Automatic Sprite Rendering

[(Designer)HENDRIX]

Yeah that's probably not the best configuration to learn new stuff ;)

 

Small update to the scripts: https://github.com/HENDRIX-ZT2/ZT1-Sprites

You'll have to edit the folder structure when downloading files from Github: You must unzip and then rezip it without the parent folder.

Text documentation is also updated, see the readme on github.

 

I am slowly migrating all my tools onto github, so the google drive link in my signature is being phased out.

[HeatherL]

I gave the pachy a try today.  This is a beautiful animal.  The animations look great, my game didn't crash (haha), and they aren't too hard to make happy!  A lot of fun.  I plan on watching it some more tomorrow.

Thank you

[Serpyderpy]

1+ what Heather said. I added it to my ongoing paleo zoo right now that's stuffed full with all kinds of downloads and I haven't seen a single hiccup. They breed easy, play nicely with other deciduous dinosaurs and they're super fun to watch. I actually kinda fell asleep (whoops) with the game running and woke up to a massive herd so, I guess they're self sustaining, which is nice, since some user made dinosaurs seem to breed only once in a blue moon.

 

Bookmarked your Github page too, and I appreciate the text walkthrough, as well. I seem to learn better reading than watching. Fingers crossed Blender doesn't implode!

[HeatherL]

I'll have to try a mixed exhibit today.

 

I really appreciate everyone who is capable of creating these downloads.  Technology completely baffles me. 

[(Designer)Z.Z.]

What a cute dino!

[HeatherL]

This guy is now in my permanent zoo file, along with Hendrix' other animals.  He looks great and is an easy keeper.  The only "issue" I have found is that when he is sleeping, you only get the back view.  That doesn't bother me at all!

[(Designer)HENDRIX]

Glad you all like them! I suppose I should finally submit them to the download database... haha

[HeatherL]

That would be great!  Perhaps as a combined dino pack.

[Serpyderpy]

Just a quick question, more so regarding Blender itself, when I import a .nif, the 'textures' always seem to turn up solid black, in that the model itself is pitch black. I assume this is because of how .nif files differentiate from .bfb's regarding materials and all. Me messing with material and texture options in the property view doesn't seem to get them to turn up. I'm probably doing it wrong because I have very little experience with v 2.79, could you help at all figure out what I'm doing wrong?

 

I'm also assuming the dimensions of the exported sprites are a set dimension and cannot be changed, as the size of the final image scales with the size of the armature. I noticed the green does disappear and constrain around the sprite when added to ZTStudio so I'm assuming the sprites are meant to go directly there but I haven't quite figured out how to do that so I'm just, messing around at the moment. I seem to learn better when I just doss about, haha.

[(Designer)HENDRIX]

Do you have the latest modified nif scripts from the dropbox? It is quite possible there is something not properly set on import. I can't recall what as I haven't used the nif scripts in months. Bush fix: export to BFB and import again. That might be faster than trying to track down the issue.

 

The dimensions of the sprites are fixed for the script user, as you noticed depending on animal size. Under the hood, there is a safety padding value that ensures the animal remains on-screen in virtually all cases. For adventurous animals that move out of screen anyway, you'd have to increase this value in the __init__.py file of the script (search for safety = 2, and increase the value, to 3 or so). The padding is set to a relatively low size because it increases processing time dramatically. Note that the padding is irrelevant for the end result as ZT Studio crops each frame optimally. So more padding is not bad for the game performance, just inconveniently slow for the designer.

 

So you have rendered out your sprites and got green backgrounds. Good.

 

Next, you need to create a palette with the button in blender. Make sure the blender output path is properly chosen so the palette is created for the right types (m, f, y or all).

 

Then, because the palette generator is stupid, you must open the palette file, say m.png in gimp or paint or whatever, and move the green pixel into the top left corner. Swap its place with the pixel that was there first. Overwrite the palette png file with this edit.

 

Back in blender, run Convert Sprites to ZT1 Graphics. This will first convert all your images to 256 colors according to the palette you created above, and then convert these 256 color images into ZT1 format via ZT Studio. All of this happens in the background, so watch the blender console. It takes a while, too. ZT Studio tends to give out some error but usually you can ignore it.

 

Then you can delete all sprite pngs (but keep your palette pngs, this will save you some work if you have to re-render), and the folders should contain all ZT1 graphics and PAL palettes. You can then drag them into the ZTD file to replace the existing ones.