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<B>Tutorial - Creating Units from Photographs of Miniatures</B>

<B>1. Introduction</B>

I was persuaded to write the following tutorial about converting photographs of painted miniatures into ToT units, following the release of some of my efforts in the Showcase threads (see here and here, for a few examples). Initially, I didn’t know how to go about it because I felt my methods were pretty mediaeval to say the least. I’m almost certain that most Paint Shop Pro users will be familiar with most of the methods described herein. Regardless, these are some of the methods <I>I</I> use.

This tutorial employs Paint Shop Pro 8.10 and assumes basic knowledge of its use. I have structured it to follow the basic steps I used to convert a photograph of a Viking chieftain to a Civ2 unit. It’s a very simple job, requiring minimal manual work and only a handful of filters. To compensate for this, I’ll present a few other examples at the end of the tutorial.

There are few hard and fast rules to my method - it's simply a case of trying things until it looks good. However, the more familiar you are with your graphical editor's tools, the more options become available to you. I have a bias towards ToT, so this tutorial will focus on creating 24-bit bmps for this game. Obviously you can apply these methods to standard 8-bit Civ2 graphics, but with poorer results.

<B>2. Selection Criteria</B>

The most spectacular miniatures with the most amazing paint jobs don't always yield the best results, regardless of how many filters you apply. Poorly-painted miniatures with simple features have produced some of the finest units I've seen. Of course, if there's a unit you simply <I>must</I> have for a scenario, there's nothing to stop you trying.

I generally look for a fairly neutral stance, where possible - I want at least some level of consistency of style. I also want to be convinced that the unit, if terrestrial, is actually standing on its tile in the game. Wild action poses don't always cut the mustard. Rich contrasting colours are best, but you can always try and improve washed-out graphics with filters later in the process. Try to avoid miniatures with too much detail. Sculptors of Games Workshop miniatures (eg, Warhammer) tend to opt for ornate styles in the most over-the-top way - this is fine if you like redrawing most of the unit because they generally look like rubbish after resizing.

This tutorial focuses on the Viking chieftain, shown below - he's not too complicated and he fits the criteria above.



<B>3. Scripts</B>

PSP 8 introduces scripts to its list of new features. They are basically a set of macros which allow the automation of multiple tasks. Whilst I’ll not cover the creation of scripts in the tutorial, I will offer a couple of scripts to simplify the process. They are not required to complete the tutorial, but they sure make things easier if you’re trying to crank out units. They can be downloaded here.

Simply extract the two scripts into your C:\Program Files\Jasc Software Inc\Paint Shop Pro 8\Scripts-Restricted folder (default path). You will need to display the <B>Script</B> toolbar to use them. This is achieved by heading to the <B>View</B> menu -> <B>Toolbars</B> -> <B>Script</B>. In the <B>Select Script</B> menu you will find two new scripts: <I>1 Unit Preparation</I> and <I>2 Anti-Aliasing Cleaner</I>. To run a script, select it in the menu and click the <B>Run Selected Script</B> button.

To give you an easy guide to the script functions, I have included insertion points in the text to indicate what steps the scripts automate. Everything between a <I>Script Start</I> and a <I>Script End</I> comment is automated in the script.

<B>4. Colour Depth</B>

Open the Viking chief in PSP. Before you start anything else, make sure the source material is in 24-bit colour. If not, go to the <B>Image</B> menu -> <B>Increase Colour Depth</B> -> <B>16 Million Colors (24-bit)</B> or hit Ctrl-Shift+0. If you forget this step, the first script will do it for you.

<B>5. Orientation</B>

The chief is leaning a bit to the left. I want him standing vertically. Hit Ctrl+R to bring up the <B>Free Rotate</B> dialogue box. Turning him 8° to the right solved the problem.



Note also that ToT will mirror units, depending on their direction of movement in the game. So unless you really prefer to see the original orientation in the game menus, flip units so they look like they are moving from left to right (if direction is implied). To flip units horizontally, use Ctrl+M. In this instance, the Viking displays a fairly open stance, slightly facing to the left, so I left him as is.

<I>Script Start: 1 Unit Preparation</I>

Copy the picture and paste as a new image (Ctrl+V). This gives you a point of reference from which to work.

<B>6. Removing the Background</B>

The standard way to remove the background from an image in PSP is with the <B>Background Eraser</B> tool. The tool, which appears as a transparent circle, samples pixels from its centre and erases similar outlying pixels, depending on your tolerance settings. To use it, the background must be promoted to a full layer; this means that erased portions will become transparent in the new layer. Because I actually like to be able to see what I have erased, I create a duplicate of the background first and then change the original entirely to magenta (#FF00FF). This also makes things easier later in the process.

Make sure the <B>Layer</B> palette is visible. If not, go the <B>View</B> menu -> <B>Palettes</B> -> <B>Layers</B> or hit F8. Click <B>Duplicate Layer</B> as shown below.



You should end up with a new layer called Copy of Background. Select the original Background layer in the <B>Layer</B> palette to make it the active layer (see below). Change the <B>Foreground and Stroke Properties Color</B> to magenta (#FF00FF). Select the <B>Flood Fill</B> tool, change the tolerance to 200 and click on the image. Nothing will appear to happen, but you have just changed the colour of the Background layer to magenta.



Click on the Copy of Background layer to make it active again.

<I>Script End: 1 Unit Preparation</I>

Now it is time to isolate the subject of the image (the Viking chief) from the background of the photograph. Select the <B>Background Eraser</B> tool. In this example, I begin with size 70, Sharpness 10, the FindEdges limit and AutoTolerance checked. Hardness, Density, Thickness and Opacity are all set to 100. As you begin to erase the background, ie, make it transparent, you will see the appearance of magenta from the underlying Background layer (see below).



Work the tool around the subject until you have removed the background to your satisfaction. You may need to reduce the tool size and change the tolerance manually. Clean up any background residue with the <B>Eraser</B> tool. It shouldn’t take you too long to get the hang of these tools.

Once you have removed all of the background, you are ready to resize the image.

<B>7. Resizing</B>

Sometimes I'll apply filters prior to resizing, but on this occasion I didn't feel the need. I have settled on a height of around 42-45 pixels for my man-sized units. The original Viking chief measures approximately 245 pixels in height: 44/245 = 0.18. We want to reduce the image to 18% of its original size. Hit Shift+S to bring up the <B>Resize</B> dialogue box. Select Smart Size resampling, check the Lock aspect ratio box and enter 18% for the pixel dimensions. You should end up with something like the image, below.



<B>8. Removing Anti-Aliasing</B>

In resizing your image, the pixels are resampled. Depending on the algorithm employed, Smart Size resampling in this case, neighbouring pixels may be “averaged”, causing a feathering or anti-aliasing effect. This is fine in the centre of the subject material, but along the boundary between the subject and the background, it becomes a problem. Civ2 does not support anti-aliasing, so you will need a clearly defined boundary between the unit and the game’s transparent background mask – unless you like a glowing pink aura around all of your units.

I’ve used a number of methods in the past, but the following is what I’ve settled on for the present. Part of the idea for the method comes from a technique used for Corel Photo-Paint 11, courtesy of William Keenan.

<I>Script Start: 2 Anti-Aliasing Cleaner</I>

Click on <B>Duplicate Layer</B> in the <B>Layer</B> palette 10 times. You should end up with something like the screenshot below:



Go to the <B>Layers</B> menu -> <B>Merge</B> -> <B>Merge All (Flatten)</B>. The process of replicating the image basically has the effect of increasing the opacity of the edge pixels of the subject material. These are then combined into one layer. Your <B>Layer</B> palette should once again look like this:



We now want to remove the remaining semi-transparent pixels from the selection. Select all (Ctrl+A) and go to the <B>Selections</B> menu -> <B>Modify</B> -> <B>Select Color Range…</B>. Since the image is now a single merged layer, transparency is replaced by magenta. Therefore, set the Reference color to magenta (#FF00FF), Softness to 1 and the Tolerance to whatever you like (see below). In this example, I set the Tolerance at 240 to remove most of the semi-transparent pixels from the selection.



Depending on the tolerance level you have selected, there may be some residual semi-transparent pixels within the selection. I sometimes purge magenta from the entire selection using the Hue/Saturation/Lightness filter, although results vary from case to case. This practice is a bit of a hack job and I'd bypass this step if the original image contains significant amounts of magenta (If you're using the script, cancel this step, then hit Yes, when prompted to continue the script.), otherwise, hit Shift+H. You will be faced with a dialogue box like the one below. In the Edit box, switch to Magentas and drag the Saturation bar down to -100. Click OK.



At this point you may choose to remove the semi-transparent pixels from the background so that you can more easily see the boundary line – although it’s not necessary. Simply hit Ctrl-Shift+I (inverse selection), make sure the <B>Background and Fill Properties Color</B> is magenta, hit Delete and then Ctrl-Shift+I again.

<I>Script End: 2 Anti-Aliasing Cleaner</I>

In most cases, I still won’t be satisfied with all of the unit’s edge pixels, so I’ll clean some of them up manually. Using the <B>Paint Brush</B> tool, where necessary, I sample the inner pixels to repaint the edge. Finally, you should end up with something looking like this:



The chief’s right foot, obscured by a stone in the original photograph, needs to be rebuilt. I simply copied and pasted clumps of pixels from his left boot to create the shape of the right boot. Then, using the <B>Lighten/Darken Brush</B> (see section 10), lightened the upper surface of the boot to create depth.

<B>9. Applying Filters</B>

This area is open to huge amounts of experimentation. Really, you've just got to try different methods and settings until you achieve something satisfactory - it's all intuitive. Of course, filter selection can make or break a unit, but all I can do is point you in (hopefully) the right direction.

The Viking chief, in his current incarnation, is looking a little on the flat and dull side. For such small graphics, you need to exaggerate the details to bring out the best appearance. Most people would immediately grope for the sharpness filters. My advice is: leave them well alone, unless absolutely necessary. <I>Never</I> touch the <B>Sharpen</B> or <B>Sharpen More</B> filters - these are way too over-the-top. <I>Only</I> ever use the <B>Unsharp Mask</B> for sharpening; it allows you precise control. I mostly use these settings: Radius: 2, Strength: 10 and Clipping: 5. The main use I have for sharpening is highlighting the face. Having selected the face only, I’ll use either unsharp or contrast. I use no sharpness filters in this example.

The Viking needs some contrast enhancement. Go to the <B>Adjust</B> menu -> <B>Brightness and Contrast</B> -> <B>Brightness/Contrast…</B> or hit Shift+B. Enter 15 for Contrast. Increasing the contrast makes dark areas darker still, so increase the Brightness to 8. Click OK.

Another excellent way to improve depth on small, washed-out graphics is to increase the level of colour saturation. In PSP you can head to the <B>Adjust</B> menu -> <B>Hue and Saturation</B> and select either <B>Automatic Saturation Enhancement…</B> or <B>Hue/Saturation/Lightness…</B> (Shift+H), the latter being the manual method. I have no fixed settings for either of these filters – it depends on the source material. For the Viking I got lazy and chose Automatic to see if I could get immediate results. I used the following settings: Bias: More colorful, Strength: Strong, and checked the Skintones present box.

Following colour saturation, I felt the chief’s hair was a bit on the yellow side. To correct this, I selected his hair, including the beard, with the <B>Selection</B> tool. I then headed to the <B>Adjust</B> menu -> <B>Color Balance</B> -> <B>Manual Color Correction…</B> (see below). For the source colour, I sampled a yellow portion of the beard. I checked the Preserve lightness box and chose a preset target colour. Scrolling down the preset menu, I found Hair Colors, and lo and behold, we have Nordic! Click OK.



These are the main filters I use in the conversion process. I have found little use for many of the others. I almost never use anything from the <B>Effects</B> menu in straight conversions. I <I>do</I> use filters from the <B>Color Balance</B> group when I need to recolour a unit or parts of a unit, but this is not required here.

I fiddled with the edge pixels again, using the original photograph as a reference, but the adjustments were minor. At the end of this stage, you should have something that looks like this:



<B>10. Touching Up Details</B>

Many of the above filters can be applied manually to specific areas, using the <B>Retouch Brushes</B> in the <B>Tools</B> toolbar (see below). Of these, I almost exclusively use <B>Lighten/Darken</B>, <B>Dodge</B> and <B>Burn</B> to highlight details. When using it on Civ2 units, keep the brush size down to 1-3 pixels. For dodge and burn, keep the opacity low, say at the default 10. Keep Density and Thickness settings at 100. For Hardness I use various values.



For the Viking I used only the <B>Lighten/Darken</B> brush on the tunic, the cloak and the boots.

<B>11. Finishing Up</B>

All you need to do now is paste your selection into a blank units’ box. Line up the unit with the base of the magenta tile. Deselect the unit with Ctrl+D and draw in a shadow using the <B>Paint Brush</B>. Save your unit as a bmp file and it’s ready for your next ToT scenario.



<B>12. Loading the Civ2 Palette</B>

To use such units in regular Civ2, FW or MGE, you will need to load the 8-bit Civ2 palette. For those who don’t know how to do this: open a regular Civ2 graphic file (stick to units.gif – there are a few palette variations around) and go to the <B>Image</B> menu -> <B>Palette</B> -> <B>Save Palette…</B> Call it something meaningful like Civ2. Open your 24-bit graphic, go to the <B>Image</B> menu -> <B>Palette</B> -> <B>Load Palette…</B> and select Civ2. Done. Don’t blame me if it looks like rubbish.

<B>13. Other Examples</B>

As I said in the Introduction, I will show a few examples of other units to illustrate various methods. Below are four examples (this is getting a bit long) with brief notes. Unfortunately, I don’t have step-by-step screenshots or settings, only before and after shots.

i) Wizard – I’ll start with the wizard because it’s the oldest. I did this guy nearly 4 years ago, using more primitive techniques. I needed a white wizard at the time, so I greyscaled the robes. I ditched the sword and head of the staff, and modified his left hand to appear as though it was pointing. I manually lengthened the robe to cover his feet - these days I would use an alternative method. The bottom-left inset shows the results of lengthening the robe using the <B>Warp Brush</B> tool – much faster and more versatile.



ii) Cave Troll – The cave troll image has been firstly mirrored in PSP to conform with the ToT game mirroring. The troll’s right arm was deleted and replaced with a mirror of the left. I modified the contrast and brightness, and then applied the <B>Lighten/Darken</B> brush to highlight the teeth and muscle tone.



iii) Ranger – Here, quite obviously, I’ve used colour saturation to shift the fairly dull red-brown to a stronger red. One drawback of using miniatures as a base for humanoid units is the lack of proportion. Numerous miniatures suffer from over-scaled heads and hands, and many tend to be pretty robust. In this case, I felt the ranger’s head was over-sized and I replaced it with the head from a smaller reduction of the original image. I also applied the <B>Lighten/Darken</B> brush to the face to darken the eyes.



iv) Ogre – Once again I’ve used colour saturation. The <B>Lighten/Darken</B> brush was used to darken the forehead and highlight the furs and muscle tone.



<B>14. Conclusion</B>

So there you go – that’s how I converted this guy – very simple. I guess the key to success is <I>how</I> you apply your filters to different source materials. You’ll just have to make your own judgements here – I’m never certain what filters I’m going to use when I start – I try things until it looks good in my eyes.

I've made a lot of dud attempts at unit graphics in my time and there are still units that, for the life of me, I can't get right. Others I have gone back to later with a different idea and have managed to resurrect. So it comes down to trial-and-error, intuition and knowledge of your graphical editor's tools. I'm still learning - it's not that long since I grabbed hold of PSP version 8 – I used scripts for the first time a little over a week ago.

Finally - here we have our new friend enjoying the countryside in ToT prior to a campaign of rape, pillage and burn. Oh dear, he appears to have some company…

Last edited by Catfish on 20-10-2003 at 10:49

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Last edited by Catfish on 20-10-2003 at 10:46

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I was working on some non-Civ2 related graphics the other day and remembered the discussion with Fairline about camouflage effects on units using PSP's Retouch Brushes.

Rather than applying specific effects locally in this manner, I decided that it is easier to apply an effect to an entire layer. You can then paint normally within the new layer/s via the <B>Paintbrush</B> and <B>Airbrush</B> tools. Using various Blend modes you can retain the texture of the original unit.

1. Load up your image in PSP. Always work in 24-bit colour.
2. Run the unit selection script (see the Camo tutorial). Deselect any further regions that you don't want to paint.
3. You may even want to greyscale the image at this stage and then restore the colour depth to 24-bit.
4. Right-click the <B>Layer</B> palette and create a <B>New Raster Layer</B>. In the Blend mode box, select Multiply (dark), Screen (light) or Overlay (combo) - your choice. You can modify opacity levels later using the slide bar in the <B>Layer</B> palette. This will be your painting canvas. In fact you could create multiple layers with different Blend modes for a single unit. You can also work on the original layer. Simply switch back and forth between layers.
5. Paint away with your <B>Paint Brush</B> and <B>Airbrush</B> tools, or the Retouch brushes for that matter.
6. When you're done, go to the <B>Layers</B> menu -> <B>Merge</B> -> <B>Merge All (Flatten)</B>. If you wish to retain the layers for later use, instead of flattening the image, hit Ctrl-Shift+C (Copy Merged) and paste into another file.

I suppose some of you are going to want pics, so here are a few Nemo and Fairline (the Kings of Mechanised Military) units I just finished painting. All the original units were plain silver or grey with no camouflage patterns. Used multiple layers for most of the units. The only brushes used were <B>Paint Brush</B>, <B>Airbrush</B> and <B>Lighten/Darken</B>. Oh, and this time all the paint jobs are based on reality.



Edit: Some screenshots of some more units I've been working on for one of my scenarios. I used up to 5 layers for some to create weathering effects. Also been using the Soft Light blend mode. (Hmmph. IE always displays png files considerably darker than my graphics editor.)


Credits: Fairline – Challenger 2, Chieftain, Eurofighter, M113, M1A2, M2, Su-24, Su-37, T-72, T-80 and T-90. Balou – Infantry. Jimmywax – MLRS.

Last edited by Catfish on 10-12-2003 at 02:39