How does one create a ".pal" file?

[dr rick]

wow! if you can teach me to use that it will be a miracle i use gimp a lot for resizing, indexing etc. and have automated the process only to the extent of using keyboard shortcuts for commonly repeated actions and then learning sequences for commonly repeated actions, forgetting them, relearning them etc. etc. etc... but it is not the most intuitive piece of software in history...

[Jeff]

Keep in mind, it's only the basic color balance ( RGB-values, brightness, contrast ) that is implemented in my current build.
It's mainly meant for recoloring original animals ( you open just one NE file for example, but note that the .pal is shared for all original animals )

Resizing might be a bit more difficult though, since you'd need to do it for each ZT Graphic file (NE, SE...) separately.

As for the indexing: it's like Jay once said. You'd just drop all your .PNG-files or whatever into one GIMP-image, then have it generate an indexed color palette of 256 colors (or better: 255, 1 has to be transparent). All your PNG files would need to be opened and would need to use the colors from that one palette. And then you're close to creating the best possible ZT1 download you could possibly offer.  So quite a path which would have to be scripted in GIMP ( the script would take a folder as an input, and go over all .PNG-files and apply all steps mentioned in this paragraph ).

[dr rick]

yeah - i can't do Jay's method, so I create a palette for the most widely coloured image in an animation set, save it and use it to index all the rest of the images in the set, not as quick but works ok (Jay taught me how to do that anyway). I always use 255 colours, since i don't understand transparency... so i play it safe that way!

i am (among other things) high functioning autistic so some things that seem easy to other people are simply impossible for me to understand, but other things that other people struggle with (chemistry and pixel-based animation for example) are easy peasy for me (or at least they were before my brain was trashed)...

having a ztd creation tool that could do resizing would be epic and wonderful, BUT, the more complex you make a tool, the fewer people will be able to use it successfully, so if you are ever going to do that, i would strongly advise making a special tool to do that rather than adding the functionality to your existing tool.

I had a quick look at the interface and the documentation of zt studio and it is clear to me both that it looks potentially fabulously powerful, and that it is going to take me some time to get to grips with it!

[Jeff]

No worries, the GIMP stuff would be gathered under one single button or something.

ZT Studio should mainly be used to convert entire graphics from one format to the other, or as a way to quickly view graphics. Especially the ones that wouldn't open properly before (think Restaurant, certain dolphin shadows).

As for an easy way to create 1 palette in GIMP based on all your images:
* create a new image in GIMP
* use Explorer to go to your folder with the images, drag and drop those files right onto the canvas of your image
* then let GIMP generate the palette

[dr rick]

OK, I have made a start with trying to use zt studio. I suspect I will be a good test of the basics because i was an idiot savant even before i acquired a brain injury and so...

how do i get an item into zt studio? I have tried clicking the open button and selecting an extracted item at various different levels, but all I get is error messages I tried an unextracted ztd and got a different error message. I also tried the 'open as background' option but it said it didn't like my indexed png image and so it didn't load it....

the support document appears to be very comprehensive except that i can't work out how to open the items. sorry  

Please would you give me some (very) basic instructions. If I can follow them, anyone can, so it will be a useful addition to the support documentation. If it is already there and I have just missed it (entirely possible), please point me at the relevant section and I'll have another go...

As for an easy way to create 1 palette in GIMP based on all your images:
* create a new image in GIMP
* use Explorer to go to your folder with the images, drag and drop those files right onto the canvas of your image
* then let GIMP generate the palette

I'll try that - I always wondered what it meant by 'drop image files here to open them'...

[Jeff]

First, go to the Settings-button.

One of the options is to choose the path. What you need here, is the top folder.
Say you have extracted a .ZTD-file to a workfolder, you'll have something like this:

C:\workfolder\animals\youranimal\...

What you need, is C:\workfolder\.


After this, you can use the first row of buttons to open ZT-files ( N, NE, E, SE, S, NW, SW, .... ).
To import/save .PNG-files, you need the third row of buttons.

[dr rick]

Thanks - I will try that when it is not after midnight!

[Jeff]

Updated version contains a few improvements when the option to generate/update .ani-files is enabled.
It also contains a few performance improvements.

From now on, I'd like to refer to this post for ZT Studio-related announcements.

[Jeff]

I have posted all work at GitHub.

It includes the source code as well as file documentation (refer to the uploaded .docx file, I haven't rewritten it to the Wiki pages yet).

Latest download of the program and its source can be found at:
https://github.com/jbostoen/ZTStudio

I fixed a few issues in this latest release.

[dr rick]

Thank you    I have been taking a break from designing and most other activities) whilst getting a neurological problem diagnosed and trying to work out if it is possible to design with the resultant coordination deficits and if so how... Which is a long way of apologising for not test driving ZT Studio.

[Jeff]

No problem. There's not much left of the ZT1 community - it's kind of surprising in a nice way though that there are still some folks around who enjoy the game or create something.  After all, it's been what, 15 years?

I am teaming up with Vondell to work on his Red Panda. Using the most powerful features in ZT Studio (and also spending time on creating fixes), it's kind of a breeze now to do all the importing and rotation fixing. We're both looking into a couple of things to improve upon, and hope to release the Red Panda in the near future. And who knows what might (or might not) be next.

If the game was newer, I'd probably have added a full blown configuration editor as well so people wouldn't have to rely on APE anymore. But back then, I lacked the skills I have today to create such a tool. It's good some people did wonderful work, like Jay  and someone who went by the name MadScientist (great work for creating ZOOT!)

[dr rick]

I'm looking forward to the red panda... It would be fun to make a red panda tree like the koala blue gum tree I once made - the red pandas i remember most vividly from many zoo visits were those that were 50 feet up in a mahoosive elm tree!

[fern]

I'm looking forward to the red panda... It would be fun to make a red panda tree like the koala blue gum tree I once made - the red pandas i remember most vividly from many zoo visits were those that were 50 feet up in a mahoosive elm tree!

The best red panda made for ZT was by WhitePanda and he made statues to go with it. They were based on the ones in Auckland Zoo. If I remember rightly he provided one version that could be changed in Ape. Problem is that before I do that I need to fix a couple of things in the original. Rick let me know if you want the pngs for your tree one.

[Jeff]

This would be Vondell's version (we might make it a little bigger, since we're currently discussing what to do with 'young' versions of this animal.)
It looks a little less flat to me. :)

[dr rick]

they are both very cool! yes, i'd love the pngs. I've always thought the koala blue gum was one of the best things I ever made (up there with the gibbon tualang and a few other things). If I can continue to work out ways to do things, I should be able to animate the red panda like the koala...
They show an interesting range of tree-related behaviours...