[H3WOG] Palette problem

The old Heroes games developed by New World Computing. Please specify which game you are referring to in your post.
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GreatEmerald
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[H3WOG] Palette problem

Unread postby GreatEmerald » 03 Aug 2010, 12:52

I'm trying to return the WoG LOD files back to what they were in the original HOMM3 (so you would see the original attack, defence etc. icons), and there's a problem with the palettes of the resource bar. I'm using MMArchive to extract it, but as all other LOD extraction tools it outputs a BMP instead of a PCX, which means that I have to convert it back to PCX with Photoshop. Usually it works fine, but the resource bar doesn't want to be masked correctly. This is how it looks with default palette:
Image

If I try to paint the whole thing with, say, the first colour of the palette, I get the whole bar light red. However, it seems that it should replace the light blue, which is at the end of the palette! This is the palette that Photoshop gives me:
Image

The two last colours seem to be the ones that get replaced, as well as the first few. Any suggestions on how to rebuild the palette so my extracted ZRESBAR.PCX would get masked correctly?

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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 03 Aug 2010, 17:02

Also, is there a way to make the game use the .DEF files in the Data folder instead of those packed in, like the PCX files?

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Unread postby ByteBandit » 03 Aug 2010, 17:12

Do not convert your files to pcx. Leave them as bmp and upload the bmp using MMArchive into bitmap.lod and they automatically turn into pcx. I know, I had the same problem. But it works.

To pack DEFs, simply take a .wog file, convert it to rar. Then you can extract what you want from there.

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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 03 Aug 2010, 17:34

Oh, I see. Too bad that you can't override them without changing the LOD files themselves... Ah well, I guess I'll just back it up.

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Unread postby ByteBandit » 03 Aug 2010, 17:39

I think DEFka backs up both lod files so that you can use the originals again.

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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 03 Aug 2010, 20:38

One more thing: where do you put sound files so H3WOG would find them? I'm trying to reintegrate the LODs on my CD to the LODs on my hard drive, and they don't seem to be recognised when I put them into Heroes3.snd. Videos can be reintegrated just fine this way, though. Also, if I run Heroes3.exe instead of H3WOG.exe, it plays the sound files just fine.

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Unread postby ByteBandit » 03 Aug 2010, 21:21

I've never dealt with something like that. Is it possible they could be recognized in just the h3/data folder? I see that a lot of the Mods offered by many of the developers have placed .wav files in just the H3/data folder. It's all I can think of for now.

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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 03 Aug 2010, 21:36

Nope, I have it in my Data folder and it doesn't work. Like I've said, only H3WOG is affected, which is very strange. I think that it might have to do with the way WOG handles the CD. It's possible that they removed the support and nobody ever noticed; and you wouldn't want to use WoG for playing campaigns anyway, since you can no longer access the SoD campaigns and the campaigns were never intended to run with WoG enhancements anyway...

And yay, I'm finished, now I have WoG which looks, sounds and animates exactly like vanilla HoMM3 Complete! With that one exception, where campaign texts have lost their voice acting. And now by using Heroes3.exe, I no longer need the CD, too.

Makes me wonder, though, is there a way to add more backgrounds to the New Game screen? Adding the phoenix from Armageddon's Blade would be nice.

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Unread postby ByteBandit » 03 Aug 2010, 22:02

Extract your Phoenix from bitmaplod, rename it the same as the WoG one is, replace, and there you go. You can replace any pcx/bmp you want. It's just too easy anymore. :)

Same with the opening WoG music. If you want the original music, make a copy of the original, rename the copied file with the WoG theme name and replace.

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Re: [H3WOG] Palette problem

Unread postby Salamandre » 03 Aug 2010, 22:27

[quote="GreatEmerald"
The two last colours seem to be the ones that get replaced, as well as the first few. Any suggestions on how to rebuild the palette so my extracted ZRESBAR.PCX would get masked correctly?[/quote]

It is not about the palette but about player colors. You can see that your resources have red pixels around because red player is active.

http://forum.df2.ru/index.php?showtopic=15649&st=61

Here is an old post of mine dealing with same problem. Scroll down to read the solution. Hope it helps.

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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 03 Aug 2010, 22:37

ByteBandit, I meant that I want to add additional screens, not replace existing ones. I already replaced the two with those from HoMM3 Complete, so I'm out of space :) And about music, I did exactly that, but it's odd - you'd think that the music system would be controlled by ZCmpMus.txt in H3Bitmap.lod, but I replaced the TXT with the original and it doesn't work.

Salamandre, I see, so LODTool works, as well as reimporting BMPs. Good to know.

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Unread postby ByteBandit » 04 Aug 2010, 00:30

Yeah that is strange because you would think by changing the texts in the lod files, you'd think the computer would read it the way you want it to. I guess some texts can't be edited then. Bummer

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Re: [H3WOG] Palette problem

Unread postby Qurqirish Dragon » 04 Aug 2010, 13:44

GreatEmerald wrote: If I try to paint the whole thing with, say, the first colour of the palette, I get the whole bar light red. However, it seems that it should replace the light blue, which is at the end of the palette! This is the palette that Photoshop gives me:
Image
I'm not very familiar with the defs and how they work, but that first color is the "invisible" color in many defs, so painting with it will show what is beneath that. Perhaps it is the same for the border graphics.
Matthew Charlap -353 HoMM map reviews and counting...

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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 04 Aug 2010, 15:35

Normally it would be, but not in this case, since the resource bar has way more colours than just one. They could still use masking, but then they would have needed to create resource bars for every single colour, which would have taken unnecessary space, so they just used palette swapping instead.

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Unread postby Salamandre » 04 Aug 2010, 16:09

Yes, the resource bar has a dynamic palette. All you need is to process it through "players colors" box in deftool, following Grayface tutorial. Nothing else will work.


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