custom monsters

I feel weird, asking three questions in a two day period in which no one else asks anything, but...

I'm trying to make custom monster graphics for my game. I went into photoshop, did my editing, then saved it as a PNG file in the RPG2003\Rtp\Monster folder. In theory it should work, but when I go into the game I get nothing but a black screen where my picture should be. The file name is there in the list, the image just won't show up.

Help me BlueCube!

Oh and speaking of custom graphics, I want to also make my own facesets and possibly battlecharsets eventually. Anyone know where I can read some tutorials on it and where I can download some default backrounds (the colored checker-board things I've seen around, but now that I want them can't seem to find).

Thaaaank you.

Yay, first question of the day.

The custom graphic CAN be saved as a PNG file... but it needs to be 256 colors, and ONLY 256 colors. I don't know about photoshop, but in MS Paint you do this by Save As then picking 256 color bitmap from the dropdown..

Edit:

I should say, that you'll probably lose some color when you convert. In my experience it's usually skin tones and the like, but it'll probably REALLY mess up the colors of your monster, unless it's a really simple one. My advice - edit using only 256 colors. After you save it as 256 colors, MS Paint puts you into a 256 color mode of sorts, where it won't let you mess up the 256 color-ness of the bitmap.

Facesets are pretty easy, they're ALWAYS 192x192 pixels large and each square is 42x42. Same 256 color limitation.

Battle charsets are a bit tougher - they're 144x384 overall, and each frame is 48x48, but don't forget that a row is considered one animation. If you want a character's animation to not.. animate, you have to put 3 of the same frame in a row, otherwise it'll blink.

As to where the templates are, I made this one a bit ago for the facesets. Right+Click/Save As..



The battle charset template is yet to be found, however. If I can't find it, I'll make one myself..

( All images are hosted using http://www.iownjoo.com )

Edit:

Another edit, dont' worry about being the only one to ask questions - a lot of people get their questions answered, then they leave forever. Hopefully you'll stick around and contribute to the forums! Of course, I should warn you about double posting - use edits instead of writing another post. You can post more than once in a thread, just don't reply to your own post, or the same post twice. Just a standard forum rule, heh. And why not, I'll throw in another picture..

Okay, thanks man. Your thoroughness is much appreciated.

But, I've come across another minor obstacle. In editing, I had gone around and erased the colors around the figure I wanted as my monster, leaving the background canvas intact. In-game, it displays the monster graphic with the big white box background around it. To fix it, I went into photoshop and began erasing the canvas...but the tool it uses is a spraycan, not a pixel; so it works as a circle where the inside gets completely erased and the edges just get faded a bit, whereas a pixel would let me get right in there and cut out the canvas completely. Do you by any chance know how to change it into a pixel? Or maybe how I could go about this in MS Paint?

If it'd be easier, my AOL Instant Messenger name is: this is the dark. IM me if it'd be easier to kind of walk me through it than explain it.

Edit:

By BlueCube: Ack, hit Edit instead of Reply for some odd reason. And I messed up your post, but I reverted it. I blame the lack of sleep.

Ahh, the old "square background" thing. The fix is rather simple, but hidden. You don't want to erase the canvas or anything - just keep it some color that you're not using on the monster.

Time for a random walkthrough with a bonus animated GIF! Your monster (I'll call him "Phil") should be following the standard 256 color rule already.

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1) Go into the Resource Manager. (Tools -> Resource Manager, or click on the icon to the left of the musical note in the toolbar)

2) Click on Monsters in the left pane, and click "Import"

3) Find Phil's graphic, and click Open.

4) Now, here's where you set transparency. You'll see a preview of good ol' Phil, with background and all. Click on the background, and wait until the background blinks! When the background is blinking, that indicates a transparent color. If it doesn't work the first time for some odd reason, click again.



(Ahh, grainy animated GIFs)

This works the same for ALL graphic files, including Tilesets/Chipsets and the like. Don't forget to do this for every graphic you import...

As to Photoshop things, I don't have Photoshop so I have no idea how the UI is layed out. In MS Paint though, you'd just use the pencil..

Edit:

And I coudn't find a template, so I made it myself. Here it is, in all of its glory - the elusive battle charset template! (Yay for http://www.iownjoo.com !)

Thanks again. And yeah, I downloaded photoshop for the sole purpose of doing things like this... Nice to know it's all easily doable in MS Paint, a program simple enough that even I can use it.

I have a program that could help make custom monsters and characters if you would like. i-Draw it is a really good editor.

To get a custom monster to show up all you realy need to do is copy an exciting monster and paste yours on to it. you may need to varry because it some times comes up distorted. so if the colours are like another copy it onto that one and it should look like good plus it works trust me ive done itt myself

To get a custom monster to show up all you realy need to do is copy an exciting monster and paste yours on to it. you may need to varry because it some times comes up distorted. so if the colours are like another copy it onto that one and it should look like good plus it works trust me ive done itt myself

All that does is set the pasted monster to 256 colors if the existing monster is the right format, and your image editor cooperates with you properly. Not really the safest method.

Again, all you need to do is set your monster's graphic to 256 colors via a simple Save-As, and set transparency when you import. Nothing to it once you know how it's all done.