Fixed Correcting "Early Explorers" Period

[Armada]

Meanwhile the Revenge and Golden Hind both share the same icon as the big Spanish galleons, and if those all count as the same broad ship type then we may as well just have one icon for everything because about the only thing those three ships have in common is that they are in fact sailing ships.

It's as Pieter said: lack of icon variety to differentiate much between those ships.

You'd be welcome to do another pass on all ships to see which ones could do with having different icons reassigned.
Now would be a good time for it, if you're considering adding more icons anyway.

Perhaps it's worth combining ships_1 and ships_2 into a new or expanded texture, as well? They're only separate because that's how they were in the original game (ships_2 was for the Black Pearl and Fearless models).

Also, make sure the shipsTR file is exported with the same high quality settings as the other three, otherwise it will look noticeably different.

 

[Grey Roger]

Where are these export settings - in ConvertorTX? In Photoshop, when I save a TGA file, the only setting I have is bits per pixel, choices being 16, 24 or 32, and when I saved it as 32 bits per pixel it certainly looked different, it wasn't read at all. So I've been saving them as 24 bits per pixel, which looks fine. Look at post 336http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/correcting-early-explorers-period.25254/page-17#post-513483, where I posted a picture of the shipyard interface showing both the "Animist Fluyt of War" and "English Galleon" interface pictures, which are from "shipsTR" and "shipsBR" respectively.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

@Grey Roger: Out of curiosity, how old are the files you've been working from for your Animists work?
That BattleInterface.c was WAY out-of-date. Beta 3.2 state or so.

And wherever did you get the Spanish names for the Oremans family from?

Also, what are these lines for?

    case "church_help_6":
       dialog.snd = "Voice\FATB\FATB042";
       dialog.text = DLG_TEXT[112];
       link.l1 = DLG_TEXT[113];
       link.l1.go = "exit";
       SetQuestHeader("Church_help");
       AddQuestRecord("Church_help", 1);
       npchar.quest.church_help = "to_greenford";
       Preprocessor_Add("Father", GetMyFirstNames(CharacterFromID("Father Bernard"), false)); // ----------- Isn't this being added AFTER it would be used? --------
     break;

And do you still have the PSD file for shipsTR.tga.tx? The colours are a bit different now and you lost the transparency that was there.
Also odd that the Satanist Fleut image seems to have notably more pronounced colours than many of the other ships do.
Perhaps some of the shots were made with ENB on and some without? As most are mine, those would have ENB but probably not Hylie's and yours.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Where are these export settings - in ConvertorTX? In Photoshop, when I save a TGA file, the only setting I have is bits per pixel, choices being 16, 24 or 32, and when I saved it as 32 bits per pixel it certainly looked different, it wasn't read at all. So I've been saving them as 24 bits per pixel, which looks fine. Look at post 336, where I posted a picture of the shipyard interface showing both the "Animist Fluyt of War" and "English Galleon" interface pictures, which are from "shipsTR" and "shipsBR" respectively.

These are the settings normally used for the file:

It is the "A8R8G8B8" one, which I normally set in both screens to ensure that it works.

 

[Armada]

In TX Converter, the settings are under 'Convert' (when converting from TGA to TX). If you double-click one of the TX images in the right pane, you can see its image details under the preview window. Under the file path, take note of the colour and alpha details on the right side. Now, you can match up those settings in the Convert menu.

EDIT: I also tended to darken each shipsXX image by 10% before saving as a TGA, so it doesn't look overly bright when using ENB.

 

[Grey Roger]

@Grey Roger: Out of curiosity, how old are the files you've been working from for your Animists work?
That BattleInterface.c was WAY out-of-date. Beta 3.2 state or so.

Not sure. It worked, anyway. But feel free to update it, then you get the chance to do a speed-run on "Strange Things Going On" and see if that version works.

And wherever did you get the Spanish names for the Oremans family from?

"PROGRAM\Characters\Characters_names.c". I looked under the entries for Spain for names that had at least the same first letter, preferably the same first two. I didn't get anything like as close a match as for Antoine Chamfort / Antonio Chamot, though.

Also, what are these lines for?

    case "church_help_6":
       dialog.snd = "Voice\FATB\FATB042";
       dialog.text = DLG_TEXT[112];
       link.l1 = DLG_TEXT[113];
       link.l1.go = "exit";
       SetQuestHeader("Church_help");
       AddQuestRecord("Church_help", 1);
       npchar.quest.church_help = "to_greenford";
       Preprocessor_Add("Father", GetMyFirstNames(CharacterFromID("Father Bernard"), false)); // ----------- Isn't this being added AFTER it would be used? --------
     break;

That's what I thought - it ought to go before "SetQuestHeader". If I remember correctly, it didn't work. But one thing I learned from programming "Hornblower" is that nothing seems to actually happen in the 'case' block, it sets things up to happen after the 'break'. Anyway, it seems to work because "Padre" does appear where required.

And do you still have the PSD file for shipsTR.tga.tx? The colours are a bit different now and you lost the transparency that was there.
Also odd that the Satanist Fleut image seems to have notably more pronounced colours than many of the other ships do.
Perhaps some of the shots were made with ENB on and some without? As most are mine, those would have ENB but probably not Hylie's and yours.

I don't have a PSD file for "shipsTR" because I never made one. I used "ConvertorTX" to convert the .tga.tx file to .tga, edited it as .tga and saved it back as .tga, then used "ConvertorTX" to convert it back to .tga.tx again. However, I don't think I used the correct settings. Certainly I did not use ENB because I never installed it. However, recall I did say that I took the trouble to turn the ship so that the sun was facing the side being photographed, and the weather was nice and sunny at the time. I've just put another version created using different settings for "ConvertorTX" onto the FTP site under my directory; see if that's any better. Otherwise the original screenshot which I used as the basis for the file should still be earlier in this thread, so if you don't like my version, feel free to make another.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Not sure. It worked, anyway. But feel free to update it, then you get the chance to do a speed-run on "Strange Things Going On" and see if that version works.

Your change there was just one line, so now it's merged with my stuff.
If anything in the battle interface isn't working right, it is more likely to be my fault than yours.
(Actually, I KNOW some stuff there to not be working entirely right there at the moment, as usual because of my rewrites...)

"PROGRAM\Characters\Characters_names.c". I looked under the entries for Spain for names that had at least the same first letter, preferably the same first two. I didn't get anything like as close a match as for Antoine Chamfort / Antonio Chamot, though.

Ah, that explains it! Nicely figured.

That's what I thought - it ought to go before "SetQuestHeader". If I remember correctly, it didn't work. But one thing I learned from programming "Hornblower" is that nothing seems to actually happen in the 'case' block, it sets things up to happen after the 'break'. Anyway, it seems to work because "Padre" does appear where required.

I don't have a PSD file for "shipsTR" because I never made one. I used "ConvertorTX" to convert the .tga.tx file to .tga, edited it as .tga and saved it back as .tga, then used "ConvertorTX" to convert it back to .tga.tx again. However, I don't think I used the correct settings. Certainly I did not use ENB because I never installed it. However, recall I did say that I took the trouble to turn the ship so that the sun was facing the side being photographed, and the weather was nice and sunny at the time. I've just put another version created using different settings for "ConvertorTX" onto the FTP site under my directory; see if that's any better. Otherwise the original screenshot which I used as the basis for the file should still be earlier in this thread, so if you don't like my version, feel free to make another.

Thanks! Quality is definitely better. Though you're still missing the alpha map transparency.
Not a big deal, since that only applies to spots that aren't used anyway, but the alpha map is probably easier as overlay?
But of course @Armada posted the original PSD files for them already, which are probably even easier to edit.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

@Grey Roger's latest work on fixing Early Explorers now included here: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/build-14-beta-3-5-internal-wip-for-testing.24817

 

[Grey Roger]

But of course @Armada posted the original PSD files for them already, which are probably even easier to edit.

Where? I don't know whether Photoshop would correctly handle the alpha map anyway, but using original source material rather than the picture files converted to .tga.tx for the game and then back to .tga again for addition would probably have given a better result. Still, the end result is only a postage stamp sized icon so it's not as important. You may want to check the ship itself and make sure that anything on there which is supposed to be transparent, e.g. windows and gunports, is still transparent.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Where? I don't know whether Photoshop would correctly handle the alpha map anyway, but using original source material rather than the picture files converted to .tga.tx for the game and then back to .tga again for addition would probably have given a better result. Still, the end result is only a postage stamp sized icon so it's not as important. You may want to check the ship itself and make sure that anything on there which is supposed to be transparent, e.g. windows and gunports, is still transparent.

See here: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/interface-screenshots-for-ships.16787/
I know Photoshop can handle alpha maps; I've done it before. And for flag-related stuff, those are absolutely required too.

For the screenshots, it doesn't make much of a difference, because the only ones that use the alpha maps are also the only ones that aren't actually used.

 

[Grey Roger]

See here: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/interface-screenshots-for-ships.16787/
I know Photoshop can handle alpha maps; I've done it before. And for flag-related stuff, those are absolutely required too.

How? Because if I'm going to do anything useful with flags, I'm going to need to be able to do this.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

How? Because if I'm going to do anything useful with flags, I'm going to need to be able to do this.

What Photoshop version do you have? I knew how to do it with CS2, but I don't have that installed anymore.
If you search for "alpha map" you should be able to find all sorts of information though. It is basically an extra channel of image data that is overlayed and PotC uses it to establish transparency.
What I remember is that there is an R, G, B and Alpha channel that can be selected in Photoshop.
Have a look at a direct export of a flag file to TGA, which should contain it. Otherwise, @Armada's interface screenshots PSD files should have it too.

 

[Grey Roger]

I have CS2 and have access to CS6. I've found "shipsTR_layered.psd" but don't see any Alpha channel - under "Channels" there are "RGB", "R", G" and "B" but no "Alpha". There does appear to be an Alpha channel in "perflg6.tga", though. It was hidden by default - should I mark it as visible before saving it back again with the new personal flags?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I have CS2 and have access to CS6. I've found "shipsTR_layered.psd" but don't see any Alpha channel - under "Channels" there are "RGB", "R", G" and "B" but no "Alpha". There does appear to be an Alpha channel in "perflg6.tga", though. It was hidden by default - should I mark it as visible before saving it back again with the new personal flags?

Unless @Armada sees the chance to give you a more detailed response, I may have to install CS2 myself again this weekend so I can see how it worked.
I know I've done it, but it took some doing and I don't quite remember.

 

[Armada]

I exported those PSDs from GIMP, so I'm not exactly sure if all the information was preserved. Not that I see any reason for it to leave out alpha channels.

If necessary, I could just export the two layers individually as PNG files with transparency.

 

[Grey Roger]

I've converted another of the interface icon files from the game itself, "shipsTL.tga". As @Pieter Boelen says, it does have an alpha channel but the only part marked as transparent is the part that is empty. So there doesn't really seem to be any point in storing the alpha channel for these files.

The original "FleutOfWar34.tga" has an alpha channel which is entirely white, which I understand correctly means it's entirely opaque, so the fact that I didn't spot it when I saved "FleutWarSat" probably isn't that critical either. I can probably re-create the alpha layer for "FleutWarSat" by copying it from "FleutOfWar34.tga" if needed.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I've converted another of the interface icon files from the game itself, "shipsTL.tga". As @Pieter Boelen says, it does have an alpha channel but the only part marked as transparent is the part that is empty. So there doesn't really seem to be any point in storing the alpha channel for these files.

I think the only reason for having it is so that when you add new ships, you can use the existing alpha channel to make them fit in properly.
But on the game end, it shouldn't make a difference.

The original "FleutOfWar34.tga" has an alpha channel which is entirely white, which I understand correctly means it's entirely opaque, so the fact that I didn't spot it when I saved "FleutWarSat" probably isn't that critical either. I can probably re-create the alpha layer for "FleutWarSat" by copying it from "FleutOfWar34.tga" if needed.

Indeed it doesn't look to be used there, so should be no problem.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I have updated the opening post with the latest status.
From what I gather, the only thing that still needs to be updated for Early Explorers is the following:

- Replace the Moulin sidequest reward blade with a new custom one.
STATUS: Model by @Jack Rackham is attached here: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/correcting-early-explorers-period.25254/page-14#post-512518
Interface picture is included in the ZIP here: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/build-14-beta-3-5-internal-wip-for-testing.24817/
TODO:

The new sword will need to be added to "initItems.c" and "ItemsDescribe.txt", as well as the interface pictures put in place. Then edit "quests_side.c", find 'case "jelaifini"' and replace "blade34+2" with the new sword's ID. The questbook currently has a fairly generic statement which works for any fancy sword, but line 11 could be edited to fit more specifically with the new sword.

Most of the work is already done, including the sword model and interface textures. They just have to be put to use now.
Would @Bartolomeu o Portugues see opportunity to complete this?

 

[Levis]

Also the officer tutorial should have an location to go to when aruba is disabled.
I will look into that when I'm back

 

[Bartolomeu o Portugues]

I'll check that tomorrow morning.