Hello ;)

Before I write anything more - sorry for my English skills :P

Ok, so here we go. Some time ago I drew few buildings on a piece of paper in my free time at work thinking about Settlers and Settlers
like series. Than I started to think about creating some new buildings for Settlers RttR as Babylonians were done. If I were to do it I
would like to know how to start it right. Unfortunately, I'm not a proffesional artist or a programmer. I can use graphic programs and
I know how to make those 2D things work and look good but I feel that I lack the knowledge about how to do this for Settlers RttR
particulary. Are there any restrictions (like colours, sizes? etc.) recommendations or other things I should know about before even
starting?

PS. Best Regards from Poland! :)

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As far as i know,there are no limitations you should worry about.
Still there are some points you should always keep in mind:
32bit or s2 palette?
Babylonians also use the original palette because I wanted to make sure they fit better in the world (known colors) also it is
possible to pack them into .lst files (as the original)

Which "abilitys" does the original,referring building have?
Such as smoke,working animation!, flags etc.

Where is the entrance?
Something I learned the hard way when creating the Babylonians - if the door for settlers is out of position you have to adjust
the building position which could look really bad (shadows on roads,buildings on top of building sites etc.)

Sizes?
As far as I remember 100x100 small,150x150 medium,200x200 big - you always should check the referring original building
size.

Angles?
Normal is 2 left,3 right. Merri also showed me that there are buildings using 2 left,0 right, 3left,2right etc.

Time?
Do you really want to put so much effort in such a project(not regarding I may adapt it if you'd abandon it). I'm working on the
Babylonians nearly 4 years - still not finished (oh hey,don't you want to help me?:p)

I guess that's enough for starting - if you have further question,use our Irc channel,Skype,pm

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1. S2 palette means 16bit? (256 Colours?)
2. What about winter - separate 2d models? Or should I work on palette with only those colours?
http://settlers2.net/2012/09/safe-building-palette/
3. Can the ability be added to the building from other sources than standard ones? For example animation of the tree?
4. How can I position door in the right way?
5. Just to be sure - size 100x100 pixels?
6. Why africans are still white even though their soldiers are black?! xD
7. Angles - I don't get it. I mean... what angles?
8. Time - I don't know yet. It depends.
9. Sure I can help. But I'm afraid I'm a total newb and need to learn a lot.

OK, here is first concept. I've spent few hours creating it today. Tell me if there is any sense getting involved.

"Celtic Forester" made only with pieces of graphic which already existed in game.

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1. Actually graphics for RTTR may use 32 bit graphics (PNG), but sticking to the original palette (the one you linked) means you'll get the same look-and-feel more easily.

2. Winter models are indeed seperate images, usually you can take the summer model and add snow/modify it a little.

3. Not sure what you mean by that. "Abilities" aka animations are seperate graphics, and thus need one image for every step.

4. Easiest way imo is using a screenshot of the game containing a piece of road, and aligning your building and door to that. Door positioning as well as building positioning can be corrected afterwards if its not too far off.

5. I'm pretty sure there isnt a fixed size, its probably the same as 4 - grab a screenshot and keep working from there. Just keep in mind the bigger the building the more carefully it has to be positioned, although some obstruction may not be preventable - then again thats also the case for some of the original graphics (viking fortress would be an example)

6. Nobody got around to change the huge number of frames. I experimented with a palette switch (i think somebody else tried that as well), which yielded decent results, but i never got around to release that.

7. Angles means what direction the walls of your buildings have to face in order to graphically fit into the game.

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First of all - this building looks really cool!
1) As quixui already said and as I mentioned, RttR could use 32bit graphics - but I still
recommend using the original palette. The palette you linked is a palette with NON changing
colors. Means those colors are the same for greenland, winter, wasteland. I'm using the
pal5.bbm (also pal5.act) because those colors (should be) are changed by changing the palette
for those maps.

2) I guess quixui told everything, don't forget to change the door graphics ;)

3) Guess he is referring to my post - Some buildings have special "abilities" like smoke,
waving flags etc. I don't think that new "abilities" should be added (such as your moving
tree) because that would need some nasty stuff in the source code I guess and wouldn't look
like the original. Just remember the viking HQ, there are trees but they are also not moving.

4) If you want to change the ingame position (while testing) you have to change the
nx[number].ny[number], those numbers indicate where the offset is, means changing those also
changes the building position. I always used the original door positions, made my own door
graphic, used those nx and ny and aligned my building to this spot (you may use the
"nullpunktfinal" by dpunkt) for faster positioning).

Maybe this shows a problem which may appears (sorry for bad paint skills):

If your woodcutter was at the same position (regarding door position) as the babylonian
woodcoutter, the upper roads and road on the left would look... strange.
You would have to lower the y position of the building and move it to the right - which
results in a really short way in front of that building (entering and leaving would look
strange) also while building the builder may walk "inside" the building scaffolding.

5) As quixui said, I guess it's the best way to check the original building sizes for that
type and also to keep in mind what building you are working on - should a forester really be
as large as the mint? In my opinion not.

6) (something around 3500 per nation I guess)

7) See Graphic:
1st: Normal style 2l, 3r (I always recommend using this style)
2nd: very uncommon style 2l, 3r
3rd: very uncommon style 0l, 0r
4th: very uncommon style 2l, 0r
5th: very uncommon style 3l, 2r


8) -

9) would be glad to have someone helping me, if you are really interested, just PM me and I
will explain everything I know ;)


Hopefully I didn't write anything wrong and could help you or add some interesting things to
quixuis post ;)

Edit: Sadly I have to inform you, that your building is not 100% matching the pal5.bbm which
may leads to problems while packing it to .lst files

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Wow, thanks for the answers! So now... I'll try to contact you directly ;)

EDIT:

Again, thank you for your comprehensive answers! :D

Ad.3. Indeed Sir, I was referring to your post. Information acknowledged.

Ad.4. Yes, I think I understand the problem. Now the roads are "hidden" behind it or, at least, are just along the walls. It could look better.

Ad.5. Yes, you are right, Forester should be a little bit smaller. But for my defense I have to say that I've checked width and height of all extracted (from game) images of foresters and took the biggest values just so I wouldn't be limited so much. I thought that It shouldn't make a difference but with that door positioning and general fitting into the game it certainly IS a problem.

Ad.6. Ok, IC... Maybe in some far future though... xD

Ad.7. But can't I create building like that one above, where my intention was to create rounded house?

Ad.10. It shouldn't be a problem since I can apply certain palette to already existing texture and make few tweaks afterwards if needed.

Thank you in advance for any answers! :)

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5) sorry,my fault - I just said forester because I was sure,that your building is a woodcutter,I don't know why. So please
forgive me,I was not referring to your building ;)

7) sure you can - just remember the Nubian forester or the catapult - if you want to create a nation with "round"
foundations,no problem .

10) you may show me how to do so since I'm using paint / paint alike programs :D

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I wrote PM to you.

We'll see what we can do ;)

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I've already learned few things thanks to Spike! ;) He opened my eyes on few issues in creating something new. I decided to start with
the hardest task and tried to create new unit. Please write what do you think about it and what would you eventually
change/repair/fix/erase? I wanted to have it polished so I wouldn't have to go back to it when I'll start creating animations for other
directions. Oh, right, and since I thought about even starting it, how big are the chances (regarding design and final looks of
graphics) that my work would become a part of RttR? I wanted to create some kind of tribute to SettlersII and that project as well as
any help with Babylonians or other graphics would fit it perfectly.

Thank you for any of your answers! :)

Oh, and my first animation of course ;)

PS. This is only the begining! :D

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It is so beautiful! It's for the Vikings?

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Actually not, as I've mentioned I thought about Celts ;)

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Hi there!

Just a simple question. There has been a time when I was testing these graphics in S2RTTR and as far as I remember I had to put
properly named (in order to replace them) .bmp files into Settlers II/RTTR/LSTS directory. Has something changed over the time or am I
just mistaken? It doesn't work for me anymore.

Could you please let me know?

Best regards,
Arivald

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I hope not - can't test it right now but the correct path is rttr/lsts/game but - I'm going to try this at home

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Of course I was testing Settlers II/RTTR/LSTS/GAME directory.
Please let me know if it works fine for you :)

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Okay, used the latest nightly build.
Unpacked charburner.lst
renamed the original charburner.lst
renamed the new folder to charburner.lst
changed an icon
started the game
changed icon is shown (just as expected)

-> should still work

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The problem is, you have to specify the LST-file in which you want to replace a bitmap:

the override bitmaps have to go into:

Settlers II/RTTR/LSTS/GAME/$lstfiletoreplace/

i.e

Settlers II/RTTR/LSTS/GAME/JOBS.BOB/

for the soldier images to replace JOBS.BOB image files

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mfg
Flo

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You are right :)
I put it under GAME/JOBS.BOB
Worked perfectly fine, sorry to bother ;)

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Hey there! Just let me know what do you think please.

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For me... it's just a small white square :D

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I was able to see it just fine. I changed the host, maybe now?
If you can see the picture - do you want to get more of these? :)

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Looking great :)

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Hey Arivald,
really looking great. Are you working on sth? Are you expanding your celtic culture? ;)
Keep it up

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Yes I am expanding Celts for now. I have many ideas and have clear vision but we will see if I have enough time and patience for them.

Tell me what do you think about general animations (almost final - still need some small changes/tweaks):



I hope you like it.

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Good work, really! =)

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Looking quite great!

Just some minor ideas:
https://picload.org/image/roiaoari/animation-general-all.png

In the red circled area, there is a "straight" line for about 4 frames each animation, (like the upper right). I think by just shifting
colors a bit in each frame (not changing pixel position) you may get a better result as it would look like a moving object.

In the green circled area, the cape isn't following arm movement - but in the other 4 directions, the cape does.

So those are just minor ideas I've got at the moment.

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Red circled area: I tried my best at creating this but the results were bad/not good enough. Here I have only 3 colours for the cape.
Really hard to achieve any improvement. This is most optimal for me. I can share bmp files so you can try to test this yourself. Also,
in my opinion, this straight line does not look so bad if you watch it in the game (more importantly: now we look at 300% zoom - it
will be much smaller ingame. But I know what you mean. I had the same problem with the "tail" part of the helm.

I like to think this cape is like a "real skin/fur" and it is way more "heavy" than other capes which are already in game ;)

Green circled area: I am not sure if I understood correctly. Main idea was that an arm actually "pushes" the cape "back and up". Cape
should not follow an arm while an arm is moving "forward" (just a little so it can rest on the top side of an arm). Take also into the
consideration that green circled area refers only to "right down" and "left down" positions. We look at soldier from different
angle/direction. It is hard to achieve anything new and "realistic" with this kind of limited pixel pool (and colours) so also think
about this fact :) I am still not sure if I understood what you meant though. If you could clarify please let me know ;)

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they look awesome! Great job! Keep going :)

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wow sweet, keep going

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Does this also work with the Settler 2 Gold Edition of GoG (good old games)?

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I belive your question referes to RTTR - to be honest, I don't know. And as far as for the Celts, it would be great to see them in
game someday.

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I will continue in here with Celts: LINK

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