Potrait help wanted. (Tools & such)

[-Mekii-]

Hi!

I were thinking on making a set of Company Manager Faces, but I've got a bit stuck, actually, I haven't
even got started. I've tried to find a tutorial for it by googling, though I just found for how to make trains
and buildings and such. I also made a forum search here, but no luck there either. Thought
keywords such as "faces", "potraits" and "custom potraits" would bring some luck.
So, would anyone know where I can find a tutorial for this cause I surely don't manage myself.

My second question would be...(I shouldn't even be asking this... I think) Is there any program
to extract sprites from OTTD?
I don't seem to find that either, at most I've found such that creates GRF's. I'm rather out of luck here too.
On the bright side, I got quite a bunch of tools for putting new grapich in.

Maybe it's cause of that it is nearly 4 am and I should have been in bed hours ago I don't have any luck.
I hope though someone can help me or give me some direction so I can get on it when I wake up.

Thanks in advance and G'nite!

Annie

[YukonRob]

Not sure if it will yield any results (I just tried) but make sure to spell it 'portrait'.
Also try the 'Useful Graphic Tools...' sticky in this forum.

[PikkaBird]

Hello,

The only tools you absolutely need are grfcodec, a text editor and a graphics program. grfcodec can both encode and decode grf files. I've a little tutorial on getting started here.

If you decode trg1r.pcx, you will find the original face graphics near the top. You'd need to make a newgrf using action A to replace those sprites.

[FooBar]

If you were to do a full set, would you be interested in having it included with OpenGFX?

I can tell you that we (read: OpenGFX developers) would be interested There's only two conditions: your work needs to be released under the GPL license and therefore you cannot reuse parts of other graphics (TTD graphics!) for which you don't have permission to release it under that very GPL license.

Let me know if you're interested and/or if you need more information about OpenGFX, either via this topic or via PM.
As for the coding part, I'm sure we can work something out, i.e. that you do the drawing and we do the coding for you if you find it too difficult to attempt yourself.

[-Mekii-]

Thanks for all the replies, very, very helpful.
Now I'll go straight to work... or well, I'll read the tutorial first, just in case.

FooBar, I plan to do a full set, and yes, I could use some help with the coding, it's one of
my weakest sides. I'm more into the art.
The conditions are all agree able, I don't plan to use any original TTD graphic in my potrait set.
So, when it all is done, I could have it included with OpenGFX.

[Roujin]

You should know that the european (er, or how to say politically correct? light skin?) faces already have a complete replacement in the OpenGFX set, only the african (sorry if I'm not politically correct) faces don't have any replacement yet.

So you may want to start with the african faces first, so you don't do any double work. But if you plan to make a complete replacement for both types of faces, maybe the maintainers of OpenGFX will be willing to use your european faces instead of the ones they already have right now (for consistency).

[planetmaker]

You should know that the european (er, or how to say politically correct? light skin?) faces already have a complete replacement in the OpenGFX set, only the african (sorry if I'm not politically correct) faces don't have any replacement yet.

Indeed that would most helpful and welcome and it would bring OpenGFX quite a step further up to getting finished - and thus also to the possibility to ship a fully functional OpenTTD with all required files to run

[-Mekii-]

Roujin, oooh, good info there.Didn't think on that myself.
But, hmm, I'd need a sample of the european face(es) so I can adjust my style after that since
my planned style on the set might be different. Well, that if I am only to do do the african faces
for OpenGFX.

[Roujin]

I think whatever you do, it will be quite different from the european faces, because those were converted from 32bpp graphics done by Ben Robbins for the 32bpp project. They are looking more realistic-ish than usual graphics.
Unless you plan to do it similar to that (creating in 32bpp, than converting to 8bpp), I think it will be hard to archieve graphics in this style.
Here's an image with some of the faces: http://wiki.openttd.org/Image:New_cm_faces.png (That's still in 32bpp, converted to 8bpp they will still look like this in general, only lose some color variation probably)

If you still want to make them similar to the european ones, you could try to contact Ben Robbins, maybe he can help you in one way or another (e.g. tell you how exactly he made them, maybe give you sources?)
If that's completely not your style, that's why I said the thing about consistency. If your drawing is good and you do both the european and the african faces, I think the OpenGFX guys may prefer yours over the already done european faces, because it's more consistent then.
But in any case I'd start with the african ones if I were you for said reasons

[FooBar]

If your drawing is good and you do both the european and the african faces, I think the OpenGFX guys may prefer yours over the already done european faces, because it's more consistent then.

Yes we do indeed. Otherwise I wouldn't have asked in the first place

For refecence: http://mz.openttdcoop.org/opengfx/newgrf.php?1=805:989
That page shows all sprites. From left to right: OpenGFX, TTD and 32bpp.

[Ammler]

As you can see, the drawer for the OpenGFX project did a really nice job, by making every sprite exactly the same size and positioning the part already on the right place. This way, the coder can use the same offsets for every sprite and adjusting is peanuts.

I would highly recommend you use the same approach.

Greets
Ammler

[-Mekii-]

Roujin@ Ah, looks simular to something I did for RMXP (RPG Maker XP), though it were a while since.
So, I should try my way through getting a nice, fitting african skin tone first of all then.
I love to draw and last night I came up with idea for to make different styles sets. So, I could
make a few sets and also the african faces for Bens set and OpenGFX can select any of 'em for to use.

FooBar@ A nice little list there, good ref material!

Ammler, Indeed, I'll use same approach, the less messy the better.

[Zephyris]

This way, the coder can use the same offsets for every sprite and adjusting is peanuts.

When you both code and draw you quickly learn that that is by far the easiest way to do things!

But on topic... Great! I would love to see what you can come up with, be warned that it can get fiddly with the requirements for interchangeable face and body parts!