Quick Question in Developer Help

ID:179975
 
Sep 26 2001, 5:11 pm
Alright, I read up on all the docs I could about DM's icon format, but it didn't really answer my question to satisfaction. 'Course, I'm stubborn and won't take no for an answere unless I absolutely have to =P

Any way

Is there a way to make an image in, say, paintshop pro, and save it in a format that will work with DM?

Or, to clarify what I read in the FAQ, can you make an image with all the bells and whistles of DPI, etc, and copy/paste it into the .dmi files?

The reason I ask is that I suck at computer graphics. I can code it, I can debug it, I can fix it, and just about everything else you can think of on a computer, but I can't draw worth crap using a mouse. So I'm having a friend make the icons for me and she uses Paint Shop Pro. PSP can make multi-state images, just like the .dmi format. Is it possible to save a PSP multi-image pic and use it in DM?

I'm not sure if I posed the question(s) as clearly as I might want to, but if you can make sense of it and respond, thanks in advance =)
#1 Sep 26 2001, 5:15 pm
You can't save directly to a BYOND-usable format (except BMP) from Paint Shop Pro. You can, however, make all of yor icons in PSP, then copy and paste them into DM. Its really easy.. I do nearly all of my editing that way.

[Edit:] Also, you'll only be able to copy one state at a time, and no animations. But thats more of an annoyance than a limitation.. you can always copy each frame.

-AbyssDragon
#2 Sep 26 2001, 5:28 pm
In response to AbyssDragon (#1)
Hm, ok. Thanks =)

What she and I came up with is she'll save each image to a .bmp and send it to me, and I'll open it up and copy/paste it where I want it.

The real pain of this is that we're on two different computers (in case you couldn't tell from the above statement)
#3 Sep 28 2001, 6:55 am
In response to sapphiremagus (#2)
What she and I came up with is she'll save each image to a .bmp and send it to me, and I'll open it up and copy/paste it where I want it.

At one time there was an "import bitmap" option in the menus--this may be easier than copying and pasting for you, or it might not. Just figured I'd mention it.

Also keep in mind that the icon editor can only hold up to 255 colors in a given icon file. So if you bring in an icon with 254 shades of blue, you're going to need a separate icon for 233 shades of red.