HandOb maker

[bohemond]

I recently made a tool for myself to make creating HandObs easier. It creates HandOb sprites and a FloorOb sprite based on a BigOb. It also positions the sprite correctly, which always takes me a long time. Well, that's why I made the tool. It exports in the single-file format, because that was just simpler to make.

A few pictures so you can see how it looks are included.

I tested it on a few random sprites I found on the forum and on a fire axe I made. That fire axe was actually what started it all.

As far as I can tell, it positions the HandObs correctly for both single-handed and two-handed weapons. There is a lot of options you can play around with to make it look reasonable.

It can export in 32bits, UFO palette and TFTD palette. The exported sprite will probably need some work.

It's VB.NET, and the code is a mess of course.

GitHub repository: https://github.com/bohemond-of-antioch/HandObMaker
Releases: https://github.com/bohemond-of-antioch/HandObMaker/releases
Documentation: https://github.com/bohemond-of-antioch/HandObMaker/wiki

It will probably require some .NET framework stuff to run. 4.5 or thereabouts, as far as installing that, you're on your own. If you encounter any other problems with running the program, I will try to help.


I'm releasing this under Creative Commons 0 license.

[efrenespartano]

This looks SO INTERESTING! I'm going to give it a try, will ease a lot the weapon sprite creation!

Thanks for making it and for sharing it.

Mate, your tool is freaking amazing. I'm (manly) crying of the joy. Works delightly. As you pointed, the sprite generated may need some love, but this ease many hours of work. Thanks a lot.

In words of my friend Hans Woofington "this is the best shit i have seen all year". Thanks for making our lives easier, you are a god among men.

https://tenor.com/view/blessing-from-the-lord-god-be-praised-monty-python-gif-13305700

I'm attaching a comparisation between a generated handOb and a handmade one of the same weapon.

[Anon011]

Wow great job!

[kevL]

yeah wow. those transformations look superb! I tried doing some in Gimp a while back and it was a mess ...

[Hans Woofington]

oh my god! this is amazing!
thanks a ton for making this!

[bohemond]

Thank you, I'm glad that you like it.

[Dioxine]

Great tool, 10/10. Cant eliminate some manual work on details, but gets rid of all the boring parts, and I guess it does it as good as it is possible for such software.

[robin]

Really great tool!

[Yankes]

Now expand it to creating units

[osd_daedalus]

Give this guy a Uber-Ethereal shroud and stick this thread!
Bravo, well appreciated! :-D

Just for the chronicles... sources will compile and run on Linux with mono, as long as mono-vbnc is installed, but will crash as you try to export FloorOb/HandOb.

EDIT: giving it a try again, it crashed while using resources from old UFO2000 assets (many of them are oversized according to your tool). I tried again on XComFiles resources and it works like a charm
So... yes, it works on Linux

[Docent]

Wooooooooooowwww!!!!!!! It`s, it`s, it`s... Amazing!!!

[xcomfan]

Now expand it to creating units

yes, might be like upgrandin in xpiratez from workshop--->factory 

[FilmFan84]

@bohemond Thank-you sir!

This is a wonderful tool; it's even useful for people like myself over at OpenApoc as we need similar Handobs, but at higher resolution for X-COM: Apocalypse

Looking forward to seeing how you develop this tool

Probably my only request, and with Apoc in mind, can it be made to support generation of higher-res sprites as i'm struuggling to get it to work with 80x40px EquiPics?

[osd_daedalus]

Just to report some feedback...

I got some old sprite from Galactic weapon set from UFO2000, adjusted with Gimp, used HandObMaker to get HandOb and FloorOb by playing with options, lost my mind on palettes (btw thank you Meridian and ohartenstein23) and...
Not bad result, isn't it? 


Have you loaded your source into Github / other repository with versioning system? I'd be happy to attempt to contribute to the code, or at least to report bugs (I got various crashes for "out of index")

ADD: by request, here's the bigOb/FloorOb/HandOb of that weapon. I'm uploading also the original Floor/HandObs from UFO2000 for comparison.
Disclaimer: if you are going to use them for a project, being it a UFO2000 derivative, it's under GNU GPL v2. *
* to check if sprites are on same license.

[Bobit]

The fact that you can take a random sprite from a completely different game and make it work...

If this were to be expanded to units by someone else they would need to know Visual Basic.