272 lines
7.6 KiB
Plaintext
272 lines
7.6 KiB
Plaintext
# D2Mods Knowledge Base: Article 180
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# Title: DC6 Item Conversions
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# URL: https://d2mods.info/forum/kb/viewarticle?a=180
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DC6 Item Conversions
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Written by: Phrozen Heart
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Written on: Wed Dec 03, 2003 12:31 am
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Views: 7530
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Description: by Joel Falcou
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Categories: Tutorials (1.09x)
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Getting Started ...
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While moding your favorite Diablo II version, you'll surely feel the urge
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to give it a brand new look. If the simplest way is to change the various screen
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background, one of the most appealing temptation is to modify the old look of
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our beloved items.
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First we gonna talk about the required tools. Basically you need an image
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editing application that can handle the most common format like BMP, JPG and
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obligatory PCX format. MS Paint could be enough but you could grab a free trial
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version of the allmighty Paint Shop Pro at the
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JASC website.
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Then you'll need the modified version of DC6CON by Paul Siramy, that you could
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grab directly at The Phrozenkeep File Center.
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It's a MS-DOS based program that should work on every machines.
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When you get ready, hang on to the next Section : Mastering the Tools.
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Return to Top
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Mastering the Tools
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Now you have all the forementioned tools, we gonna take a look at the functions
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we'll need to know.
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Paint Shop Pro :
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These are the following functions you'll use often. Some advanced users
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may use others, and I encourage them to send me their tricks. I don't mind
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to be omnipotent with this one ;)
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* Load/Save : Obvious isn't it but you get to know how to change
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the output file format by using the combo box of the Save
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As function.
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Shortcut : Ctrl+O/F12
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* Resize : This function will help you to get your image into the
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proper size. There are many options in this function that we'll see
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later.
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Shortcut : Shift + S
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* Load Palette : The bread 'n butter of us. With this one, you'll easily
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apply the correct
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palette to your image. Like the Resize function, the Load Palette function
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is a bit complex and will be described later.
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Shortcut : Shift + O
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Modified DC6CON :
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The easy one :) Paul has done a good job on this one. Without getting into
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the details, there is a little bat file
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that will simplify your life. Download it, I'll use it from now.
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Return to Top
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Finding Originals
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It's often the trickiest part :).
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Personnaly I use my friend Google to find out some pictures or artwork that
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look like the items I want to convert. The Medeival - Fantasy - Weapons - Armor
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keywords in the images seeking sections could do miracles.
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However, the major sources of new items are the other RPG. Without any order,
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the inventory images from Darkstone, Diablo/Hellfire, Prince of Qin, Nox, Throne
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of Darkness, the Baldur's Gate series and alike and many more is perfectly suitable.
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Don't hesitate to crawl over fan sites, strategy pages and the like.
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The Conversion Process
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Here we'll cover the step-by-step process of converting an item gfx to dc6
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format. For this one I'll use an original item from Planescape Torment : the
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Godless Priestess Cleavage. Download
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the needed files and let's start !!
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First Step : Correcting colors
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Open the original BMP file with Paint Shop Pro.
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Click to enlarge.
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As you see the background is a bit green and some shadows don't look good.
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Use the Magic Wand to remove the green background and the obsolete shadows.
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You're Cleavage should now look like this :
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Click to enlarge.
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Now the Cleavage looks fine, open the custom palette that comes with this
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tutorial package. Select the custom.pal file, and check that the palette is
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applied by using the 'Nearest color matching'.
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Click to enlarge.
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When you have selected the palette, click on the color box on
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the right of the screen. This will open the palette screen where you'll select
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the index 0 color. With the custom palette, it looks bright blue. It's intentional.
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The actual tin' of this color isn't important. The game use the Palette Index
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to generate transparency so if you want to have a purple or green background,
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it's up to you BUT its index MUST BE 0.
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Click to enlarge
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Select the Flood fill tools and fill all the background with your new color.
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When the background is a bit tricky to access (fur items, hairs etc ...), use
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the Color Replacer to replace all the old background color with the new one.
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Your item should now look ike this.
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Click to enlarge
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Now you get the proper colors on your items, hope to the next step ...
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Second Step : Size does matter
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All inventory graphics in Diablo II follow a strict pattern. Both width and
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height are aligned on a 28 pixels limit. If you look closely to your inventory
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screen in-game, you'll see that it's composed of a bunch of little square. Each
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of this square is precisely 28x28 pixels. So any items must be composed of an
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entire number of such square.
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Now, look at your cleavage item. Its size is 34x63. So if you look at a regular
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Diablo II armor, its size is 56x84. Yes, you guess it, it's 2x3 squares. So,
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as our cleavage fits in these limits, you'll just merge it with a blank image.
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If the item was bigger than 56x84, you should use the Resize function in 'Pixel
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Reduce' mode. If you use bilinear or bicubic resample, you'll create blurry
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pixels that will not fit right with the palette.
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With Paint Shop Pro, create a new image (Ctrl+N). Make it 56 pixels wide and
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84 pixels high. Turn it on 256 colors and click OK. You should get now two image
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: the blank one and the cleavage one.
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Click to enlarge
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Click in the blank image and load the custom palette (Shift+O). This ensure
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that you won't get color distorsions while copying the cleavage to its new container.
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Press Ctrl+A to select the whole Cleavage image and then copy it to the clipboard
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(Ctrl+C). Click in the blank image and paste the cleavage with Ctrl+E.
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Adjust the Cleavage position into the image and press Ctrl+D when you're satisfied
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of the result.
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Click to enlarge
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Now, we've finished with Paint Shop Pro. For safety needs, re-apply the custom
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palette. PSP could sometime forget to do it and save it into PCX format with
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the Save As ... command. Close all the images and close PSP.
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Third Step : DC6 forever
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The trickiets part is done now. Copy your pcx into your DC6CON folder. Drag
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the file over my dc6item.bat and let dc6con do all the work. If everything is
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right, you should get a little dc6 file along in this folder. Rename it to invclvg.dc6.
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Copy it into your data\globa\/items folder. Open armor.txt and go to the Quilted
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Armor row. In the invfile row, change invqlt to invclvg. Save the file and close
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your text edition application. Launch Diablo II using the -direct -txt method,
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run a game and go buy a Quilted Armor. Normally you could now equip your sexy
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Priestess cleavage ;)
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Return to Top
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Tips
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Reallife photographs conversion
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When using a reallife photograph to create a new item image, some tricks have
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to be known. First don't try to cut out the items off its background. Instead
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resize the image right now and apply the custom palette. Then cut-off the item
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and correct pixels errors. When resizing, use the Bicubic resample options and
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check if every pixels stay fine.
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Return to Top
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Conclusion
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Here we are. Now the Items Gfx Conversions should be easy for anyone of you.
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If you got some tips or if you find some errors, feel free to send report to
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me.
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Link to this article: Select all
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[url=https://d2mods.info/forum/kb/viewarticle?a=180]Knowledge Base - DC6 Item Conversions[/url] |