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Unit Graphics - Help appreciated

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Just got back from xmas travels - will start on unit graphics in the new year ;-)

(Konig - i dont use the SSI graphics [not that they exist anymore anyway] , only the ones marked as "Freeware" created by players over the last few years)
 
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oky doky:

test models of PZIII, STuka and 109E - ive only positioned the stuka so the others are slightly out of place to their division numbers.

From playing around im going to stick to the sizes show - so all images will be slightly smaller than in the original game.. having to resize them all is too much of a pain and i actually prefer the slightly smaller images - playing with them at max resolution and they look dandy - the screenshot here is at 800x600 to show them up close.


newmodels.jpg


Im not animating any of the images other than the combat ones - so firing encounters will be animated with "flashbangs" etc.

Final mod will include revisions of all unit graphics and will probably take a while - ill post up another image with all the german units changed as soon as its done (so you can see the new infantry and other graphics) , currently im working on creating a batch process to speed it all up.

- - - -

inahurry: thanks for the info - it was useful and it turned out my problem was with the program i was using that messed up the palette on saving the images (it overwrote my palette with its webadaptive one and messed up what was set as background and trans - ugh!) - ive made my own palette now (where ive made the 0 and 1 index colours as fixed background and transparency) and using it for "ALL" of the models (so it only needs one palette reference file for every model).. Now using PSP and it all works dandy... indeed you can take "any" image and by just applying the palette it will work straight away in the game so long as you just reference the "deafult" pallette file ive created.

thx for the assist, i was tieing myself in knots beforehand :)
 
You might want to take down the screenshot in the mean time... [Edit]Okay, nevermind. :)[/Edit]

The units look nice. Do you know of any way to make certain units for certain countries have custom graphics, or are those just altered graphics for the generic units?
 
Due to how the game uses so many shared graphics across so many countries I cant actually mod much of anything myself. (Eg the divebomber graphic is used for every nation)

So until paradox change how this works - not a lot i can do myself.

On the other hand i can send 'em multiple images for them to use but that's their call.
 
Im wondering if the unit "icons" that appear in the interface could be different for each type of unit and country, i think this isnt as difficult as changing the units graphics, cause the icons arent animated. Im tired of seeing that man with the brown coat in the infantry units icon.
 
I did some animation (work in progress) for the stuka but what seems strange is that the number of frames in the .spr files doesn't override some internal setting. E.g. I had to have 21 frames for the STAND position. I tried with 8 frames first but didn't work right so I had to "extend" the bmp to 21 frames. Apparently the setting for the # of frames in the .spr file is useless. Am I missing something?

I wonder if Paradox could reveal some info on that.

I also invented a swedish infantry (duplicated all the relevant files for french inf and appended an SWE instead of FRA) hoping there are hidden, reserved slots for other countries than the very few which are honored with individual gfx. No luck. Guess minors will remain identical then. I wonder if at least all the majors countries have reserved places, the chinese for instance (haven't checked this one, is a bit frustrating to stab in the dark).
 
Hi guys!

I just noticed this thread (just back from the holiday) and I wery much like the fact that you are trying to add new sprites to HOI.
I will try to help you as much as possible.

I use a 3D software to do the sprites.
I really helps alot if you do it in a 3D software instead of painting each frame manually. But it should be possible to edit existing sprites or create new ones in a paintprogram, if you have the time. Legaly we cant endorse people to use sprites from another game!

But I was thinking that we might be able to "give" our scenefile away.
I will look into it today to see if its possible. You will need
Alias Wavefronts Maya thoug...I might also be able to answer a couple of questions how to edit them in Maya. You should be able to use it for EU 1 and 2 also.

Anyway, is there still a question regarding how to make sprites
that is not answered here? I will follow this thread so please post here.
 
There is a column in country.csv to indicate which "tag" should be used for a certain countries graphics.

For example, Sweden is marked as "MIN", so it uses the generic min.

If you make some swedish artwork, change the column to SWE, and make some artwork with the SWE tag.

(MIN is used if nothing of the given tag is found.)
 
you need to have a server that supports remote linking. Geocities, Brinkster and Freeservers doesn't support that.
Currently i do not know of any free server that supports remote linking, maybe you can ask to someone that has a web site to hold your images.

can someone explain claerly how do i use all this stuff?
thanks :D
 
Here's a slightly modified japanese infantry (I got rid of bayonnets) :

www.geocities.com/hoi_aw/gfx/new_inf.zip

the bmp and sprite files have the SWE tag so you can simply paste them over the files from a previous post. I recommend you download that zip first (www.geocities.com/hoi_aw/gfx/swedish_inf.zip ).

The modified japanese inf with the german inf palette look quite nicely, I think it could be a variant for german mountain troops.

Hope you enjoy!
 
How to render infantrysprites for Hearts of Iron. Version 1.0

You will need the following software:

Alias Wavefronts Maya
Adobe After Effects
Adobe Photoshop


Unzip Hoi_infantry.

Maya:
Load Hoi_infantry/Scenes/Hoi_infantry.mb.
Set project to Hoi_Infantry and Batch render.
Render from "render_camera1".
You should now have two folders in \Hoi_infantry\images.
One is a groundlayer with a shadow and the other is the model itself.


AfterEffects:
Load afterfx_mergfile.
In the composition window, replace the groundlayer and modellayer with your rendered files.
Make a movie, make sure you render it as a *.bmp sequence with
"current settings" Size 56*56 pixels. Name it germansoldier.
You should get a bunch of files named germansoldier_0001 and so on...

Copy automerger.exe to the same folder as your aftereffects rendered bitmaps.
Open up the commandprompt. Go to the directory where your have your rendered files
and run automerger.exe
Write "automerger germansoldier" (do not include the frame number or extension!)
Now you should have 11 bitmap strips and their *.spr files

Photoshop:
OPen the bitmap strips and set pixeldepth to 256 colours, and move the transparency
colour to index 0 and shadow colour to index 1. Save all 11 bitmaps and copy one extra
that will become your palettefile. Open up your Spr files in notepad and ad an extra line like this:

Palette="germansoldier.bmp"
(if that is what you called your paletefile)

Copy your *.spr files to GFX/map/units
Copy your germansoldier.bmp files to GFX/map/bmp
Copy the palettefile to GFX/palette

Start Hearts of Iron and hopefully you should now have a new wonderful homemade sprite. :)

You can skip the Aftereffects step and do it manually if you dont have
Aftereffects. I use it to remove antialiasing around the edges, change colours for the shadow
and transperancy + and sometimes other filters like brightness/contrast and merge the ground + modellayer.

The files and instructions are provided as is and we will only answer questions regarding this when we have time to spare :)

Dick Sjöström,
Paradox Entertainment

hoi_infantry.zip 1.8mb
 
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