Problems editing/importing pic, RPG 2003 Options

[Lato]

Ok im learning 2003 and am having some interesting basic problems importing edited pic. When I do a basic edit like change the hair color of a person with paint program and I go to import the pic it take away the light blue background of the edited char, but not the un edited ones, so its looks bad when I start the game.

Is there some different way to import pic then you do with XP? anyone know what im doing wrong.

[Pal88]

Ok im learning 2003 and am having some interesting basic problems importing edited pic. When I do a basic edit like change the hair color of a person with paint program and I go to import the pic it take away the light blue background of the edited char, but not the un edited ones, so its looks bad when I start the game.

Is there some different way to import pic then you do with XP? anyone know what im doing wrong.

Have you tried to click on the background itself when importing as you need to specify what colour needs to be the transparant colour and it shouldn't show in the game.

[Lato]

Ok im learning 2003 and am having some interesting basic problems importing edited pic. When I do a basic edit like change the hair color of a person with paint program and I go to import the pic it take away the light blue background of the edited char, but not the un edited ones, so its looks bad when I start the game.

Is there some different way to import pic then you do with XP? anyone know what im doing wrong.

Have you tried to click on the background itself when importing as you need to specify what colour needs to be the transparant colour and it shouldn't show in the game.

Yes I did that as it uses the same system as XP kinda, BUT the weird thing about 2003 is the face sets by default HAVE the blue background around the faces so if I click the blue background on my edits my edit backgrounds disappear but the normal ones stay the same, and if i try to click a different color then a different part of the pic disappears, I never had this problem with XP but im still learning 2003. Wish I had someone to work with one it cause im dying to make a game with 2003.

[Pal88]

The edits you have made don't use the same colour as the background do they?

[Lato]

The edits you have made don't use the same colour as the background do they?

No, ALL the backgrounds are light blue, all the edits I do are in different colors so I dont know why there would be this problem, I even use the tool that takes the color from a existing color, I used the background color to help edit the pic. Im not doing big edits here, they are very simple so Im hoping im just making a simple mistake.

[shinyjiggly]

Can you post the faceset (or other type of picture since you didn't specify) in question so that we can help you a little bit more? A little outside analysis can go a long way with problems like this.

[Lato]

Can you post the faceset (or other type of picture since you didn't specify) in question so that we can help you a little bit more? A little outside analysis can go a long way with problems like this.

Ok here is one thats part edited by me, since I have no idea at what point I messed it up I keep redoing them. Im working with only the TOP row, Faceset 1 and 3, if you look at faceset 3 I have taken away the horns on his helmet, simple enough I thought, yet when I import it takes away the natural blue background, The real problem I see is when I try to take away the white bandana of faceset 1, I get it done and then the entire blue background disappears when I import and it looks bad.

[shinyjiggly]

This is mostly unrelated to your problem, but very much related to the analysis process that it most likely needed to solve it:
the pic you posted was turned into a jpeg.

In order to test it out, It would be best for it to be in PNG form. I can't exactly look for specific pixel colors or examine the palette if the faceset if jpeg-ifyed. Keep in mind that photobucket usually messes with bmps like that so it would be best if you save it as a png and then put it on photobucket to post it here.
Sorry about being such a nuisance with this thing.

[Lato]

This is mostly unrelated to your problem, but very much related to the analysis process that it most likely needed to solve it:
the pic you posted was turned into a jpeg.

In order to test it out, It would be best for it to be in PNG form. I can't exactly look for specific pixel colors or examine the palette if the faceset if jpeg-ifyed. Keep in mind that photobucket usually messes with bmps like that so it would be best if you save it as a png and then put it on photobucket to post it here.
Sorry about being such a nuisance with this thing.

Ok i saved it as a ping then uploaded it to photobucket and here it is.

[shinyjiggly]

I'm just wondering, are you using MS Paint to edit your facesets? Because that program doesn't allow the user to see or mess with palettes. Your faceset's palette got changed to the default "web friendly" palette, thus reducing the quality of the faces.
And on that note, make sure that the first color in the palette is not in use because that will most likely be the one that is automatically chosen. I would suggest using the GIMP instead due to its ability to work well in indexed mode with the ability to view and edit the palette (colormap). The only downsides is that it might get a little getting used to, but that problem can be easily mitigated by plenty of practice, patience, and looking things up.
(Also, when transferring things to indexed mode from RGB mode, make sure that the picture has 17-255 unique colors present according to the colorcube analysis. More will be reduced to the proper level and less will save it as the wrong kind of indexed file.)

I'm sorry if I'm rambling. It's a bit late at night and I should probably be heading off to bed soon.
And no, I can't read your mind. It was more of just a lucky guess that I was able to figure out that it was a faceset form the way that you described editing a picture with a blue background that should not be removed.

[Lato]

I'm just wondering, are you using MS Paint to edit your facesets? Because that program doesn't allow the user to see or mess with palettes. Your faceset's palette got changed to the default "web friendly" palette, thus reducing the quality of the faces.
And on that note, make sure that the first color in the palette is not in use because that will most likely be the one that is automatically chosen. I would suggest using the GIMP instead due to its ability to work well in indexed mode with the ability to view and edit the palette (colormap). The only downsides is that it might get a little getting used to, but that problem can be easily mitigated by plenty of practice, patience, and looking things up.
(Also, when transferring things to indexed mode from RGB mode, make sure that the picture has 17-255 unique colors present according to the colorcube analysis. More will be reduced to the proper level and less will save it as the wrong kind of indexed file.)

I'm sorry if I'm rambling. It's a bit late at night and I should probably be heading off to bed soon.
And no, I can't read your mind. It was more of just a lucky guess that I was able to figure out that it was a faceset form the way that you described editing a picture with a blue background that should not be removed.

Ah you are right I did use MS paint, but only because that and gimp are the only programs I have on my PC, I dont do most of my artwork on my PC I do most of it on my mac and use PS. So if I use JUST PS and no other program It should work then?

[kayden997]

dateh to mac
Gimp should work fine. I know because I use it.
Note: The image is indexed so you can only paint with a specific amount of colours... and you won't be able to use most of the filters.
A work around would be to go to Image>Mode>RGB and then use the filters and such. Then afterwards, copy the image, open up the same file again in another gimp, and paste it. It should convert it to the pallet.

If you don't understand then I should really post a tutorial about this.


Other then that, use photoshop and see if it works (and don't use jpeg over png. You want clean, not compressed)

I just lost a SC game so pardon my French

[Lato]

dateh to mac
Gimp should work fine. I know because I use it.
Note: The image is indexed so you can only paint with a specific amount of colours... and you won't be able to use most of the filters.
A work around would be to go to Image>Mode>RGB and then use the filters and such. Then afterwards, copy the image, open up the same file again in another gimp, and paste it. It should convert it to the pallet.

If you don't understand then I should really post a tutorial about this.


Other then that, use photoshop and see if it works (and don't use jpeg over png. You want clean, not compressed)

I just lost a SC game so pardon my French

Ah this is getting kinda crazy lol. Ok i just used PS and did not use the jepg or other file types, just the type that you get when you export the default rez and it wouldnt show up in the preview after I did my edits and said stream line error when I tried to import. So if you could make a tutorial that would be very helpful, as I could do alot of custom work if I knew how to do it.

[Holder]

Image>Mode>Indexed color...
It'll then prompt you that it'll flatten all the layers, and then present you with this box:

Make sure there's the limit of 256 unique colours set in there and for the Palette is Local (Selective)

I added a rainbow mix of colours to show you the sort of results you'll get if you have too many colours, if you're not happy with how it looks when the colour is limited try messing on with the Dither options.

[Lato]

Image>Mode>Indexed color...
It'll then prompt you that it'll flatten all the layers, and then present you with this box:

Make sure there's the limit of 256 unique colours set in there and for the Palette is Local (Selective)

I added a rainbow mix of colours to show you the sort of results you'll get if you have too many colours, if you're not happy with how it looks when the colour is limited try messing on with the Dither options.

Ok something new so I tried it, I followed those directions but they were already set on all those until I got to the Dither options, the Dither was set to on, so I turned it off to be like your sample. Then I just saved it as the default bmp file and tried to put it ingame, it wouldnt show up in the preview and when I tried to import It said stream line error.

[Holder]

Are you trying things like changing it to RGB then onto indexed?

There's got to be something which you've got set or are doing when saving which is causing the problem.
Could you do a more step by set run down of what you're doing and perhaps the example image you're importing and how.

[Lato]

Ok first of all I wanna thank you guys for all the help, I think this is a real problem that needed some answers.

I figured it out kinda. Instead of doing all that stuff again to try and figure out well whatever was going wrong I just used a crappy Adobe PS elements editor. I edited the pic, saved them as a ping then imported them into my game and they looked great with no issues at all!

It took maybe 5 min to notice this worked, so if anyone else is having this problem this would be a much faster simple fix to it. lol I really dont know what to say now, but i am happy to be able to work on my 2003 game now so thanks guys.