Making Ship Shils

[Admiral DadMan]

For ship shils to work properly, there is a process that I cannot remember, as the ones I've done recently are not working as the original art does.

Does anyone know/recall the process to make these properly?

[Admiral DadMan]

Nevermind, I think I've figured it out. The black border may be causing the problem.

[Korvar]

You're correct - nothing other than the ship artwork itself and the 'shil pink' background should exist. Anything else such as a border, errant pixels, etc. will cause artifacts to appear in-game.

I find it helpful to make two (or three) layers underneath the ship artwork for shils:

1. solid 'shil pink'
2. solid black
3. (sometimes) solid white

Saving a template in this format is helpful for speeding up artwork creation. If you use Photoshop and would like mine, just let me know & send you a copy.

That said, you'll need to use an image editor which supports layers (Photoshop, GIMP, et. al.) The reason for the black/white background layers is to alternately expose the ship artwork to contrasting colors in order to find any errant pixels. Even very light, semi-transparent pixels will show up as pink dots in-game if you don't erase them. Make sure to ERASE them, not color over them with a background color.

The other item with all game artwork is to save it as 24-bit bitmaps (sometimes confusingly also referred to as 8-bit... which refers to the three individual chroma channels each being 8-bit, 8 x 3 = 24-bit).

[Admiral DadMan]

I use Paint.net and yes it supports layers. I'd love a copy of whatever you have.

And yes, the border was the problem...

[Korvar]

Attached is the ship art Photoshop template I use in a .zip file. It's an 'all-in-one' in the sense that I use it to create both the 'ship side' and 'ship shil' art. I turned on 'maximum compatibility' mode when I saved the file, but I haven't tried opening it in anything other than Photoshop, so YMMV.

I create the ship sides/shils by inserting the ship artwork itself on one layer and then adding the background art on a layer behind that. If the background art layer is turned off, what appears is the 'shil pink' background.

By turning various layers on/off, the ship artwork can be checked for errant pixels which will cause pink artifacts to appear in the game. Depending upon what colors are prevalent in the ship artwork will determine what background colors should be used to check against; in general, you want colors which are high-contrast to the ship artwork colors.

Here's what the layer structure looks like:




Of course, save in 24-bit (8-bit per chroma channel) .bmp format. Any questions, let me know.


EDIT: re-uploaded .zip file with both PS and .tif files included.

[Admiral DadMan]

That file is a no-go. No can open .psd files. Can only use .bmp, .gif, .jpg, .png, .tif, .tga, .dds

[Korvar]

I re-uploaded the .zip file with a .tif file included this time. It should preserve the layer information. Let me know if you run into any snags.

[Admiral DadMan]

Thank you.

I've managed to remember how I was making them, and finally got myself sorted.

Now if I could only fix the aircraft loadout filter issue.

ORIGINAL: Korvar

I re-uploaded the .zip file with a .tif file included this time. It should preserve the layer information. Let me know if you run into any snags.