4 replies to this topic

[Sir-Kill]

Erephine at the time of her writing and creation of 1pp did not care for plt's

 

BG2 has a new format called PLT for inventory graphics. This format sucks though, and theres no good editor around for it.

However times have changed and ....

 

 

 

I have been delving into .PLT files I wanted to know what Colors were available and why there were unwanted transparencies that come into the paperdoll. I believe I have found out why.

 

 

First what the image represents 1-6:

1 Is the image I converted into a PLT

2 Is an image I composted into something to ease to see. This could have been much smoother if I could use an image that contained 16m color but the image size 120x160 makes that impossible. However the image used does have over 17.5k!

3 Profit!

4 Is another image I converted into a PLT to remove curves and jagged edges

5 As it says.

6 Smaller screen grabs with gradients applied to the item.

 

What the colors do and do not for you.

 

Wherever an R,G,B Black-0,0,0 occurs it will be Shadow (simple).

Other colors will render shadow as well.*

Any single R, G, or B that hits 255 and it seems the range is, about a combined 66 of the other colors i.e. R255 g15 b 56 will also be transparent (this was more difficult to figure).

 

The large and small blocks of color image2 that is the color ranges plts use and what the game considers location 0-6 (btw the black sections are the gray color realm)

 

From Erephine's bam plt file format guide

On a PLT...
 
There is no palette as such. A PLT stores information differently:
 
Every pixel has a 'brightness' setting which can range from 0 to 254 (255 is transparent). It also has a second bit of information which tells the game which of the seven gradients it is supposed to be (0 to 7, where 7 is shadow).
 
This means you have 255 shades for every gradient as opposed to 12 on a BAM. However, it also means you have *no* merged shades whatsoever. If you have one colour bright red, and one bright blue, there simply is no purple. As a result, soft edges on the size you're working on (like 128 by 160) are not possible.

This information is outdated and incorrect, since  WizWom's work.

If you don't believe me look at the the first image an tell me where there is no blending.

PLT is easier to work with and produces smoother results

 

 

Big Thanks toWizWom for plt to bmp and bmp to plt (and the other converters)

and Sam for PS Gui for making WizWoms work easy to use and Pallet Mixer/Generator

and Argent77 for making 1001 updates to NI and indirectly making it useful to me.

 

 

The 7zip file contains an .ODT (open office) file that has more technical details

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Attached Files

•  Post.7z   21.45K   202 downloads

Edited by Sir-Kill, 26 March 2021 - 07:12 PM.

[Sir-Kill]

Here are 3 images of Ajantis wearing ankheg plate. As the image states the settings are all the same only difference is the first image plt I edited.

This is a mixed image of file limitations and 'artist' skill. +400%

I have made armor and a helm so far. I'll work on off hand weapons and shield (I tested a shield and it seemed to work fine)

 

Thanks to wiki so I have names for the armor parts

 

EDIT: I missed a color dot /cuisse is the thigh plate

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Edited by Sir-Kill, 21 March 2021 - 09:13 PM.

[Sir-Kill]

Here is a 7 color shield. Colors ranges from 32-38. I made this with 7 for demonstrative purposes. I had a difficult time cramming that many in a unique pattern in such a small area. I used the cshld30.bam as a guide.

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Edited by Sir-Kill, 26 March 2021 - 06:57 PM.

[Sir-Kill]

Here is Minsc equipped with the helm of glory, Modeled after 1pp's inventory bam of the same. I wanted the dents but the extra detail made it look worse. Notice the shadow on the eye region of the face this pulls the helm off from being part of the skin as shown on the helmet of defense on the right. It kind of gives Minsc that Brad Pitt look in Troy... well you might have to zoom in a bit.

 

I was not sure you could apply shadow on an existing plt but you can, fairly cool.

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[Sir-Kill]

Ok I had these done a while back but did not post until I had my next thing somewhat workable.

 

Smoothed much of the pixelation

Added an independant (from the blade) pommel color

Figured that swords along with every other item type uses 7 'clown' colors but where to use them is more difficult so I am just using 4 colors

Noticed that IESDP is very wrong regarding plt.

This whole section is inaccurate. (I'll post more findings later).

 

General Description

This file format describes the appearance of paperdolls displayed on the inventory screen. A paperdoll can display several "materials" (e.g. skin, hair, leather, metal) each of which is represented by a different colour set. The colours for each material are set in the CRE file (major and minor colour can be set within the game) which correspond to a colour gradient. Each pixel is mapped to a colour by the colour byte which is then given an intensity by the intensity byte. The colours are listed below:

• 0 - Skin
• 1 - Hair
• 2 - Metal
• 3 - Leather
• 4 - Metal
• 5 - Minor colour
• 6 - Major colour
• 7 - 127 Shadow

Colour maps 128 - 255 repeat this pattern.

 

The only real thing to concern one's self with is location 3 and 6 on armor for skin and hair. Not 0 and 1

 

Anyway here is Minsc with the Ankheg armor the helmet and the new dual long swords with blue pommel gems

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Edited by Sir-Kill, 02 April 2021 - 11:47 AM.