30 replies to this topic

[The Imp]

You might get more out of your question by an example... say which animation you wish to use. Though you are unlikely to be able to resign the animation a new palette... unless you use the old BG1 animations.

[Sam.]

I can write a (windows-only) program to do this pretty handily as I already have most of the code necessary that I wrote for other projects I'm working on.  If you are wanting to do this as part of the mod installation (e.g. to cut down on download size) then WeiDU is your best bet.  I'm sure it can be done, but that is out of my realm of expertise...

[aqrit]

http://iesdp.gibberl...mats/bam_v1.htm

I've never done anything like this but...
something like this?

COPY_EXISTING ~some.bam~ ~override~
     READ_LONG 0x10 palette_offset
    WRITE_ASCIIE ( palette_offset) ~%new_palette%~ (1024)

with a few curve balls maybe... compressed bams...
think of the best way to load the new palette colors into var "new_palette" .... etc.

If you only want to replace select colors ... read in the bam palette then INNER_PATCH and run INDEX_BUFFER over it ( regex )
which of course brings the complication of building a binary regex string ... so instead you could just use a FOR loop or w/e

 

edit: I may have missed the boat... how is a cre file associated with a bam file?

http://iesdp.gibberl...mats/cre_v1.htm

change hair / body / trunk / whatever color.

try editing those fields and see what happens

Edited by aqrit, 01 October 2013 - 08:01 AM.

[The Imp]

I've never done anything like this but...
something like this?

COPY_EXISTING ~some.bam~ ~override~
     READ_LONG 0x10 palette_offset
    WRITE_ASCIIE ( palette_offset) ~%new_palette%~ (1024)

That wouldn't work because the though is to use the same animation, but different colors in different .cre files. This replaces the palette to all creatures... unless you wish to make another .bam file which needs to be patched to the BGMain.exe to get the animation.2da association.

with a few curve balls maybe... compressed bams...
think of the best way to load the new palette colors into var "new_palette" .... etc.

Erhm, if you actually read the .bam format info you got there, you actually see the compressed .bam's are regular ones only with a few transparent frames in them to save space.
 

try editing those fields and see what happens

Erhm, that might be the right approach... just remembering that most of the .cre's don't have a paletted animation files meaning that the body parts are likely to be disassociated from the variables, meaning that one body part can dictate the whole .cre's animation colors*... or something.
This has been done in:

/////////////////////////////////
// Distinctive creature coloring
/////////////////////////////////

BEGIN @310 DESIGNATED 310 // Distinctive creature coloring
GROUP @3 // Cosmetic tweaks
REQUIRE_PREDICATE ENGINE_IS ~bg2 tob~ @92

INCLUDE "atweaks/lib/310-creature_colouring.tpa" //todo: make this file nicer

The .tpa code is too large and too complicated for me to understand really, but the results look nice:

I notice that it relies on effects applied to the edited .cre file, it removes the affects that recolor the .cre's and then grants the .cre file immunity to the recolor effects via(op#101), and then it changes the major color of the .cre .

Edited by The Imp, 01 October 2013 - 10:13 AM.

[agris]

Thanks guys. I think The Imp gets a prize though. Example code is always appreciated, and yes, those results do look nice. I thought this has been done, but it's been too long since I did a MM play..

[Gwendolyne]

I can write a (windows-only) program to do this pretty handily as I already have most of the code necessary that I wrote for other projects I'm working on.  If you are wanting to do this as part of the mod installation (e.g. to cut down on download size) then WeiDU is your best bet.  I'm sure it can be done, but that is out of my realm of expertise...

 

Hi Sam.

 

I am interested into your windows program !

 

I have ported a new animation using the dragon format : 7x81 bam files.

Now, I want to apply them 3 other palettes. If it could be done automatically, I wouldn't waste many hours with changing them manually...

 

Let's say folder A contains 567 files, all of them having the same palette.

Let's say fileR, fileP, fileB, fileG contains the red, purple, blue and green palettes, whatever their format (act, pal, bmp, bam). The palettes have been tested with the raw frames and work well.

 

I want to read the 256 colors of fileP and apply them at the same index for each file of folder A. id with fileR, fileB and fileG.

 

Do you really think it is possible ?

 

If yes, you would save my time, and my mental health !

[Miloch]

I added mass-repaletting to BAM Batcher a while back but I guess I probably never released it. You'll have to add the code to the tp2 manually until I get around to updating it properly (might be a while). This is right before the Moinesse's BAM section in my local copy:

Spoiler

//! Repalette BAMs from a BMP ///////////////////////////////////////////////
BEGIN ~Repalette BAMs from a BMP~
SUBCOMPONENT ~BAM Batcher~
NO_LOG_RECORD

OUTER_SPRINT tpath ~~

COPY ~bambatch/bam~ ~bambatch/bam~
  READ_ASCII 0x0 sg (4) //Signature
  PATCH_IF (~%sg%~ STRING_EQUAL_CASE ~BAMC~ = 1) BEGIN
    READ_LONG 0x8 dl //Uncompressed data length
    DECOMPRESS_REPLACE_FILE 0xc (SOURCE_SIZE - 0xc) dl
    sz = dl
  END ELSE BEGIN
    sz = SOURCE_SIZE
  END
  SPRINT tres ~%SOURCE_RES%~
  TO_LOWER tres
  INNER_PATCH ~%tres%~ BEGIN
    READ_ASCII 0 tpal (6)
  END
  READ_LONG 0x10 pf //Palette offset
  INNER_ACTION BEGIN
    ACTION_IF FILE_EXISTS ~bambatch/%tpath%%tpal%.bmp~ BEGIN
      COPY ~bambatch/%tpath%%tpal%.bmp~ ~bambatch/%tpath%%tpal%.bmp~
        READ_ASCII 0x0 sg (2) //Signature
        PATCH_IF (~%sg%~ STRING_EQUAL_CASE ~BM~ = 1) BEGIN
          READ_ASCII 0x36 pt (1024) //Color table
          pq = 1
        END ELSE BEGIN
          PATCH_PRINT ~Palette.bmp is not a valid uncompressed bitmap.~
          pq = 2
        END
      BUT_ONLY
    END ELSE BEGIN
      PRINT ~No %tpath%%tpal%.bmp exists.~
      OUTER_SET pq = 2
    END
  END
  PATCH_IF pq = 1 BEGIN     
    WRITE_ASCIIE pf ~%pt%~ //Palette
    dl = SOURCE_SIZE //Data length
    COMPRESS_REPLACE_FILE 0 sz 9
    INSERT_BYTES 0x0 0xc
    WRITE_ASCII 0x0 ~BAMCV1  ~
    WRITE_LONG 0x8 sz
  END
BUT_ONLY

I forget how it works exactly, but you'll need to have all the BAMs you want to repalette in your bambatch/bam folder and the palette you want for your new BAMs in uncompressed BMP format in the main folder (same palette order as the original palette, just different colors). Always keeps backups of course. You'll need to re-run it for as many different repaletted colors you want for the original BAMs, but it goes through them all at once and applies the same palette.

[Sam.]

If Miloch's BAM Batcher doesn't work out for you, I can whip something up.

[Gwendolyne]

Thanks Miloch !

 

I will test it this evening (Paris hour) - and finally answer your PM, sorry I had a bad flue till yesterday.

 

I remembered you mentionned a couple of times Bam batcher for this kind of job, but as I didn't see anything related to repaletting in the tp2...

I understand why now.

 

I will keep in touch and let you know the results...

Edited by Gwendolyne, 13 January 2014 - 09:42 AM.

[Gwendolyne]

Great job Miloch : your tp2 allowed me to repalette 567 files in less than 30 s !

Working with the format dragon, I was just obliged to create several palettes renamed with the same prefix than the files : MDR1[1-5]1 to MDR1[1-5]9. Otherwise, WeiDU responded that bmp files were missing.
But with a batch file, it was pretty easy and the time spared with your process was phenomenal.
 

[The Imp]

Great job Miloch : your tp2 allowed me to repalette 567 files in less than 30 s !

Time to take in game pictures...

[Gwendolyne]

Why did I recognize The Imp sarcastic voice ?

 

Promised, as soon as I have finished the 2da files (f.... soundsets), I will post them.

[Gwendolyne]

The job has been done.

 

Here is the "original" creature :

 

 

The same in blue, using the new Bam batcher component.

In red :

 

in green and in purple.
 

 

 

 

 

A great thanks for all the people who had helped me and made it possible. They will be all credited in the readme.

 

 

 

[Sam.]

Very cool!

[Cahir]

@Gwendolyne Is it tarrasque that I'm seeing or do my eyes just playing tricks on me?

 

Splendid work

[The Imp]

Very cool!

Yep. As in; I got nothing to add.

[Gwendolyne]

Yes, it is a Tarasque!

 

The last monster that my mod missed... Except a medusa, but that's another story...

 

And as far as I know, the first I.A. animation using the dragon slot. An horrible pain to work with (567 bam files)...

 

But now I know how to handle with it...

 

Thanks for your comments.

 

Let's roll for the quest coding !