Graphics Modding Questions

hexer said:
Can you post the FRM somewhere? I want to try my method with your FRM
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What FRM do you mean? Like I said, I use the AP numbers and UI "box" FRMs and then edit them; I mean, I could send you the gif of what I've edited, but I'm guessing that's not what you mean.

Anyway, I still seem not to have made clear what the problem is, so here goes again. For some reason, the brightest color in my pcx UI image is turned into black pixels. As you can see, in the below example I've converted the entire MVENUM.frm into pcx using the method described above (and you can also see how pcx doesn't accept transparency). Because there's now a brighter yellow in other numbers, the black pixel in the "1" has dissappeared.

scr00005.bmp


To make it more clear, if I add an even brighter color yellow, which I've done here in the bottom of the "1", all the previous black pixels dissappear because they're no longer the brightest.

scr00006.bmp


It's totally weirding me out.
 
I actually have no idea how I got around this. Could be possible that I simply added some darker pixels at that position, to make it less obvious. But I really don't remember. Haven't touched this in years.

/Edit: I probably saved them in low-ass colors, not using the Fallout palette for it.
 
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JimTheDinosaur said:
Holy crap, it works! Thanks so much, I was already starting to slowly go insane! How did you do it?
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The same way I always convert from FRM to any other format. I tried out a lot of programs/methods and this one works the best for me.

1) First I opened the FRM with Frame Animator. When prompted to use Default.act palette select Yes.
2) Now the FRM is opened as it appears in the game. Press Print Screen on your keyboard to take a screenshot.
3) Start Photoshop or some other image editor. Paste the screenshot into it.
4) Cut out/crop the art from the screenshot and set the background to Blue. Do any modifications you plan on doing.
5) Now it's time to save the art into PCX. Reduce the art's colors to Fallout palette. (Image->Mode->Indexed Color in PS). If the Fallout palette isn't already loaded (in the popup) go to Palette->Custom->Load->Default.act from Frame Animator's directory. Play around with Diffusion settings to match Fallout's style 60-75% works good. Press OK.
6) Save it into PCX format.
 
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Hilarious thing is that I got my own method to work as well just by using save as pcx with photoshop instead of that converter I was using. I was absolutely convinced I had to use that converter based on some thread I read here; turns out that was screwing it up all along. Thanks again, hexer!
 
Excellent! Although many FRM viewers/converters claim they display or convert FRMs correctly that is not actually true.
It seems there are only a few methods that work for us.

I always wondered why early modders wrote a dozen of different FRM viewers when they could have made a Photoshop plugin.
 
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