Latest redviewer (1.6.0.17).

Red · Post by **Red** » Sat Apr 05, 2003 5:48 pm

It's come to my attention that the DaC hosted Red!Viewer is in fact .7 versions late - yet it's documented as being .5 versions late. Originally Kreegle updated the .ace/.zip file it hosted without updateing the HTML which is OK, but apparently in recent events something hapenned and this wasn't done.

So anyway, long story short, since my own server's also down and I can't bother updating it, get the latest version (1.6.0.17) on nma:
http://www.nma-fallout.com/binaries/tactics.shtml

And this ISN'T a new version. It's just that a lot of people are reporting bugs on that version, and I'm hoping these are all already fixed

.

sabin-x · Post by **sabin-x** » Sat Apr 05, 2003 10:45 pm

im pretty new to fallout tactics modding, what does the appliction do?

Red · Post by **Red** » Sun Apr 06, 2003 12:50 am

View SPR, TIL and ZAR. Allows you to edit and save TIL files. Also supports Fallout FRM (and BMP, ICO, CUR), but that's not related to FOT...

Max-Violence · Post by **Max-Violence** » Sun Apr 06, 2003 2:29 am

Many thanks, kind sir.

requiem_for_a_starfury · Tue Apr 08, 2003 5:39 pm

Quick question Red, in your great viewer, in the attributes section, you've got a pull down box marked version. What does this affect and what value do I set when making tiles?

Cheers

Red · Post by **Red** » Wed Apr 09, 2003 2:59 am

When making tiles I suggest using version 10 (or 9 to save a byte...) and simply using the Type/Material/Flags attributes. These are the only important ones to know about. I left the numbers under version editable so that you specify values which aren't supported in my viewer and experiment with it if you wish.

In version 10, the last "working" bos marked as "Unknown" seems to be a continuation of the flags which you can switch in the Flags checklist, but I don't know what they're for so I haven't included a nice little checklist for them.

You can fiddle and use "older" version which the engine supports but the other values you can edit does stuff I don't understand -- in fact some tiles set some weird values in the Type/Material scrolldown lists too (hence an extra reason to support the "Unknown" values in my viewer).

I suggest simply looking at the tiles from the original game to get a feel of how they work though.

There's also something about my viewer. It otpimises the tiles to remove the pallette from the ZARs since tiles only support a single palette for all the frames. This doesn't change anything for single frame tiles but savs 1k/frame except for the first for animated tiles (which aren't that frequent anyway...)

requiem_for_a_starfury · Wed Apr 09, 2003 7:19 am

Red wrote:When making tiles I suggest using version 10 (or 9 to save a byte...) and simply using the Type/Material/Flags attributes. These are the only important ones to know about. I left the numbers under version editable so that you specify values which aren't supported in my viewer and experiment with it if you wish.

In version 10, the last "working" bos marked as "Unknown" seems to be a continuation of the flags which you can switch in the Flags checklist, but I don't know what they're for so I haven't included a nice little checklist for them.

You can fiddle and use "older" version which the engine supports but the other values you can edit does stuff I don't understand -- in fact some tiles set some weird values in the Type/Material scrolldown lists too (hence an extra reason to support the "Unknown" values in my viewer).

I suggest simply looking at the tiles from the original game to get a feel of how they work though.

There's also something about my viewer. It otpimises the tiles to remove the pallette from the ZARs since tiles only support a single palette for all the frames. This doesn't change anything for single frame tiles but savs 1k/frame except for the first for animated tiles (which aren't that frequent anyway...)

Thanks, I've been leaving things as version 10, so I think I'll leave it that way for now, until I know better. About those animated tiles, any way to make some of them in Redviewer?

Red · Post by **Red** » Wed Apr 09, 2003 6:10 pm

Yeah of course.

Click the little + or Ins buttons to add a new frame, use the ZAR clipboard to transfer the ZARs to the proper frames in the tile.

Special note, again:
There's a SINGLE palette for the entire animated tile. So you'll need to make sure ALL ZARs use the same palette originally.

There might be several ways of doing this but what I suggest you do is slap ALL frames in a SINGLE photoshop image. Then ask it to convert the image to an indexed colours (or palettized, can't remember how it's referred to in Photoshop). It will generate a proper palette for every frame, which you save somewhere (an ACT file for Photoshop).

Then you apply the created palette (ACT...) file to every frame to make sure they use the same. I don't think Photoshop supports Alpha+Indexed colours, so you'll need to revert to 24bit RGB + Alpha layer once the palette has been applied if you have an alpha layer before converting them to PNG to be converted with the FOT editor in ZARs ready to be imported into my viewer.

Hargh. I should make some kind of tutorial... I know it's quite a bit complicated...

requiem_for_a_starfury · Wed Apr 09, 2003 6:22 pm

Red wrote:Yeah of course.

Click the little + or Ins buttons to add a new frame, use the ZAR clipboard to transfer the ZARs to the proper frames in the tile.

Hmm I thought so, but I get a error message Run time Error 380 invalid property value when i click on the + button. Edit The Ins button works, but is there any way to lock the position when importing several frames from the clip. The edit offest resets to none each time and although I've tried to line them up the images tend to walk across the screen.

Red wrote:Hargh. I should make some kind of tutorial... I know it's quite a bit complicated...

Yes Please, pretty please. : ) A users manual for Redviewer would be very nice. : )

Max-Violence · Post by **Max-Violence** » Wed Apr 09, 2003 11:57 pm

requiem_for_a_starfury wrote:A users manual for Redviewer would be very nice. : )

I concur.

Red · Post by **Red** » Thu Apr 10, 2003 12:11 am

requiem_for_a_starfury wrote:Hmm I thought so, but I get a error message Run time Error 380 invalid property value when i click on the + button.

Code: Select all

1.6.0.18
- TIL Fixed bug pressing + crashing with Error 380 &#40;requiem_for_a_starfury&#41;
- TIL Fixed +, Ins and - buttons so that they no longer reset the list to 0
  every time you add/remove a frame

Though I won't release it right away since there's a simple workaround to avoid the bug... I'll update when there's more stuff fixed...

The edit offest resets to none each time and although I've tried to line them up the images tend to walk across the screen.

Did you mean the second option I added in my fix? If not, then there's another part that needs to be mentioned.

Each frame needs to be properly centered. On the first frame (well, idieally on the largest frame you have in the entire frames of your animated tiles, as that's how the original works, but aligning with the first frame will work just fine), enabled the bounding box (Ctrl-U or Rendering -> BoundingBox). Use the "Edit Offset - Picture" and center the image (either with the mouse or w, a, s and d keys which move it by 1 pixel) with the bounding box properly.

Once that's done the other images should center properly on the original, with a little tweeking. Just remember that other frames should be edited with the "Edit Offset - Frame" option, not the picture option, as the "Picture" changes the WHOLE tile's bounding box while the frame only changes... the frame's...

Hopefully that's not too confusing...

----

For a tutorial, tell you what... Make me a nice render of an animated tile. Just supply me X number of PNGs and I'll make a nice little tutorial with it. And don't give me some pre-made FO:T art, give me some new material. I'll make a nice HTML tutorial with screenshots and arrows indicating what to click et al.

Max-Violence · Post by **Max-Violence** » Thu Apr 10, 2003 12:53 am

Red wrote:For a tutorial, tell you what... Make me a nice render of an animated tile. Just supply me X number of PNGs and I'll make a nice little tutorial with it. And don't give me some pre-made FO:T art, give me some new material. I'll make a nice HTML tutorial with screenshots and arrows indicating what to click et al.

What are you waiting for, Req? Hop to it!

requiem_for_a_starfury · Thu Apr 10, 2003 7:45 am

Max-Violence wrote:
Red wrote:For a tutorial, tell you what... Make me a nice render of an animated tile. Just supply me X number of PNGs and I'll make a nice little tutorial with it. And don't give me some pre-made FO:T art, give me some new material. I'll make a nice HTML tutorial with screenshots and arrows indicating what to click et al.
What are you waiting for, Req? Hop to it!

I wish I could, but all I was trying to do is convert Gizmo's sign from the FRM file. I've not got an once of original Artistic Talent in me. : (

Red · Post by **Red** » Thu Apr 10, 2003 11:50 am

Well, actually that's an interesting concept since passing from FO stuff to Fo:T I could spend an extra section explaining the Alpha panel...

I'll see if I can find some time.

OnTheBounce · Post by **OnTheBounce** » Thu Apr 10, 2003 12:14 pm

Has anyone been checking into the skew/scale differences between FO and FoT tiles? While straight importation of tiles is okay in some cases, it would do a lot for the maps using them if we could properly scale and skew the FO tiles to match FoT.

Incidentally, I was looking at tiles the other day -- not w/RedViewer, just in the editor -- and noticed that there are two flags associated w/tiles that seem to offer cover based on their graphic, like the guard rails, tables, etc. These flags are "V" and "T".

OTB

Red · Post by **Red** » Thu Apr 10, 2003 12:38 pm

You can't really skew/scale them as their perspective don't match... What would need to be done would be a proper 3D mapping which you use and change the POV.

Ideally you'd first make an "original mapping texture" which you'd use as reference so you no longer need the 3D passover (ie: precalculate the new POV) and apply to other textures, but given you did that you might loose some details you could tweak in 3D...

Anyhoo, all my attempts with just skewing&scaling failed and I'm not knowledgable enough in 3D to do what's required...

Jimmyjay86 · Post by **Jimmyjay86** » Thu Apr 10, 2003 2:04 pm

Who has a 3d program with which they are skilled? If they could make a 3d model of wall & floor tiles of various sizes that could be skinned with various textures, I think we could make some reasonable copies of Fallout buildings.

Red · Post by **Red** » Thu Apr 10, 2003 4:32 pm

Yeah, it's possible... If someone attempts this, keep in mind that the texture is flat yet represents somethign with a POV ALREADY APPLIED to it.

So what you'd need to do is find the proper angle to "remove" this POV, and find the proper FO:T angle (which should be easy really). Pnve you have that you can transfer this in a single operation - though you could do it in a single operation anyway if you have an eye for it...

Jinxed · Post by **Jinxed** » Sat Apr 12, 2003 12:58 pm

Is there any way to save with background transparency or without one at all? I'm talking about frm inventory files.

Strap · Post by **Strap** » Sat Apr 12, 2003 5:05 pm

is there anyway to view the charactor sprites? i cant find them anywhere