should say better I make creatures without it than not making anything.

Too bad most interesting WoG threads are only in russian and I don't feel like posting in english inside, as I saw it is not always welcomed.

(19.09.2009 14:35)Valery Wrote:  Too bad most interesting WoG threads are only in russian and I don't feel like posting in english inside, as I saw it is not always welcomed.

U could translate ur phrases from french to russian using any translator and post them - this would be quite acceptable i suppose.

Ok I did it, for a good laugh. The strange thing is that my father is russian (my name is) and he insisted that I learn it, but I got instead english/french and some other languages as well, never russian. Now I pay for.

Well, its never late to learn.

Nothing stops me, never
I have some russian nice student girls, a cooperation will be started soon.

Hmm, is it possible that I deleted my main palette? I mean any image I import now from WOW can't display properly. I think I deleted the principal palette and now I have nothing more to display.

@Never mind, I got them working, I am the boss.