Zephyris' Blender to Gimp to 2CC sprites workflow tools

[Zephyris]

I have made a fair few complex vehicles in my time, and this is the workflow I use to make this a pain free process, from blender 3D model to an 8bpp sprite.

Blender
1. Model the vehicle, make sure it fits in the view of the camera
2. Render the 8 views with Ctrl+F12 (puts the images in C:\tmp)

GIMP
1. Image>Mode>Indexed (Convert to 2CC or 1CC conversion palette)
2. Image>Mode>RGB
3. Image>Mode>Indexed (Convert to TTD palette)
4. Fill Background with transparent blue

See attached for the blender template and gimp palette files.

[lawton27]

You can convert images straight to ttd pallate without drawing over them in gimp?
If I get gimp where do I download the ttd palate for it?

[FooBar]

The palette is included in Zephyris' zip file

[lawton27]

It's rather tricky getting the conversion right I think I'll stick to drawing in the palate for now, after allot of fiddling this looks ok but I doubt I'll do other angles unless it's really liked by someone, there's already plenty of streamliner sprites out there.

[FooBar]

I think it's a bit small compared to regular TTD engines

[lawton27]

I think it's a bit small compared to regular TTD engines

I agree, I was just tesing out a new style which makes use of the conversion to ttd palate technique I just learnt, I'll find a use for it somewhere

[Zephyris]

If you find renders are too dark (that one looks like it might be) try turning up the ambient occlusion and sun lamp power a little. You can also tweak the company colour brightness by adjusting the colourband for that material (see attached).

[lead@inbox]

Zephyris, please explain it - what is this

44.png (8.03 KiB) Viewed 3017 times

[andythenorth]

It's rather tricky getting the conversion right I think I'll stick to drawing in the palate for now

The blender thing is a winner for ship and aeroplane hulls. For most vehicles / most buildings, pixels win

[Zephyris]

Zephyris, please explain it - what is this

That is the node setup used to allow anti-aliasing of internal details but prevent anti-aliasing of the edges of the objects. It acts to increase the "contrast" of the alpha channel so make what would otherwise be a smooth edge a sharp one.

[lead@inbox]

ok, now i see. You posted the very nice template

[lead@inbox]

Zephyris, please add materials that match this palette to your template (with ramps like for CC). i have some difficulties with this

playercolours.png (3.28 KiB) Viewed 2740 times

AdjustColourband.png (12.53 KiB) Viewed 2745 times

[Zephyris]

Why do you need that? To preview the company colours in blender? I can do it but its quite fiddly and time consuming...

[lead@inbox]

as i understand - colors in render would be the same as in "show col ramps"?

[Zephyris]

Yup, exactly that. Each point on that colourband is one of the company colours so it precisely defines how the material appears when rendered.

The colourband works by overriding how a material would normally get shaded. If you created a simple blue texture then the highlights would be white, not light blue, and the shadows would be black, not dark blue. This changes it so the colourband takes the result of the shader and then instead of using the normal calculations, phong/fresnel/etc., uses this custom company-colour shading.

As a side note IIRC the GLSL shader can use the colourband for realtime display, try <shift>+z in the 3D view if you have a modern graphics card.

*edit* and here is the blender wiki page on it for further reading
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:M ... ties/Ramps