159 replies to this topic

[Galactygon]

Since there is no such thread yet, I decided to start one.

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A few months ago, I requested a feature that splits large .bams into several smaller animations, so I can import large animations to Baldur's Gate without any trouble. My request was granted, and now I can import large animations without the pain of manually splitting each individual frame. But the feature could do with a few improvements:

1.) When the .bam files are split, the maximum dimensions in which they are split are 178x180. I would like to request it to be raised to 250x250. The maximum hardcoded value is 256x256, but I encountered occasional errors when playing frames larger than 250x250. In other words, this would allow less (but larger) frames to be played at once, which speeds up the game. Also, if frames are less than 250x250, they shouldn't be split.

2.) When blank frames are created (in the case of animations where not all frames are larger than 250x250), their x and y position should be set to 0.

3.) As of right now, the feature creates more .bam files than necessary to split an animation, with some of them only including blank frames (which are totally unnecessary).

4.) I was also thinking it would be more optimal that rather than creating several new animations, the program splits the sequence into many sequences.

Some other suggestions to improve .bam editing/viewing:

1.) Animations too large to play could be played in a seperate window (like when large .tis files are viewed in DLTCEP)

2.) The feature "Darken" in the palette editor should be called "Square Darkness", since that sounds more specific.

3.) If there is a feature called "Square Darkness", why not make an opposite feature called "Square Lightness"? The formula would be exactly the same as "Square Darkness", but in reverse.

And lastly, a feature I was thinking of in the .tis editor: Make a feature that allows the palettes of all squares to be altered at once using the functions you wrote. In other words, I can recolour the entire area in a single button click rather than having to go after each square. I know this can be done in Photoshop, but it's quite a hassle. And not everyone has photoshop.

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I hope you had enough of my rantings, Avenger. I have missed making requests, and this post will make up for them.

-Galactygon

[Avenger]

The maximum dimension for splitting is 200.
But if an image is only 300x300, the parts will be 150x150 (i try to create equal sized parts).

I can increase it to 250, but if it causes some problem later, don't come back crying

[Avenger]

1. done
2. done
3. the splitting is done using the largest animation, and then the borders are fixed to avoid flickering. So, if just a single frame exceeds MAX_DIMENSION (250), then the image will be split into half (125). If some frame is only 130, or it overlaps the big frame's splitting line, it will also be split. I think this is how the original bams are split.
4. dragon animations are in several bam files. You can merge the separate animations later.

[Cuv]

Another request:

Can you allow the importation of entire GIF sequences with DLTCEP? Bamworkshop does this, but it messes up the resolution and colors. It might be a problem with gifs, or with BW.

Cuv

[Avenger]

Uh, well, why gif?
Why do you have animations in gif?

Isn't there a tool which can export a gif into several bmp frames already?

Edited by Avenger, 07 October 2007 - 05:39 AM.

[Cuv]

Glad you asked. Because I have figured out how to the keep the alignment of all frames totally intact for an entire sequence in Photoshop. Can also mirror the entire sequence and chop out what I dont need in Photoshop. Importing the entire sequences is much easier than trying to rebuild an entire sequence one frame at a time. I am working on PST animations to BGII

Cuv

[Avenger]

That's ok, but couldn't photoshop export the image into bmp frames?
Once the frames are named sequentially, like abc0001.bmp-abc0120.bmp DLTCEP imports them in a single process.

DLTCEP can alone convert PST frames to BG2, so you don't need photoshop for that.

Edited by Avenger, 07 October 2007 - 07:35 AM.

[Cuv]

Yep, it can easily. Can I assume that there is a problem with creating a feature to import gifs? Importation of entire animation sequences has got to be an improvement over individual bmp frames... even by batch, right? I mean, I still need to export each frame and that is up to hundreds of frames per bam, and there are 13 animation bams per creature... some have many more than that like TNO with his disguises and weapon animations. I did that in the beginning.... and it took me several days just to get all the frames exported and named... gave up on building a bam from the ground up with them. Easy to match a sequence and trim frames out, or reduce the cycle to the correct amount of frames before plugging it into the converter. Or maybe I am missing something here?

I am just trying to find the easiest possible way to accomplish the task. I don't want to convert just one or two animations... I want them all from PST to BGII... but I am not as young as I used to be...heh. I would also like the ability to create my own custom animations easily. Don't sweat it, will find an alternative method. Still awaiting that elusive BAM plug-in for Photoshop.

[Valiant]

Hi Avenger

I would have a request to you, don´t know if it´s possible or not, I guess it is.

When creating areas, in Maps editor you can normally edit 3 types of maps - search, height and light. That´s ok. But when I get to editing a search map, and I turn on "Show grid", my eyes start to hurt from that light green color the grid have. Also, because it covers whole area, there is no chance to see floor in some darker areas. So, if it´s posible, make it optional to change its colour to RGB 96,96,96 or even darker to 128,128,128. Or make it totally optional, so the user will have an option to choose color manually whichever he will want. I have tested it in PaintShopPro, and it looks good.

Also, during the search map creation, when I add some "passable floor" like stone or grass, it would be nice to choose if user want to add numbers like it is now, or if he want to fulfil the selected grid rectangle with chosen color. It would be a big improvement. Sometimes I have a big messs in those numbers, especially when you have to numbers close to each other that are very similiar for the first look, like 8 and 6. Sometimes I miss the difference, when I take a fast look.

As I wrote before, if it´s possible, make it totally optional, so creator will have both options to use previous version or the new one with darkened grid and with optional color-fulfilled grid rectangles. Or make it separately, so user may use darkened grid but still want to fill up the search map with numbers.

Here´s a shot from PSP, how it may work:



Thanks in advance.

Val

[Avenger]

Yep, i will add a global RGB option for the grid color.
I hope you know that you can view a single color (numbers) instead of seeing all?

Btw, half-transparent color filled rectangles sound good too.

Edited by Avenger, 07 October 2007 - 11:37 PM.

[Avenger]

The problem with gifs is that i need to add lots of code for a new format which doesn't add functionality. I need to add GIF to open source code too, which i would like to avoid if possible. You don't have to do frames one by one.
DLTCEP can do all the mirroring, sequence reversing stuff as well.
I can help with more sequence oriented features, like cut&paste a sequence, but i won't ever touch the GIF format.
Btw, you can already do this: remove all cycles from a bam, except the wanted one, save it as a separate file.
Then you can merge bams. This way you keep the frames of a cycle together in a single file. I did my own conversion this way

Cuv, on Oct 7 2007, 11:25 AM, said:

Yep, it can easily. Can I assume that there is a problem with creating a feature to import gifs? Importation of entire animation sequences has got to be an improvement over individual bmp frames... even by batch, right? I mean, I still need to export each frame and that is up to hundreds of frames per bam, and there are 13 animation bams per creature... some have many more than that like TNO with his disguises and weapon animations. I did that in the beginning.... and it took me several days just to get all the frames exported and named... gave up on building a bam from the ground up with them. Easy to match a sequence and trim frames out, or reduce the cycle to the correct amount of frames before plugging it into the converter. Or maybe I am missing something here?

I am just trying to find the easiest possible way to accomplish the task. I don't want to convert just one or two animations... I want them all from PST to BGII... but I am not as young as I used to be...heh. I would also like the ability to create my own custom animations easily. Don't sweat it, will find an alternative method. Still awaiting that elusive BAM plug-in for Photoshop.

[Valiant]

Avenger, on Oct 8 2007, 09:39 AM, said:

Yep, i will add a global RGB option for the grid color.
I hope you know that you can view a single color (numbers) instead of seeing all?

Btw, half-transparent color filled rectangles sound good too.

Yes, I know I can view only one number instead of all, but still it´s frustrating sometimes...

Yep, RGB option and half transarent rectangles sounds good to me, too...

Thanks.

[Cuv]

Thanks Avenger... Okay, actually adding a cut/paste feature will help immensely. I did know that you could merge bams... but for some reason it never occurred to me to trim down a bam, resave and merge as a sequence:P

And yeah... I figured it was something like that about the gifs being a headache. Thanks for the heads up

Cuv

[Galactygon]

Avenger, on Oct 7 2007, 02:20 AM, said:

The maximum dimension for splitting is 200.
But if an image is only 300x300, the parts will be 150x150 (i try to create equal sized parts).

I can increase it to 250, but if it causes some problem later, don't come back crying

I think the problem lies in creature animations using smaller maximum frame dimensions of 200x200, although I haven't tried it yet.

For spell animations, it is definately 256x256 (tested).

I guess the best solution is to allow the user to input the maximum sizes of the frames when splitting.

-Galactygon