ohh aseprite changed its licence? i still have 0.95 with "donate" no mention of trial/buy software
i took a look at the portable version of icofx and run into issues: how do you edit larger files >256x256 (like ufopaedia entries, spritesheets) and i did not find the "palette load/edit" function there (perhaps i downloaded a wrong version?)
Hello, using GIMP on Linux.
I've found that you can reuse a palette from existing valid graphic files. Just open a good image in GIMP, delete/hide the original layer, resize as needed and paste into it your own graphics; the palette should remain from the previous image and apply to your new layer.
This has produced working sprites for me.
Hey, any info about the whole serie of ms paint (shipped with windows) and pinta? (https://pinta-project.com)(for both win and linux, and its freee!)Just tested, nope.
If your painting program can open these image, save them, reload them and STILL has 3 distinct black colors in the right indexes, it should be ok for OpenXcom modding.see image the size of the image should also be a hint
Anything good for Linux? Or a good tutorial for using gimp for OpenXCom?After creating a optimized palette with only 2 colors (converting RGBand back to index in gimp) i could easily fix the image with https://falkooxc.pythonanywhere.com/palconvert -> upload [From: == To: - Palette ; more details-> [ x ] try to fix palette colors]
(gimp doesn't strike me as simple, and apparently has issues with OXC, so.. I'm hesitant to get into it by myself.)
Man! That EvilPixie program sounded like exactly what I am looking for from your description, and the penguin made me really hopeful, but it's another Windows only program :(Evilpixie is originally developed on Linux, you can see the instructions to compile it here: https://github.com/bcampbell/evilpixie
Anything good for Linux?Both ASEPRITE and Grafx2 are available as binaries on a few distributions
I'm pretty sure that it won't work unless your final image contains every color in the palette (or at least the first and the last color), else the palette will be truncated. and sometimes shifted.
I assume it might work if you keep a full-palette image as an invisible layer, which forces the GIMP to keep all colors in the palette... but I don't know what happens in the export function. if this actually works, it would be really cool, because I love the GIMP.
I think Adobe Photoshop can be added to the "Bad" list, because I can see absolutely no way to select a specific color number to draw, when there are duplicates - and the UFO games' palettes have a few duplicates.Photoshop is a terrible choice if what you're looking for is doing things pixel-by-pixel with colors grabbed from a palette index.
Could anyone give me some insights on the colour palette used in the game? I think that would help me to fix the issue (and maybe you can add another tool to the list).
There might be an error in this palette, but yeah, types 1, 3, 7, 8 use Research palette, while types 2, 4, 5, 6 use Battlescape (Tactical) palette minus last 16 colors.
Nah they don't work at all. It seems like your software is cutting out the "unused" colors from every picture, which ruins everything. Hmm instead of using the files from the internets (I've tried them and these palettes don't seem to be very good), maybe you could try extracting the pallette from working pictures found in some mods? Or - I've modified one of your pictures to fit the research palette, you can try it. Also disable that dithering :) (although with such low-intesity dithering, sometimes a dithered conversion does look better than a smooth one).
@Ivan: nah I couldn't help, I'm an user, not a guru, I don't know a heck about graphic formats, graphic soft (except working knowledge how to use MS paint & photoshop) etc.
Could you post the original images here? I have a thing to try out.
Converted them for you:
When an image converts poorly, it means it relies too much on colors which have no equivalent in XCOM's palette.
It's possible to improve the result by tuning the image's colors beforehand : push the saturation for everything that's not greyscale, and be sure that the largest surfaces use exactly the hue of the available color ranges.
I'll suggest to the OP to put Paint.NET in the list of not recommended until I find if it is possible to save the pictures in a way that doesn't screw the color code or a way to fix the palette within the program (in case it is that which I doubt).Paint.NET is simply not designed to manage the "color indexed" representation of an image. When it loads a GIF, the file is immediately converted to RGB representation. The specific color indices are lost, and colors not used in the image are lost.
In the meantime I've been tackling mtpaint (which seems good but I haven't got the skills yet) and graphics gale, which has a free edition and was recommended in a pixel artist web for beginners.mtPaint should be fine.
Also, out of a sudden fear. Does the aircraft weapons use a different palette ??? ?
These png files contain images of colors 0 to 22, and a palette of exactly these 23 colors.
It means this program optimizes the image on saving, by scrapping every color which doesn't appear on the image and renumbering the remaining colors.
It may save 699 bytes in the file, but the image becomes unusable in OpenXCOM. If there's no setting in this program to disable palette optimization, --> bad list.
no room for photoshop on the good list? i use it exclusively.
I think so. Can you also add:I support GrafX2 I use it when I have look on or edit graphic for OXC.
Evilpixie (https://evilpixie.scumways.com/), free open source, Windows and Linux. I tested GIF and PNG, both work fine.
GrafX2 (https://pulkomandy.tk/projects/GrafX2), free open source, for many operating systems.
Me too.Well, I've tested with CS2. I open the test image I made earlier
Curiously, there seems to be some sort of a small anti-Photoshop movement regarding modding Openxom. :P I don't really understand why.
Well, I've tested with CS2. I open the test image I made earlier
(https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=2676.0;attach=10288)
1) Color zero becomes transparent in editor, and is actually turned transparent when you save. In the case of a sprite (not a flat background) you could consider it helpful, but I think OSX verskion of OpenXcom can't load GIFs correctly when they have transparent background.
2) I see absolutely no way to differentiate between colors 15 and 255. If I use eyedropper in the "255" area and then paint, the resulting pixels are in color 15. If I save the image's palette and use it as a color swatch, when I pick the last color and draw with it, it's color 15, not 255.
GrafX2 (https://pulkomandy.tk/projects/GrafX2), free open source, for many operating systems.Does a proper interface exist for GrafX2? I've tinkered a little bit around with it, but I have no plans for actually getting into using it since it still thinks we're still in the eighties and no interface design improvements have been made since.
Does a proper interface exist for GrafX2? I've tinkered a little bit around with it, but I have no plans for actually getting into using it since it still thinks we're still in the eighties and no interface design improvements have been made since.Sorry, no such plans. The program was revived especially because a lot of good interface design ideas from the best painting program of the 90s (Deluxe Paint) had been lost over the years : interface that doesn't get in the way, painting with both mouse buttons, single-key keyboard shortcuts for all the functions that you use all the time.
Curiously, there seems to be some sort of a small anti-Photoshop movement regarding modding Openxom. :P I don't really understand why.
well, I was mainly looking at open-source or otherwise free-to-use software. I've actually never used photoshop :P
I have given my try to grafX2 but as some people say, I have a harsh time dealing with the interface (but I don't disregard the program, I've seen some videos on youtube doing amazing stuff).
Have any of you used Evilpixie or Grafx2? Could you tell me how they measure up as far as working with images and sprites in openxcom? I want something that is easy to use but also offers several tools in case I want to get down and dirty and make complex graphics.
MCDEdit has good image editing tools for openxcom. I wish there was a full image editor made with that interface and set of tools that I could use for any size image.
Since I didn't notice anyone else mentioning it, may I suggest Krita (https://krita.org/).It can't save indexed images. It can't be used for swapping colours in existing images. If you create your graphics from scratch, then maybe. If you work with other people's images, brace for colour artefacts the converter creates.
It's free, runs on Linux and has a variety of features.
I've been using Krita (https://krita.org/) in combination with Falko's Palette converter (https://falkooxc2.pythonanywhere.com/). (https://openxcom.org/forum/Themes/InsidiousV1-k/images/post/thumbup.gif)
It can't be used for swapping colours in existing images.
I am looking for modern top down or iso style graphics. They are very hard to find.
I'll suggest to the OP to put Paint.NET in the list of not recommended until I find if it is possible to save the pictures in a way that doesn't screw the color code or a way to fix the palette within the program (in case it is that which I doubt).
In the meantime I've been tackling mtpaint (which seems good but I haven't got the skills yet) and graphics gale, which has a free edition and was recommended in a pixel artist web for beginners.
Hi!,
anyone has managed to compile ASEPRITE from source? I'm trying to do it under Ubuntu-Linux, but it drops a "WEBP_LIBRARIES not found error" (thought they're installed), which I cannot fix, when running CMake step.
Edit: I finally manage to do it! But I had to disable WEBP options in CMakeLists.txt. I had also to link python to python3, installing package "python-is-python3". I will try to do it also in windows10.
New Edit: windows 10 build process need the same: disable WEBP options in CMakeLists.txt and them follow INSTALL.md instructions. (Aseprite v1.3-rc2-dev)
Paint.Net is literally the worst program to use to create/edit images for Openxcom.I see. Well, that sucks. I definitively don't have the time to learn an entire new tool. So I guess I have no choice but to abandon things.
There are no instructions here simply because nobody uses it... because it simply doesn't work.
The only advice we can give you is: use something else, anything else.
In that case you can create your image in paint.net and save it as a BMP for example.Good idea. What's the easiest thing to use for this? I understand you need to configure something about color pallets.
And just do the bmp->png conversion in a different program.
Good idea. What's the easiest thing to use for this? I understand you need to configure something about color pallets.
I use Irfanview.Maybe I am looking at the wrong program here but from what I see that thing is a video player. I can open an image file with it but I can't save it.
It's not even an editor, just a viewer and converter.
But many people use many different tools.
Maybe I am looking at the wrong program here but from what I see that thing is a video player. I can open an image file with it but I can't save it.
EDIT: I tried every program listed on this thread and I can't get any of them to work. Most of them won't allow me to paste in from other programs meaning that I can't just use them for resaving easily. I would have to save with a custom color for transparency and manually delete it or some such. And that's too much of a paint. And the only one that does what I need is MTPaint which is just the most painful piece of software I used since I last had the misfortune of dealing with the eclipse IDE.
So yea, unless there is an easy non painful way to do this I have to quit. It's sad, but it is what it is.
Maybe I am looking at the wrong program here but from what I see that thing is a video player. I can open an image file with it but I can't save it.
I've found that you can reuse a palette from existing valid graphic files. Just open a good image in GIMP, delete/hide the original layer, resize as needed and paste into it your own graphics; the palette should remain from the previous image and apply to your new layer.
This has produced working sprites for me.
I don't know if there is interest in it but if so I might publish it for people to use. I am hesitant to do so right away because it would take as much work to polish it into something usable by anyone but me as it did to write it. ;D