Colour Replaced Aliens

[luke83]

Well all this started as i read a discussion about the Mutons giving a error when they Fell as it tried to switch to the Flying Leg sprites that dont exist , so i just went, Flying Mutons, got to have that one day. Next thing i know, i am also thinking about a Command Class Muton  and a Super Heavy Muton  so i started doing these colour replacements. These are only colour replaced sprites , eventually i will take the next step and build into other sprite sets so ( like Power Armour  sprite With Muton Graphics ) so one day i can incorporate them but i thought i should make them available for anyone's mods ( there on the mod site if you want them).

Update : Just added a Sectopod with minor colour change, its not on the mod site.

[Warboy1982]

... consider this "borrowed"
it makes me sad that mutons lack leaders and commanders, especially with that whole intro fmv.
as for flying mutons... it shouldn't be hard to slap a jetpack on them (it's only 8 frames, maybe 11 if you count death, i don't) and use the same method they used for differentiating power armour and flying armour on soldiers.
(male/female torso switch)

[luke83]

just some basic snakeman colour changes, these darker snakeman could be the old experienced ones .... Just a thought.

Update , New FLaoter

[Warboy1982]

so, just tossing around ideas...
should i implement different coloured units to represent different ranked aliens (or random pick for terror units) and if so, can i count on you (luke) to provide them?
i'm all for variety for variety's sake.

also, can i take you on as an official content developer or something? i lack the patience, understanding or a working copy of the damn map tools to make map tilesets and such, but you seem to have quite a flair for it.

(i'll likely list everyone on the forums/mod site as a content developer, what i'm really asking is can i make demands)

[luke83]

Personal view here- I would most likely stay away from identifying a graphic with a Rank for most of the aliens as you don't want to know that the pink sectoid is the leader, or the green floater is a medic as this will allow you to cheat when trying to catch aliens alive.  The mutons could be the exception to the rule as there breed for combat and that start up movie always wanted to make me have a RED muton for command units, also there skin looks like a outfit anyway so why not cover it in black when you strap on your anti-gravity device and fly around the sky , its called camouflage .

As for content developer , i am flattered but i honestly don't have a lot fo free time, so saying , "yes i will have it done next week" doesn't work as i have full-time job and 2 small kids so i work around them,so lets keep it casual,l but i do take requests, if you peak my interests with your request you can pretty well guarantee it will be done, just be warned i am not very good at custom graphics, i usually stick to easy stuff ( cut and paste things together) and Mapblocks. Custom colours is not problem, let me know what you want and i will see what i can do. Plus you scratch my back , i will scratch yours

[Volutar]

color-coded ranks? no-no. it would be kinda cheating. you have to mindprobe alien to know what he is. that should stay intact.

[Warboy1982]

fair enough, but how about random pallette swaps just for variety's sake? probably not a whole huge list of colours, so you don't end up with a muton gay pride parade, but say 3 variations of each?

[Volutar]

i think color could mean "races" of mutons which will be having different "powers" like pink are very long moving, grey have enormous HP .. and so on.. for later games.

[Warboy1982]

good thinking

[moriarty]

considering the fact that they are genetically engineered, this would make perfect sense

[luke83]

Inspired by the floater on the concept art, i made a quick new variety. When i have time , i think his CORE should be a different colour to green but it changed also during the "Colour Exchange" in gimp

[Yankes]

Recoloring cape can be done in game like my solders skin colors.
Only thing that would need fixing is that core have same color group as cape.

[luke83]

Yes, i have thought about that , but using this "gimp" option, it only took me 15min to do the quick change on the entire set , now i just need to touch up some details, this is very different to the many days i use to spend doing this before i discovered this option. The other part is i also like seeing the colours go together to see what works and what doesn't. Sure if i knew how to use your code , i could most likely do this even faster, what would be cool would be a small tool that would load the image into a program , identify every colour used and then let me just pick the colours i wanted out of the colour pallet for the game, but that is most likely a lot of work for very little return,

 

[Mutonbrain]

Can you experts tell me where to get the tool to open/edit the XCOM picture files ?
What file extension do the files have ? Any impotant things to pay attention to when editing ?

[luke83]

Check out the MOD site mate, Moriarty and I, try to cover most topic  Any questions , just ask....

1) https://openxcommods.weebly.com/how-to.html
2) https://openxcommods.weebly.com/general-map-creation.html
3)https://openxcommods.weebly.com/pckview.html
4)https://openxcommods.weebly.com/mcdadd.htm
5)https://openxcommods.weebly.com/xcom-soldier-sprites.html

Also Check out my Youtube Channel , there is some How to Modding videos there also ( i really need to make some more)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZe4EAqKqAU

Also once you have extracted the images , i use GIMP to make my changes