New Piece in works

[Deltapooh]

New vehicles are being added to the database on a regular basis. I'll have to figure out how to release them. Some of the vehicles weigh alot, the CH-53 weighs in at 10mb total!

In any case, here is the latest vehicle just completed, the CH-53E "Super Stallion". It is part of a Marine Set I'm working on. I already made the LAV-25 and LAV-AT. I'll probably ask Kbluck if I can borrow his Avenger Turret for the LAV-AD.

There are alot of vehicles that must be built. Hopefully, within a few months, we will have vehicles from all over the world available for play in ATF. The process is becoming easier as I learn more about Photoshop and how to line up turrets etc. (Thanks to kbluck.)

[John Osborne]

In any case, here is the latest vehicle just completed, the CH-53E "Super Stallion". It is part of a Marine Set I'm working on. I already made the LAV-25 and LAV-AT. I'll probably ask Kbluck if I can borrow his Avenger Turret for the LAV-AD.

There are alot of vehicles that must be built. Hopefully, within a few months, we will have vehicles from all over the world available for play in ATF. The process is becoming easier as I learn more about Photoshop and how to line up turrets etc. (Thanks to kbluck.)

How in the hell do you do it :nuts: Could you be so kind an explaned to me how you do it. Please :D

Even if it will take a large piece of paper and crayons ;)

I have the Tile Piece program from Kbluck. But I have no idea what to do. There wasn't any explantion on how to use it. I would like to make some vehicles, but it seems to be beyond my comprehension on how to do it.

[Deltapooh]

Tutorial for using Tile Piece:

I'll use my LAV-25 as the demonstration for this.

Image Preparation

1. Make certain to avoid blending colors with the hot pink background during production process. I have photoshop and use the select and fill options to paint my image. I then adjust brightness of selections to give it more of a 3D appearance. You might be tempted to use the Draw tool, but if you zoom in, you'll transparent pixels.

2. Keep your colors down. I often use fewer than 100 colors in any piece. Again, the select tool provides you with the ability to control the number of colors you are using without limiting the range of colors available, which can occur if using some color management.

3. Keep scale in mind. Use the images that shipped with ATF as a guide to determine the size of your vehicle. Try not to exceed 300 for either length or width. I did this when I created the M985 HEMTT with M989A1, and the trailer was clipped.

4. The final base piece should be even in both length and width. Use the highest number in your image. Ex: if the orginal image is 30x80, you;ll crease the base image that is 80x80.This way, rotation can occur without clipping.

5. If you are creating a vehicle that has a turret, you might need to move the pieces forward or backwards a few pixels. Rotation occurs at the center of the point of the image (if image is 80x80, center will be 40x40). The same goes for the turret. I use guides in photoshop to create crosshairs and adjust the vehicle. (Refer to pic 1)

6. Make sure any new piece you create starts out with the front of the vehicle facing up. Otherwise, it becomes a real nightmare to determine direction of vehicle.

Tile Piece workstation:

Refer to tile piece diagram image for this part.

Load Image: Allows you to select the base tile piece

Rotate Each Tile: Specify what angle each tile should be rotated to in a clockwise direction. ProSim uses 10 degrees. Kbluck, and now myself, use 15 degrees. It cuts down file size and doesn't harm the game.

Center of Rotation: This is determined automatically once you load your image. This is another reason why it is so important to use equal length and width sizes. If you don't, your pieces will rotate uneven.

Tile Piece: Tab used to generate rotated pieces.

Save Piece: Tab used to save the new tile piece image.

[U]Steps for Tiling a Piece[/I]

1. Start Tile Piece Utility

2. Click on Load Piece, and select lav_25_base_chasis.bmp. It should appear just below the load piece tab. File location is specified just below the image. You will also notice the I and J boxes have loaded the center points. In this case you should see the number 63 in each box. You can play with these numbers, but I don't.

3. Enter the number 15 in the box below "Rotate Each File."

4. Click on Tile Piece tab. Within a second or so, a new image should appear to the right with the base piece rotated at the desired angle. You might not see all the tiles, but that's fine.

5. Click on save piece, and save the new image as lav_25_chasis.

6. Repeat Steps 1-5 for the lav_25_base_turret.

7. Save turret piece as lav_25_turret.

8. You can not add the pieces in the Power Tools kit as described in the Online Help Files. You'll need to create a new vehicle, save the database, create a new scenario in the builder, and import your database. Then you can select add your vehicle to make sure everything is lined up properly.

If you have any problems, simply let me know. I'll be more than willing to help out any way I can. :D

[KG_Norad]

That Super Stallion looks great! What makes the piece so heavy?
Are all of the vehicles in ATF large files?

Michael

[kbluck]

I'll probably ask Kbluck if I can borrow his Avenger Turret for the LAV-AD.

You can borrow it if you like, as with any of my work that I release publicly, but in this case I wouldn't recommend it because, frankly, it's not very good. It was my very first effort at working with a graphic piece and let's just say that it shows. Besides, it isn't very accurate in either shape or scale.

CH-53 weighs in at 10mb total

Is that in 256-color bitmap format? I don't see how it could be, given the image size. 256-color should give you a 24-tile bitmap less than 1.5mb for this image.

You might be able to save quite a bit on the rotor. I haven't tested this, but I was thinking that you don't need to do a "full 360" set of tiles for it. The CH-53 having a 6-blade rotor, there is a 60-degree interval between each blade. (Small quibble --- the rotor in your image is 45-45-90, not 60-60-60). Try producing just three tiles at 0, 20, and 40 degrees rotation. The next step would be 60, which looks identical to 0, so why repeat it? When rotating through the three tiles in the game, I think it will end up looking the same as if you had created the remaining 21 redundant tiles.

--- Kevin

[CPangracs]

Deltapooh,

Did you reduce the graphics for both the vehicle and rotor down to 8-bits? If not, then yeah, you will have a heavy file load.

[Deltapooh]

Is that in 256-color bitmap format? I don't see how it could be, given the image size. 256-color should give you a 24-tile bitmap less than 1.5mb for this image.

You might be able to save quite a bit on the rotor. I haven't tested this, but I was thinking that you don't need to do a "full 360" set of tiles for it. The CH-53 having a 6-blade rotor, there is a 60-degree interval between each blade. (Small quibble --- the rotor in your image is 45-45-90, not 60-60-60). Try producing just three tiles at 0, 20, and 40 degrees rotation. The next step would be 60, which looks identical to 0, so why repeat it? When rotating through the three tiles in the game, I think it will end up looking the same as if you had created the remaining 21 redundant tiles.

--- Kevin

I usually index the base image at 8 bit. That's why my base images are so small. It's the generated Tile Piece that is so heavy. I thought about it this morning, opened the tile piece in photoshop, and indexed the colors and cut 6.1mb down to 192kb.

All the stock pieces in ATF appear to be indexed. So far, I don't see a loss in performance for indexing the tile piece.

As for the rotor, your conclusion makes total sense (as usual). I'll try that out tonight.

[kbluck]

Since you use Photoshop, you might also try turning on RLE compression for the BMP. Since most of these images consist largely of nothing but pink transparency mask, it should substantially reduce the file size. I haven't tested this, though. If the game uses Windows API methods for loading the BMP, it shouldn't notice the difference. I have no idea whether it will reduce game memory requirements, but at least it should reduce file size.

--- Kevin

[Deltapooh]

Since you use Photoshop, you might also try turning on RLE compression for the BMP. Since most of these images consist largely of nothing but pink transparency mask, it should substantially reduce the file size. I haven't tested this, though. If the game uses Windows API methods for loading the BMP, it shouldn't notice the difference. I have no idea whether it will reduce game memory requirements, but at least it should reduce file size.

--- Kevin

You're right. I'm able to get real small file sizes with no loss in image quality.

Here's a T-64 that will appear in Village Attack v1.2 (might shorten the gun), and another scenario I'm working on. Kbluck gave me alot of helpful advice that should improve gameplay.

[kbluck]

Uh, oh. Nitpick alert!

The T-64 was produced solely for the Soviet army and never exported, not even to Warsaw Pact allies. The follow-on T-72, by contrast, was widely exported, but the Iraqis bought only a limited quantity and it was almost exclusively found in Republican Guard units.

Perhaps you're thinking of the T-62, which along with several variants of the T-55 were much in evidence in Iraqi "regular army" divisions?

--- Kevin

[Deltapooh]

Uh, oh. Nitpick alert!

The T-64 was produced solely for the Soviet army and never exported, not even to Warsaw Pact allies. The follow-on T-72, by contrast, was widely exported, but the Iraqis bought only a limited quantity and it was almost exclusively found in Republican Guard units.

Perhaps you're thinking of the T-62, which along with several variants of the T-55 were much in evidence in Iraqi "regular army" divisions?

--- Kevin

I only had a top-down pic of the T-64 at the time. I assumed that because the T-54 and T-55 appear almost identical, so would the T-62 and T-64. I now I have top-down pics of the T-62, and see there are a number of things I have to change. I'm designing the ZPU-4 now, and will go back for the T-62, as well as the T-55 when that's complete.

[Deltapooh]

This is an update of work complete (or sort of). I've created pieces for the T-55, T-62, and T-64. In addition, I've added the LAV-25 and LAV-AT, as well as the M-80 ICV. I need to readjust the T-64 turret position (too far forward). I also need to adjust the coloring of the M-80 turret to improve visibility. Minor changes. The pic doesn't represent all the vehicles I've created. There is also the ZPU-4, camo skins for the M270 MLRS, and an CH-46E, which is almost complete.

More updates will be posted in this thread.

:D