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| Thread: Hero of Light˘s Guide to rip Diablo Sprites |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · NEXT» |
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Hero_Of_Light
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted October 17, 2010 06:08 PM |
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Hero of Light˘s Guide to rip Diablo Sprites
I am guessing that Diablo is a game that needs not much introduction; it was released on January the 2th 1997 by Blizzard Entertainment and is a dark-fantasy action RPG game. It had a great impact worldwide and is considered a classic. Its graphics were in truth astonishing for the time of its release and some animations are still great even for today˘s standards.
I˘ve been playing Diablo since its release and been a fan ever since (as well as the sequels Diablo-Hellfire and Diablo 2). Recently, I found a way to rip Diablo˘s animations. Most of the creature˘s animations and size are fit for Heroes 3. So Diablo Hellfire is a great source of new Heroes III defs.
I am already in the process of ripping them myself, but they are too many of them, so I thought I make this Guide in case someone else is interested as well (the more the merrier ). There is a readme file inside which explains the process too.
First you need to download this tool:
Diablo-Helffire viewer
Extract all of the rar components on a new folder and then run the CV5 exe. This will pop up:
In the browser find the Diablo folder (or Hellfire folder as seen on the previous picture) and seek the DIABDAT.mpq (additional animations are found on all the others mpq files such as TD53.mpq, hellfire.mpq etc)
In there you˘ll see that there are all the animations on Diablo. You may now see any Diablo sprite you want. Click on Monsters for example (its where the most juice is  ):
Lets animate Diablo himself (why not?). After pressing on Diablo folder you˘ll see this:
The green parts is where the animations are. Each one of them has a different animation set (one for attack, one for walk etc). Let˘s press on the first one. A View window will open containing all the animation gifs for Diablo˘s casting. Additional information can be found in the picture bellow:
If you scroll down the View window you˘ll see that the animation is rendered through 8 different directions (up, down, right, left and the middle ones, up-left etc). That˘s actually very handy because that means that there are all the Heroes 3 perspectives in it (for instance it has attack up, straight and down).
Now for the tricky part (there always is a catch). The readme file explains in this point how you rip the images. By pressing the Save button in the Animator, you˘ll get the option to save the pictures as an animated gif. However, this doesn˘t work (for me at the least). The application crashes. This may be understandable as this application is old (11 years old to be exact) and that makes it a little "weird" while working on Windows Vista and-or Windows 7.
However, since the Viewer works OK, I just press Print Screen on the keyboard to take the images. There might be another way but this is the easiest one. For example here are some Dark Knight animations:
And that˘s that. After you get the pictures you need, you˘ll have the resources to make a new creature def (there are some "sticky" threads for that on the first page in this forum).
I hope you liked it and that some of you will use it. There are precious resources there for other uses as well (some spell and casting animations for instance) and I hope this guide will make you wanna give it a try. If you have any questions or problems, please post them here.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted October 17, 2010 06:33 PM |
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Hero_Of_Light
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted October 17, 2010 08:41 PM |
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I only made the Lich from Diablo Hellfire. I wanted a Banshee def for my new mod. Here it is (among the other undead):
And here is the link:
Banshee
It may need some editing. In fact, most of Hellfire expansion creatures didn't have so good animation (as original Diablo had). I think this is due to the fact that it was made by Sierra and and not Blizzard. I think original Diablo units will look better.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted October 17, 2010 08:45 PM |
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Bah, indeed. Palette and animations are much outdated. Maybe the other models are better?
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Era II mods and utilities
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Hero_Of_Light
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted October 17, 2010 09:13 PM |
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As I said the Diablo units (found on Diabdat.mpq) are way better. See above the Diablo and the dark Knight in the first post (they are from the original one). You can see that they have sharper edges.
Anyway, I'll look into it in the future. If anyone else is interested he may also try this. I think its worthwhile. As I said there are other things in it as well (spells, heroes etc). Whatever progress I make I'll post it here. Maybe with a little recoloring the Banshee will look better.
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T2_2112
Supreme Hero
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posted October 18, 2010 03:35 AM |
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@Hero_Of_Light
You forgot ont thing, Hellfire and Diablo the shadow of monsters is Black, Black Knight will fail for extract right the body. I tried long time ago but not solved yet this problem
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Hero_Of_Light
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted October 18, 2010 01:17 PM |
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Yes you are right. It may need a lot of work. I didn't have the same problem with the Lich. Maybe Sierra's Creatures had different background. I don't know.
Anyway, I'll try it. If its a dead end I'll drop it.
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T2_2112
Supreme Hero
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posted October 22, 2010 04:08 AM |
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Edited by T2_2112 at 04:12, 22 Oct 2010.
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Quote:
Yes you are right. It may need a lot of work. I didn't have the same problem with the Lich. Maybe Sierra's Creatures had different background. I don't know.
Anyway, I'll try it. If its a dead end I'll drop it.
Forget it, may be you can use this one instead !
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Hero_Of_Light
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted October 22, 2010 10:43 AM |
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Actually I wasn't really interested in ripping the Dark Knight, I only made it for an example as to how to do it.
But that one seems nice... I see that you found some sprites on your own lately. You should animate some and post them.
However, I think that it should be something that doesn't already exist on Heroes (addition is always better than a replacement ).
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T2_2112
Supreme Hero
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posted October 22, 2010 12:05 PM |
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Quote:
Actually I wasn't really interested in ripping the Dark Knight, I only made it for an example as to how to do it.
But that one seems nice... I see that you found some sprites on your own lately. You should animate some and post them.
However, I think that it should be something that doesn't already exist on Heroes (addition is always better than a replacement ).
This one come from Arcanum, may be everyone have this game. So i do not make anything from this game, only give pics if someone need or someone order to make something from Arcanum.
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vladud2000
Known Hero
Maestro of Might & Magic
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posted October 22, 2010 06:28 PM |
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maybe this will help to find a solution:
acording to H3 def-files - first colors in palette representing effects such as glowing frames and shadows.
i'm not sure but what if diablo's palettes got the same building?! maybe not first colors but they could be coded in palettes.
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Hero_Of_Light
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted October 22, 2010 06:53 PM |
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Actually, with Print screen the black of the shadow sometimes matches the black of the creature. So when I tried to recolor the Dark Knight he lost a part of his legs... It's no big deal though, it can be easily repainted.
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T2_2112
Supreme Hero
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posted October 23, 2010 03:04 AM |
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Quote:
maybe this will help to find a solution:
acording to H3 def-files - first colors in palette representing effects such as glowing frames and shadows.
i'm not sure but what if diablo's palettes got the same building?! maybe not first colors but they could be coded in palettes.
Diablo and Diablo 2 have palettes too, but the problem with some (not all) coz the shadow is black, and the black knight have black parts too. And no need to press PrintScr if you use Win Xp.
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vladud2000
Known Hero
Maestro of Might & Magic
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posted October 24, 2010 12:26 AM |
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i can create a picture with 256 colors that will be the same solid color - it is not so hard.
and it is no matter that monster part and shadow color are the same color. maybe index of that colors are different - so you could change shadow color into blue and that way delete it.
just an opinion, i do not have diablo to test it
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vladud2000
Known Hero
Maestro of Might & Magic
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posted October 24, 2010 12:39 AM |
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tested for diablo ii imported creature
sadly but shadow color and armor colors are identical indexed
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vladud2000
Known Hero
Maestro of Might & Magic
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posted October 24, 2010 10:53 AM |
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http://zalil.ru/29859744
had to install diablo to test it myself!
eye from hellfire
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T2_2112
Supreme Hero
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posted October 24, 2010 11:50 AM |
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This problem look like only for black knight and something black like that, another we can make it easy even the angle not good. Thank Maestro for the eye, nice one
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vladud2000
Known Hero
Maestro of Might & Magic
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posted October 24, 2010 12:12 PM |
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yes, very strange!
bg and shadow colors got their own index...but black knights got the same colors for the body.
anyway - 97% of all creatures could be extracted and recolored.
T2, you are welcome
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Hero_Of_Light
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted October 24, 2010 12:32 PM |
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I see there is a lot progress in this thread lately...
vladud2000 and T2_2112
I am glad that someone else is also interested on ripping creatures from Diablo. Great work on the Beholder vladud2000, it looks nice.
Quote:
tested for diablo ii imported creature
sadly but shadow color and armor colors are identical indexed
That's what I've been telling you all along. The creature's shadow makes some pixels get lost, but only a handful in the boots. It's easily fixed with Paint (you don't even need Photoshop for that).
Again, I wish you could luck. I am currently trying to perfect the Banshee I shared earlier so that it resembles the Wights and Wraiths and so be a third upgrade.
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T2_2112
Supreme Hero
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posted October 24, 2010 04:14 PM |
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Quote:
I see there is a lot progress in this thread lately...
That's what I've been telling you all along. The creature's shadow makes some pixels get lost, but only a handful in the boots. It's easily fixed with Paint (you don't even need Photoshop for that).
Again, I wish you could luck. I am currently trying to perfect the Banshee I shared earlier so that it resembles the Wights and Wraiths and so be a third upgrade.
I think there are two monster can use from Diablo here
http://www.mediafire.com/?1nu5fr5sjvlj6wm
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