Hohoho,

Here is promised tool ArtGen for creating Art files which can be used in Arcanum

Screenshot:


Features:
-Automatic frames loading from folder by given filename format.
-Loading frames from image formats *.bmp, *.jpg, *.png.
-Support for both static and rotable art.
-Calculating of bounding rectangle.
-Transparent color support.
-Frame rate editing (FPS).
-Setting collision frame.
-Stage and frame editing.
-Frame preview.

How to create simple Art:
1) Start ArtGen
2) Go to "Stage Edit" box and click on "New" button, click on this stage with left mouse.
3) Go to "Frame Edit" box and click on "New" button, click on this frame with left mouse, then click on "Browse" button and select image, then click on "Load" button.
4) Go to "Generate" box and click on "Browse" button, click on "Start" button.

For what it is:
-Static type: Its most common Art which has frames rendered only from one cardinal direction, south, so its not possible to rotate this Art.

-Rotatable type: Its Art which has frames rendered from every (8) cardinal directions, so it critters, monsters, unique npc, but it can be also scenery and others.

-Apply bound rectangle: It filter which will delete all unneeded pixels from background, this filter is applied on every Art in Arcanum.

-Apply transparency: It will make selected color transparent, pick button will fill RGB with color of top left pixel.

-Frame rate: Its speed of animation, by default its zero, if you are creating some animation, you should set this on some nonzero value.

-Hit frame: Its frame index for animation where object collides with another object, for example critters when they attack with sword, its important to know which frame is frame that hits another NPC.

-Palette count: Number of palettes that will be saved into generated Art, every palette is same, and main purpose is to allow easily adding new palettes only by changing colors of already saved palettes.

Changelog:

Version 0.1:
-First version, bite me!

Download:

Version 0.1 - Windows:
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Please report any bugs here, any ideas and comments are welcomed

I finally found a few minutes to check this out today. (Really! busy weekend...)

First off - The conversion sequence took a little getting used to. On the third try I got it right and was rewarded with a usable piece of .art. I could easily get used to this.
This does indeed have real potential of being what the Arcanum modder has been needing all this time. Nice!

On the other hand, there are some things that are lacking which would really benefit the user.

1) Include the full operation instructions in a drop-down menu. You could always call it Help. (Truth in advertising)

2) Have the program remember the last path taken.
If you need to reset then you are faced with going back through the various branches to reach the target file - ie: For the first effort, your source file happens to be in C:\Documents and Settings\Default User\Games\ArcanumArt\NewArt\, that's fine - unless you mess up and need to reset, which means you make your way through that entire sequence of folders again.

3) Automatic display of the picture you are converting.
I wasn't able to get the BMP pic to show until I had successfully converted it to .art, then clicked the Apply button on the Utils area again. Perhaps I did something wrong but still got what I wanted?

I think I'll stop here for the time being. Hope this helps, because I'm really looking forward to a hassle-free way of adding quality artwork without needing a dozen different programs to do so.

Thank you, I really appreciate that you found some free time to test it and give back some feedback



I guess that GUI is not much user friendly, so its not easy to create Art file without reading "How to create a simple Art?" section above, I could fix that later



I'll see what I can do



Good idea, I'll add some help section, add some tool-tips or balloons, etc.



I'll add some config file, and also I'll force that browse dialogs to remember last browsed path, I knew about it and I was just lazy, I confess



When you create new frame, then you load image into it, and then you click on this frame in view, preview image should appear. I will check this, maybe I forgot to call to update it....



Thanks again, any feedback helps, I hope this tool will help you and others to create new Art for Arcanum faster and in more convenient way

OK - Being home sick for three days gave me plenty of opportunity to put ArtGen through its paces, and God Damn! am I glad you made this!

No more fighting with color loss due to conversion to 8-bit BMP? I'm not going to know what to do with myself.

Since I currently have no new requests or bugs to comment on, I'll just say Thank You! one more time.

I'm happy to help

ArtGen creates one palette from all images so color loss is minimal, but still depends on number of unique colors found in them...

These images can be of any format and depth, but they are converted into 32 bit ARGB format while loading, so I recommend saving your images into 32 bit png, so loading into ArtGen is faster and no need of pixel conversion, and then pixels are copied into octree color quantizer, where are colors reduced to 256 color palette, then this palette and color indices are fixed, because art palette must have first color transparent, and then Art is generated

See you, wish you get well soon...