Vondell's Current Projects

[Fern]

I make my own icons too.

From Jay:

APE does not create purchase menu icons correctly. It uses the size 44x35, even though all of the in-game purchase menu icons are 44x32. So I use Zoot to load purchase menu icons. But Zoot will not load an image with more than 256 colors. ZT itself only uses 255 colors per image. So APE usually reduces the number of colors in an image to 255, but Zoot does not have that capability. Therefore, after I add an image to a blank purchase menu icon, I use the free and open source program GIMP to reduce the colors to 255. Also, Zoot and APE look at the top left pixel of the image and set all pixels with that color to transparency. So I change that top left pixel's color to magenta (ff00ff) before saving the
image as a ".png". Then I load that ".png" using Zoot. I also use Zoot to center that image over a 2x2 grid. On a side note, although I use GIMP as I described for regular ZT images, I use a different approach for icons. The free and open source program ImageMagick (and probably the forked project GraphicsMagick, which might be a better choice nowadays, but I started with ImageMagick) reduces images better than GIMP does. So I use that, along with a ".bat" file I created, to shrink an image, put it on a blank icon, reduce the colors to 255, and set the top left pixel to a shade close but not the same as magenta (f000f0, since some images intentionally use a magenta background). I just run the ".bat" file and have it do all of the work.

I also sent him your animated pictures and he said this

I assume the animal is new. Since MM/CC come with a giant tortoise and since a number of people have made tortoises based on that, including other Aldabra ones, I couldn't tell you if there is anything unique about it. But I believe the in-game tortoise does not lie down. I believe it just retracts its head into its shell. So this one might have new animations for lying down and for scratching the ground. My feeling is the graphics positioning and the configuration could be better. In the close-up of it scratching the ground, it looks like it jumps a bit from the stand animation to the start of the scratch animation. That can be fixed using Zoot, which allows adjusting individual frame positions in an animation. Also, when it lies down, there is an animation going from the stand position to the lying position. But when it comes back up, it goes straight from the lying position to the the
stand position. Usually the behavior set configuration should play the lie_down animation in reverse {"f = fPlayReverse(lie_down)"} when it is getting back up, assuming that animation is called "lie_down".

I have since sent him a copy of the thread since he is also interested in Blender

[(Designer)Vondell]

 

:)

[(Admin)Cricket]

So cool! I love your animated grass :)

[(Designer)Vondell]

Thanks! By the way, where/to whom do I send these fellas when I'm ready to submit them for testing?

[Fern]

Probably myself or cricket. Mind you cricket would probably send it to me or Jay anyway.

Which APE did you use? Have you edited the uca since all the current versions add a load of rubbish to the uca? The best uca guide is at zookeepers lounge and by Sundance. There is an updated APE version I am supposed to be testing that does not do that.

For your scenery make sure you use the ucs editing guide that is at the Designer Guild

[(Designer)Vondell]

I've been through Sundance's UCA guide comprehensively as well as Jordan's tutorial here on Tek, and my UCA looks solid, to the best of my knowledge. I couldn't get Jay's Config checker to run on my machine the first time I tried, but maybe I'll have another go at it. Since I followed Sundance's tutorial by the line it'd just be to double-check anyway. Using APE 2.5 btw. Excited about this new APE release you're working on!

 

The only thing I have left to do is fiddle with the animation positionings some more and then make sure there's no unused animations left in the folders taking up space, which shouldn't take me too long. I'm having trouble deciding whether the adult tortoises should be set to take up 1 or 2 units in length. In a physical sense their footprint is a little bigger than half a tile but definitely not the length of a tile. With the footprint set to 1x1 though, there is some overlap when entering shelters and things of that nature.

 

Would setting the footprint to 1x2 stop this sort of thing from happening?:

 

 

Also: Is it common practice to keep the old file and folder names from the old animal that the hex files point to, or should I go in and rename all of those? In other words, if I used the anteater as base should there be any filename references that still refer to "anteater", or should I change all of those? The ID is different and doesn't actually point to the ingame anteater, nothing is being overwritten, but there are still filenames left over (anteater.pal, the icon and plaque folders/files icanteat and planteat, etc) that contain the tortoise's data.

 

 

As far as I know I'd just have to just take all the applicable files into the hex editor and change the filenames they point to, and change the paths in the UCA, but do people usually bother doing that? Would it cause any problems either way?

 

EDIT: Actually, what does refer to the palette file that ends up in this folder? All the animation folders have palette files of their own, as do the icon and plaque folders. Is this one of the extra files APE adds in or does it serve a purpose ingame?

 

Thanks for all the help by the way, Fern. Thank Jay for me too.

[Fern]

He has gone for the night but I will send him a copy of this.

What windows version are you using?

I always run a checker but I use a different version that is set up to create the posts at the Download Directory.

If you have questions for Jay he can be found at the Download Directory

[(Designer)Vondell]

Windows 8, 64-bit. I don't think there's a currently released version of Jay's checker that will work in a 64-bit environment.

[jbl89]

Love the gif your animal working around!

 

As far as I know, most people don't bother. For personal use, I did update Taz' animals, so most of those references are gone. Another thing is when people select the animal ingame, they usually have the same icon as in the purchase menu. I personally like to change this so it matches the ingame graphics - which seems to be a side view of the stand/walk animation of the animal. Both these things depend a bit on your view. After all, who's going to check the files? Probably just a few geeks. On the other hand, I only put things into ZT1 which I think match the official stuff as close as possible. Hence my previous icons-remark too. But I'm a hardliner :)

 

I think the anteater.pal is a leftover which is not being used anymore. I kind of assume APE just copies and screws up the UCA, which is why I always start from the .AI file of the actual animal instead (so anteater.ai ). But if you want to release this as an item which doesn't require a DLL, you would need to alter the cNameID, cHelpID and add the texts-block generated by APE. The benefit is that the structure is a whole lot cleaner, sometimes commented, and you can easily compare settings with an original animal if necessary.

[(Admin)Savannahjan]

It looks fabulous! I'm so excited to see new animals being made and we are thrilled to host your projects here at Tek. I also love those grasses, very unique.