8 replies to this topic

[Wolf O'Donnell]

This might actually be more of a graphics program question than a question about the game itself, but I thought I'd give it a try here.

Recently my fanboy-ism has got the better of me and I decided to create a custom faction based on Amestris from Fullmetal Alchemist. I went out of my way to grab a picture of Bradley, used GIMP to give it a kind of canvas look and stuck it in the new Amestris faction's graphics sheet. Then I decided to play about with the logo and the bases. The problem, of course is with the logo and bases. When saving, I noticed GIMP saying something along the lines of PCX plug-in can't handle transparency. It gave me the option of Exporting or Ignore. I decided to export. Bad mistake. Now all the logos and bases have this weird blue block around them in game.

I tried ignoring... same thing.

Just what is this PCX thing and how can I get transparency around my bases and logos?

[Steel Samurai]

Save it as a png or gif, that will (hopefully) do the trick. PCX seems to be an old old raster graphics format used back in DOS.

[Moriatti]

^ Do the above.

[Wolf O'Donnell]

Well, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is an old game. I can't change the file type. If I do, the graphics won't load, so I'll need to hack the game (which I'm not experienced enough to do).

[Moriatti]

I can save files in PCX if that's all you need.

[Wolf O'Donnell]

That's not the problem, at least, I don't think it is.

After choosing export, GIMP saves the file as a PCX. The colours look exactly the same as the one from the original sheet that I modified except when I load the game up, there's this blue box around everything I've modded. So the logo has a blue box around it and so have the custom bases. This blue box corresponds to the area around the bases and logo, which the game should read as a transparent colour. But it doesn't.

[GuardianNinja]

try paint dot net with a plugin for pcx, or "borrow" adobe photoshop long enough to make your changes.

[Moriatti]

Maybe a stupid question, but how many layers do you have on the file when you save it?

[Wolf O'Donnell]

just the one layer

EDIT: Paint.Net didn't help. In fact, now the colour's are completely distorted.

Edited by Wolf O'Donnell, 13 March 2010 - 10:46 AM.