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Author Topic:   Tutorial - removing shadows from BGII animations
badasswerewolf
Knight

Posts: 70
From: Minneapolis, MN. USA
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 26 January 2002 11:40     Click Here to See the Profile for badasswerewolf   Click Here to Email badasswerewolf        Reply w/Quote   Visit badasswerewolf's Homepage!
First, get a copy of Gamani GIF MovieGear. www.gamani.com It has a free trial of 30 days.

There may be a way to do this in another editor but you're on your own (sorry Mac users). Look at the steps and it might give you some hints.

For the sexy people who use MovieGear:

Step 0. Make sure that your animation file is prepared properly. That is: make sure that the images are centered and not cut-off. Also, its best to make the background color fill the entire animation window rather than be different sizes in various frames. you can do this in MovieGear with the "Unoptimize" command in the "Animation" pull-down.

Now, here's how to remove that annoying shadow...

1. Open the animation file, select the "Animation" drop-down, and select "Properties".

2. Select the "Global Frame" tab and put a check in the "Transparent" box if one isn't already there. Then click the "Edit" box next to it. The "editor" will pop open automatically if the "Transparent" box wasn't initially selected.

3. Hover the eye-dropper cursor over the GIF image on the right and click somewhere on the background. This will turn the background transparent immediately.

4. Now, select the +eyedropper icon on the lower left of the image window. The fly-over help will identify this as "Add Transparent Color". Position this new cursor over the shadow and click it. Viola! It's now gone. Click Okay.

5. Now, here's the really cool part. Go back to the "Global Frame" tab and "Unselect" the "Transparent" box (remove the check mark). What this does is it maps the color index of the shadow and that of the background into "one".

6. Confirm that this happened by switching to the "Animation" tab and selecting "Edit Global Palette". Hover the eye-dropper cursor over the image and you should see that both the background and the region where the shadow used to be are now the exact same color index. Confirm that the value of this color is RGB 170,170,170 (opaque). This is AAAAAA in hex, which the Diablo palette handler will assign transparent in the game. Both the background and the shadow will be invisible. Note that some folks may want to actually keep the shadow and assign RGB 0,0,0 (black) to it. To each his own.

This technique might also be applied as a quick way to eliminate white edges on a size reduced GIF - hint hint KingCold You can assign multiple colors to be transparent temporarily and when you uncheck "transparency" they will all be mapped to one color. So you can blend with the background if you want to make the white edges disappear! Sometimes, unfortunately, the light color at the edges might also be in the image itself (eyes, for example), so some additional manipulation might be required.

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Last night I had a spicy latina for dinner.

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Apocalypse Demon
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From: Mississauga, Ontario
Registered: Oct 2001

posted 26 January 2002 12:13     Click Here to See the Profile for Apocalypse Demon   Click Here to Email Apocalypse Demon        Reply w/Quote   
Yeah, thanks for the tutorial(same one you sent me). Now, I have to reupdate all my conversions with edited shadows, then I"ll send them to you.

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God gave me a brain to use but I miserably failed to use it to my advantage

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The-Squirrel
Squire

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From:
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 26 January 2002 12:36     Click Here to See the Profile for The-Squirrel        Reply w/Quote   
where can i d/l BG2 grphics from ?? (i dont have it...)

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The Squirrel ...

[This message has been edited by The-Squirrel (edited 26 January 2002).]

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Apocalypse Demon
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From: Mississauga, Ontario
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posted 26 January 2002 13:00     Click Here to See the Profile for Apocalypse Demon   Click Here to Email Apocalypse Demon        Reply w/Quote   
I doubt you can download BAM files anywhere really. You will either need the game or someone has to send you the files.

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God gave me a brain to use but I miserably failed to use it to my advantage

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Krazoth
WarLord

Posts: 161
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Registered: Jun 2001

posted 26 January 2002 14:49     Click Here to See the Profile for Krazoth   Click Here to Email Krazoth        Reply w/Quote   
Cheers to Badasswerewolf. This solves many of my problems, not i just need to figure out how to use MovieGear to center my new animations.

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"I have a plan so clever you could stick a tail on it and call it a weasel!"

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Apocalypse Demon
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posted 26 January 2002 15:26     Click Here to See the Profile for Apocalypse Demon   Click Here to Email Apocalypse Demon        Reply w/Quote   
For centering, just adjust the offsets...but it takes some adjusting(unless there is a better way to do it?)

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God gave me a brain to use but I miserably failed to use it to my advantage

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badasswerewolf
Knight

Posts: 70
From: Minneapolis, MN. USA
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 26 January 2002 16:53     Click Here to See the Profile for badasswerewolf   Click Here to Email badasswerewolf        Reply w/Quote   Visit badasswerewolf's Homepage!
For centering, do this:

1. Look at all the clips (camera angles) of a given action such as "Attack1" and find the one with the biggest width (X dimension) and the one with the biggest height (Y dimension). Often, these are not the same clip. Write these dimensions down.

2. Open an image editor. PaintShop Pro works and its cheap. Now create a new image that has dimensions of X width by Y height based on what you wrote down in step 1.

3. Fill this image with background color RGB 170,170,170. Save it as a GIF. The program will color reduce it to 256 colors (because it is GIF format).

4. Switch to MovieGear. Open the 1st clip and check its size (width = X, height = Y). Write it down. Also, check how many frames are in the clip. Write this down too.

5. Now, open your single-frame GIF image that you created in step 3. Right-click on it and select "Animation Properties". Select the "Animation" tab. Click on "Edit Global Palette". For some reason the background color always get changed to RGB 173,173,173. So, just edit it back to 170,170,170 and click "okay".

6. Select the "Global Frame" tab. Uncheck the "Transparent" box if it's checked (it shouldn't be). Then, go to the bottom radio box and select "Background Color" before drawing next image. And, click okay.

7. Now, right click on the image and select "Copy", Unselect it, position your cursor somewhere off to the side of it and right click again and select "Paste Frame". Note that you can use +Shift or +Cntrl to select multiple frames to speed up the process. Add frames to match the number you wrote down in step 4. Save the file as "background.gif". You will be using it to blend with all the clips, separately.

8. Now, select the "File" dropdown and select "Blend with". In the window that opens, select the 1st clip from step 4. in the window that appears you will now need to enter some offsets. Make sure that "Pair frames one-to-one" is selected.

9. For X-offset enter: (XM - X1)/2, where XM = the X dimension of the "background animation" from step 7 and X1 = the X dimension of the 1st clip that you wrote down in step 4. Round up or truncate to get a whole number, it doesn't matter. I prefer to round up.

10. Repeat step 9 for the Y-offset using the Y dimensions.

11. Click Okay. The clip should now be centered in the new animation window that started as simply a blank "background animation".

12. Repeat this whole process for each clip (each camera angle), starting with a fresh blank background from step 7.

13. Now, you can combine the centered clips together into one big animation using the camera angle order (left-down, left-up, right-up, right-down, down, left, up, right). Simply open the first clip and then select the "Insert Frames" command from the "File" dropdown. Select all the clips in the right order and they will all get appended at the same time.

14. Last, you can remove the shadow as already described.

Cheers

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Last night I had a spicy latina for dinner.

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Apocalypse Demon
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From: Mississauga, Ontario
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posted 26 January 2002 17:20     Click Here to See the Profile for Apocalypse Demon   Click Here to Email Apocalypse Demon        Reply w/Quote   
Does it HAVE to be cenetered though? Mine isn't and it works fine, I just adjusted slightly the offsets to get them as close to the center as possible.

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God gave me a brain to use but I miserably failed to use it to my advantage

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Alkalund
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Posts: 964
From: Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 26 January 2002 17:27     Click Here to See the Profile for Alkalund   Click Here to Email Alkalund        Reply w/Quote   
Yeah, I don't think they have to be centered, mine works fine too.

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Alkalund

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badasswerewolf
Knight

Posts: 70
From: Minneapolis, MN. USA
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 26 January 2002 18:10     Click Here to See the Profile for badasswerewolf   Click Here to Email badasswerewolf        Reply w/Quote   Visit badasswerewolf's Homepage!
Ahhh, C'mon Apoc... I thought you were Mr. Perfectionist?

Of course they don't HAVE to be centered. Eyeballing it certainly saves time. To each his own.

I still haven't got your files yet. How's it going?

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Last night I had a spicy latina for dinner.

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Apocalypse Demon
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posted 26 January 2002 18:30     Click Here to See the Profile for Apocalypse Demon   Click Here to Email Apocalypse Demon        Reply w/Quote   
Oh yeah, forgot the files. I'll send them over NOW.

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God gave me a brain to use but I miserably failed to use it to my advantage

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Apocalypse Demon
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Posts: 4023
From: Mississauga, Ontario
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posted 26 January 2002 18:53     Click Here to See the Profile for Apocalypse Demon   Click Here to Email Apocalypse Demon        Reply w/Quote   
Ok, files sent.

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God gave me a brain to use but I miserably failed to use it to my advantage

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Krazoth
WarLord

Posts: 161
From:
Registered: Jun 2001

posted 26 January 2002 20:05     Click Here to See the Profile for Krazoth   Click Here to Email Krazoth        Reply w/Quote   
Thats the thing, I was using Animation shop to center them and it worked great, only snag, my trial ran out and i dont feel like paying for the full version, call me cheap. If need be I can fix all the offsets, Ive got everything down that i need to know and should be pumping out monsters. By the By, Yes, the Water Elemental is from BG2, the snake looking one. Also, does Planescape use BAMs? I dont have it atm but should be getting it back soon.

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"I have a plan so clever you could stick a tail on it and call it a weasel!"

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Apocalypse Demon
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Posts: 4023
From: Mississauga, Ontario
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posted 26 January 2002 20:16     Click Here to See the Profile for Apocalypse Demon   Click Here to Email Apocalypse Demon        Reply w/Quote   
What snake looking one? Are you referring to the water snake with tridents(salamanders?), if so they are already done by me.

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God gave me a brain to use but I miserably failed to use it to my advantage

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Krazoth
WarLord

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posted 26 January 2002 20:18     Click Here to See the Profile for Krazoth   Click Here to Email Krazoth        Reply w/Quote   
No, Ill send you a copy of the one im doing, that should clear this all up.

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"I have a plan so clever you could stick a tail on it and call it a weasel!"

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Apocalypse Demon
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Posts: 4023
From: Mississauga, Ontario
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posted 26 January 2002 20:45     Click Here to See the Profile for Apocalypse Demon   Click Here to Email Apocalypse Demon        Reply w/Quote   
Ok, I got your file and it looks fine. Just need to put the AAAAAA background layer with a length and width equal or higher than the highest X or Y offset of the animation.

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God gave me a brain to use but I miserably failed to use it to my advantage

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Krazoth
WarLord

Posts: 161
From:
Registered: Jun 2001

posted 26 January 2002 20:49     Click Here to See the Profile for Krazoth   Click Here to Email Krazoth        Reply w/Quote   
Yep, with help from Badasswerewolf and yourself I finally figured out how to do it, Im fixing all my Cornugon files just for the xperience and will finish up the Water Elementals next. After that, Im gonna tackle the Big Man Belhiefet

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"I have a plan so clever you could stick a tail on it and call it a weasel!"

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mandzo
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Posts: 658
From: Bulgaria,Sofia
Registered: Aug 2001

posted 26 January 2002 22:44     Click Here to See the Profile for mandzo   Click Here to Email mandzo        Reply w/Quote   Visit mandzo's Homepage!
well that was the way i used to remove the shadows from my d1 converison and from some bg2 monsters i posted this methon ages ago but nobody paid any attention to it

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Read or DIE
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Legends Of The Ancients

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