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Ged's Icons Lair

G

ged

Landlubber
<!--QuoteBegin-CouchCaptainCharles+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(CouchCaptainCharles)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Other magic gadgets could be replaced as well, e.g. the Leadership +1 Diamond with a "Cat-o-Nine-Tails" or "Articles of War", the Gunnery+1 csystal by a "Targeting device" etc.

If you are willing to tackle that open a thread in the Brainstorming section for ideas and help (should you need some smile.gif )<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
ok, so here we are.

first of all i need to know how to make the graphics available for you?

how about i just create an empty item sheet in tga.tx format with some different levels of quality of the items?
i know, normally the quality levelss are kept in different files, but i think im just gonna make one, with some compasses and sextants.

how many different levels of quality are required?

can you think of other icons, you guys want/need?

---
oh, and a tiny little thing that bothered me, was the icon for the land you got.
it sucks, as the green made my eyeballs hurt.
so i made a little island:
<img src="http://www.twofinger.at.tc/land.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
the white stuff is of course an alpha channel, i.e. see through.

here's the tga.tx, if you want to put in \RESOURCE\Textures\INTERFACES\
<a href="http://www.twofinger.at.tc/land.tga.tx" target="_blank">Yarr, this be da file, matey</a>
 
he he - i'd been thinking along the same lines as you, please feel free to use my resurrected 'New mods' thread for some nice links to lots of possible icon fodder.
I'm mr amateur at photoshop(getting a bit more comfortable with it though as time goes by), so its good we have your skills to have a go at this <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/yes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":yes" border="0" alt="yes.gif" />

as for how many item types, thats tricky and will require lots of discussion i suspect. Probably you're better of just going ahead and making a decent selection under your own steam, then at some point when the conversation catches up, we can vote on the ones we like for the available 'quality types' we've come up with?
 
yeah, i already checked out the links you posted, there sure is some useful stuff to use.
so maybe i wont just make the items look "rugged" but can use different types of sextants for instance.

but still, im pretty sure, the person thats responsible for adding said items already has an idea of the number of quality levels that will be used.
 
<!--quoteo(post=170710:date=Nov 10 2006, 06:06 PM:name=ged)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ged @ Nov 10 2006, 06:06 PM) [snapback]170710[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
yeah, i already checked out the links you posted, there sure is some useful stuff to use.
so maybe i wont just make the items look "rugged" but can use different types of sextants for instance.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Yes it might save some time? i guess keeping shiney gold items(with more complicated 'bits') for the best quality items, then simpler looking bronze/copper items, then simpler again plain metal/silver, then simpler wooden items(any metal on it with a 'dulled' effect)? something like that - i think most people would make the visual conection and they have the text description to help.

most importantly have fun with it - do the stuff you enjoy and we will all have to come up with decent lists of objects that will have an in-game effect that we can tie to your icons? Now who should sell the specific nautical items? the store or the shipyard?(they have sextants etc lying around in shipyards - but it doesnt have an appropriate inventory for such things?)
 
<img src="http://www.twofinger.at.tc/ducksail.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
and if ye like them sails,
<a href="http://www.twofinger.at.tc/sail_whole_black_ducky.tga.tx" target="_blank">here be the file</a>
ya would need to rename it, i guess, and place it in \RESOURCE\Textures\Ships\
 
looks good <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

have you tried the ftp yet ged? hmmm Pieter has some details somewhere about what you need to do to get access to it - but it might be a good place to put your PotC stuff? most modders use it so they will know where to go?

ah heres the info:

<a href="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=5178" target="_blank">http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=5178</a>

and you'll need the ftp commander prog from Pieters site(its all set up to point to the ftp).
 
ja, i know. im just a little funny, when it comes to installing new stuff. you think its okay, if i keep using my own ftp? once in a while i could make a post in here, with links to all the graphics ive made?

well, i suppose, it would be a lot easier, if i just used the public ftp...
 
Actually, if you know what you are up to, you don't even need to use an ftp program to log into the ftp site. Just open up an extra windows explorer window, put the ftp url into the text field and it will automatically pop up a user name and password requestor.

Then depending on which ftp you want, you put in one of two user names.

potc@piratesahoy.org - for the PotC ftp

or

aop@piratesahoy.org - for the AOP ftp

The password is the same on both sites.....

piratesahoy


Hope that helps ye both out.

Cap'n Drow

P.S. By the way, ged, excellent texture for the island icon. Very nice Mate!
 
again, thanks. but come on, its just a tiny little island <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />
well admittedly, my own eyes like it very much more than that BAMM-green from the original one. i nearly lost my sight on that one...

edit: thanks for the login data, if me stupid and lazy bum wouldve taken the effort actually checkin the link that black bart posted, i wouldve found out, that its not only about the ftpcommander, i dont want to use..

well okay, ive created a folder called "Geds resource" on the public ftp.
in there i created the subfolders, just like in the game, so basically if you would name the folder "resource" and copied it in your game folder, everything would be at its spot.
atm it only contains the little land icon and 4 sails, which would overwrite some of the sails, though.
for all three colors of the whole sails (uuh a pun!) they overwrite the last (15th, or number 14 of the filename) pirate design. the black pirate rubberducky would replace the black whole sail with the first of the PA! logo.
this was to shiney for my taste, so i had no problem with overwriting it for myself.

i think ill add some items like the sextant and the compass around monday or tuesday.
and OOO behold, today as i saw a +commerce item at the traders, tiny little pictures of abaci (correct plural?) struck my imagination !

i think it would NOT fit, if the best quality +commerce item would be a... pocket calulator, ey <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />
 
I could live happily with an abacus for a trade bonus item, maybe some portable scales also? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

hmm when you did the sextant icon - that didnt need messing with alpha channels did it? those kind of item icons are all just in a tga(with the .tx extension in game) format? I ask because while i can do a hatchet job with 'magic wand' and cut/paste etc i'm not sure about handling alpha channels.

I found some ships sun dials that look kinda fun and i might mess around with them a little <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

Oh and whats the best way to get a clean Icon background? for the timepiece i sort of cut out the sextant from your icon then painted the background back in by hand(lol if you get close, like 400%, you can really see the mess i made doing that!). Any suggestions on how to get a nice clean background Icon i can use for this process? Is there a blank one in the game folder somewhere?
 
About FTP Commander: You don't have to use it. But it's free, easy to use and in the version I uploaded to my site, all the right log-in info has already been defined and you don't even have to install the program, just extract it somewhere. I put it there so people who don't have an FTP program can get that to easily and quickly get on the FTP. But there are dozens of other programs that'll get you on the FTP as well. I don't actually use FTP Commander myself anymore. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_mrgreen1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheeky" border="0" alt="icon_mrgreen1.gif" />

There are lots of blank texture versions. Just check all the item texture files; one is bound to have a blank spot somewhere.
 
a little photoshop post for bart:
in fact one of the itemX.tga.tx sheets has about 5 or 6 (i dont know, just a lot more than one) blank spots. you can easily copy them and make a sheet thats completely empty. just draw a rectangular selection around it... you catch my drift...

about the alpha channel.. well.. you really dont need to use them, but they are fun, once you got a grasp of their somewhat... alien behaviour.. at least when youre used to drawin on paper, that stuff IS alien <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

an alpha channel does different things, according to the application that uses them. (if im not completely wrong there). its just a little Black/White Picture, you normally dont get to see. but when something uses the image the alpha channel comes into play.

sometimes it just makes something seethrough, sometimes its used to determine if something is dull or reflecting light.
edit: i pretty sure, you dont use alpha channels for the items.
for testing purposes i WILL add one, to see what and if something happens.
If it gets used, it will prolly just make the whole thing transparent on the spots where the alpha channel is black.

if you want a useful piece of advice, though, things you should get familiar with, when you want to extract images from their background, are of course the "selection" options. some of them can only be accessed through the menu (at least in PS 6, i dont know which version you got. im stuck with 6, and i like it.) important options could be "feather" and "expand"/"reduce" selection (you can set an amount of pixels for that).

abit alienating for me were the layer masks in the beginning, but once you got a grasp of them and know what they do, they are quite easy to use. they are really really helpful. one way of using them would be... imagine you can use your normal brushes and painting tools to modify a selection. a white pixel in the mask would be "select pixel 100%" a black would be "dont select it at all" and a grey one would be "select it half", so it s a bit transparent. but while you work with the mask, it gets already somewhat "applied" to its according layer, ie, pixels that are black in the mask, make the pixels in the image of the according layer invisible.
a mask only affects the layer its connected to.
VEERRRRY handy.

i could rabble on for hours and hours, but we dont want to to turn this into a photoshop tutorial, dont we.
plus, i just got up and might me talking in a language only i can understand. again.
 
My opinion ged, ramble away. The more info we've got floating around on these forums, the more useful they are for everyone. **grins** Besides, generic tutorials are all fine and dandy, but the best ones are the ones that relate specifically to what you are working on. **winks**

Cap'n Drow
 
<!--quoteo(post=170866:date=Nov 11 2006, 02:35 PM:name=ged)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ged @ Nov 11 2006, 02:35 PM) [snapback]170866[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
.......
i could rabble on for hours and hours, but we dont want to to turn this into a photoshop tutorial, dont we.
plus, i just got up and might me talking in a language only i can understand. again.
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As Cap'n_Drow said - please feel free to ramble on -especialy if its a good technique for what your doing in PotC <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />
Oh i use photoshop 6.0 also. Well i'll go look for those 'blank' icons - funny thing was today i thought "ok i'll find an icon that has the smallest thing on it...a gem will do..then extract that and fill in the gap with the 'stamp' tool or something".
Anyway i went into program/textures/interface/icons(i think) and found my 'emerald.tga.tx' file - used the .tx to normal .tga coverter tool(weird that the tga.tx version to convert goes in the right hand column - kinda like writting chinese, going right to left??) anyway i got the 'emerald.tga.tx' in the right column and chose the convert option to get my plain .tga file. Opened it photoshop and it wasn't an icon of the emerald at all - it was a weird square of emerald coloured texture!?

So i must have the wrong tga.tx files i guess? - he he i found some great olde world surgeons tools(quite a few types to use for better/worse quality also) for use by the new Doctor officer class, just need to get a bit better at finding my way around the files. Oh and there is no documentation with the TX Converter tool is there? It is quite simple and i guess i used it right(as i got a normal tga file).......anyway some more stuff to play around with.
 
yay the right/left stuff in the converter confused me at first, too, but once you know that its doing that, its very comfortable to work with. set a kinda temporary folder for the left, you convert in to and out from, and you can write them files directly back in your gamefolder for looking how they are.

the problem you gots with the weird texture comes from looking at textures for 3d models. i had that too, at first. and i cant even remember one single effin 3d emerald in game.

the file you want to use is:
\RESOURCE\Textures\INTERFACES\items11.tga.tx

lotsa empty squares in there. have fun.
 
<!--quoteo(post=170980:date=Nov 11 2006, 10:21 PM:name=ged)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ged @ Nov 11 2006, 10:21 PM) [snapback]170980[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
yay the right/left stuff in the converter confused me at first, too, but once you know that its doing that, its very comfortable to work with. set a kinda temporary folder for the left, you convert in to and out from, and you can write them files directly back in your gamefolder for looking how they are.

the problem you gots with the weird texture comes from looking at textures for 3d models. i had that too, at first. and i cant even remember one single effin 3d emerald in game.

the file you want to use is:
\RESOURCE\Textures\INTERFACES\items11.tga.tx

lotsa empty squares in there. have fun.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

hey thanks for the pointer to 'items11.tga.tx' - i must admit i had looked through quite a few .tx today and all i found was the weird 3D texture stuff....i thought i must have broken something! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />

It puts it into perspective when you see the texture work the guys here do for the ships skins etc - i looked at some ships....but man what ship??!! it looked like ship roadkill - all squashed into a square with weird recognisable bits here and there - just in all the 'wrong' looking places! my hats off to the guys that actually can do something great with that stuff!! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/doff.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":doff" border="0" alt="doff.gif" />

anyway i'm off to make some stuff for the Doctor <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />
 
<!--quoteo(post=170991:date=Nov 11 2006, 02:01 PM:name=Black Bart)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Black Bart @ Nov 11 2006, 02:01 PM) [snapback]170991[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
It puts it into perspective when you see the texture work the guys here do for the ships skins etc - i looked at some ships....but man what ship??!! it looked like ship roadkill - all squashed into a square with weird recognisable bits here and there - just in all the 'wrong' looking places! my hats off to the guys that actually can do something great with that stuff!! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/doff.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":doff" border="0" alt="doff.gif" />
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
im not sure, but i think, you can texture it in your 3d program of choice. i think its possible, to "paint" these things like you would paint a die cast model. and THEN those textures get all mangled up.

well of course there are other ways, that are not so comfy... for il-2 sturmovik i actually made some nice skins... first i looked for distinguishable borders in the image. then i painted each area in a strong and plain color.

then i loaded the game, and wrote down, which color went where. and from there it was only imagination and concentration, when i went back to PS with the according file.

man, that was a major pita...

same goes with trackmania, but that was a little easier, because i could paint the car in the ingame paintshop in simple colors, so i knew beforehand which area would belong where, when i went over to PS..

but for the life of me i cant find a screenshot of my ubar leet GT40 in custom Kamikaze Paintjob. luckily i saved the texturefile, so if i ever install that game again, i wont have to start all over <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />
man that was cool... the shiniest black you ever saw, combined with a blood red rising sun symbol, totally stale (yup, thats what alpha channels are for), all over the car, and instead of a starting number, id had the Kanji for "Zen" on the hood and on other places. Man i need to make a screeny of it.
Oh, and the air intake grill had "Gedscho" stamped in (thats what ged stands for).

When you sounded the horn, the Worms Armageddon "Kamikazeee" wav would play <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />
 
<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="xD:" border="0" alt="laugh.gif" />

So you DO pimp your cars also! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />

I've completed my first proper attempt at doing an Item Icon for the game, i guess i should post it here in the icon lair?

I'm going to decrease the items size for the final version - just to get a bit more of the background as i think this attempt fills the icon too much.

<img src="http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p199/BlackBart06/Doctorstools1copy.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />

a kinda medium level Doctors kit? I have a dozen or so different examples to mess with so i can hopefuly give an impression of 'quality' in the icon - we'll see.

That is a jpg file but i got the tga saved and i've also created a complete grid of empty Icons, which i'll put on the ftp sometime so others can easily download it to create their own stuff.
I plan to fill the grid with Doctor related paraphinallia(sp?) in anticipation of a proper working Doctor class of Officer - so that should be 16 items?(i think its a 4x4 grid).
 
that looks good, but i have some suggestions. do me a favour and try them out:

1) make the colorscheme of the cushions in the box a little different to the background. imho that would look better. different ways for this. remember, my photoshop is in german, so ill give you the positions of the menu items. well first of all, select the layer of the doctor kit. then goto the third menu option (picture?) then in there select the second one (adjustments? properties?). in there you should find two different options to play with: Colorbalance and Selective Color Correction (i think). play around with those. of course "Hue and Saturation" would be an option too, but i think it wont work out.

2) most items have some sort of "outline" in potc, i recently noticed, when i tried to summarize the charateristics of the icons. you can do this easily via "layer effects". in the german ps its the last of the effects.

3) same goes with a little shadow.

and can i have the original file of the doctors kit, to play around with?
 
once i get on the ftp again(it seems empty to me currently?) i'll put a load of the resources i gathered in my folder for people to get hold of <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

a couple more icons i'm playing with:

<img src="http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p199/BlackBart06/ScalesIcon1copy.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />

for a quartermaster to use?

<img src="http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p199/BlackBart06/Microscope1copy.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />

first attempt at the microscope - its a fiddly blighter and i'm not happy with it in this state.

<img src="http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p199/BlackBart06/MicroScopeQualAcopy.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />

same pic - just was playing around with color saturation levels to see if i could easily create a better quality looking item. If i could get the base graphic decent i think i'd be halfway to solving this one.

<img src="http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p199/BlackBart06/CompSundail1copy.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />

This is a compass/sundial combi instrument - i got some basic sundials for use as primitive watches, this is a flashy version.

Oh and ref the color for the Doctors kit - that was just the blue version, but i can have a play with the levels <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" /> i've got various doctor kits, green, red and some plain wooden ones - i'll put them on the ftp as soon as i can get on.
 
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