Tutorial: Mass Production Of Ship Side Files

[GaryChildress]

This is a tutorial for ship artists on how to quickly create LARGE numbers of individual ship side files using programs available free on the Internet. The technique I intend to demonstrate should save hours in individually naming and renaming individual ship files. This is strictly for volume and won't be very helpful if you just do one or two sides occasionally.

First off, what you'll need to download:

[EDIT]1. NOTE: Instead of DLing image splitter use the following website instead: http://imagesplitter.net/

2. Download the zip file attached to this post below with the image template for creating your ship sides.

3. You'll also need a spreadsheet program like Excel or Open Office. I use Open Office as it's a free download. You can get it here: http://www.openoffice.org/download/

If you have Excel then don't worry about Open Office.

The only graphics program you'll need is MS Paint. This tutorial will NOT cover how to create ship art. It will be assumed that you already have lots of ship art done and ready to put into your mod.

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[GaryChildress]

Second part:

Now you should have all the programs you need installed and ready to go.

1. Open up the template which I included in the first post in MS Paint (or whatever program you feel most comfortable with).

(You'll notice that I have green guidelines on the template to make it easier to center ships on the shils)

2. Open up your shipart images in another MS Paint window. Or, if you want you can use the shipart images I've attached to this post below.

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[GaryChildress]

Third Part:

1. Using the green guidelines and the "Transparent Selection" feature in MS Paint, place all your shipart
in the center of the PINK frames on the right side of the template. Don't worry about the sky backgrounds
on the left side yet.

2. Once the pink side of the template is filled with all the ships you want to create files for, simply use the
paint bucket feature to fill in all the green guidelines with 255,0,255 pink. Bascially all the green guidelines
are connected so clicking just once on any guideline with the paint bucket will take care of the entire
template.

3. copy and paste the entire pink half over the sky background half using "Transparent Selection" again.
Be careful to make sure the ships line up properly with the ocean line and are centered. Now your
template should look like below:

[GaryChildress]

Forth Part:

Now the fun begins.

Open up TileMage and follow the steps outlined in the graphic below.

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[GaryChildress]

Now you should have a folder with 96 separate images in it numbered 1.bmp through 96.bmp.

If you wanted you could proceed to rename each of the 96 images individually but we're going to do it the QUICK and EASY WAY!

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[GaryChildress]

FIFTH PART:

WE'RE GOING TO CREATE A QUICK BATCH FILE TO RENAME ALL THE FILES AT ONCE. We're going to use a spreadsheet to quickly name a series of files sequentially so that we can copy the series and then paste it into a batch file.

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[GaryChildress]

SIXTH PART:

You will now create a batch file which will automatically rename all the newly created ship files ot the appropriate name. See instructions below:

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[GaryChildress]

VOILA! The files have been renamed! Instead of going through 96 files individually to rename them you did it in just a few minutes. This is especially helpful with very large numbers of files. [:)]

[oldman45]

I am always amazed at the talent we have on this forum. Thanks much Gary!

[RevRick]

AMAZED!! AMAZED?? I am bloody flabbergasted!!! Can a mod sticky this thing, please... so I can come back to it a few dozen times. (I don't dare download all of it, my internet hotspot will melt down! - not to mention push me over my gig limit!)

[GaryChildress]

Thanks guys! I like to be helpful as much as possible. [:)]

[Halsey]

Nice work Gary...[&o]

We need to team you up with SuluSea to package his IJN DD packages.[;)]

[GaryChildress]

ORIGINAL: Halsey

Nice work Gary...[&o]

We need to team you up with SuluSea to package his IJN DD packages.[;)]

Thanks!

Shouldn't be a problem. [8D]