[TUTORIAL] Aligning Gibs

[Whale Cancer]

Going through the monkey-code/work of aligning a bunch of gibs so I thought I would explain my method.

This should be pretty obvious to experienced modders, but some newer folks might not understand how easy it is to align gibs.

First, take your ship base sprite. We are going to use a Federation Bomber for this tutorial.

fed_bomber_2_base.png

Open the file in Photoshop or GIMP (a good free alternative)

Open the gib you want to align. We will be aligning gib1 in this example. In the very top left corner of the gib, draw a 1 pixel line horizontally (going right, the only way you can go) and vertically (going down, the only way you can go). In this example, I've used a pink line so it really stands out. NOTE: You only really need a pixel in the top left corner. I use a small line to just make it faster to find in the next few steps.

fed_bomber_2_gib1.png

Select all and then cut this gib. Go back to the base sprite and paste it over the base sprite, aligning it exactly over the base sprite. Now, make a selection box from the top left corner of the base sprite to the edge (but NOT overtop) of line we have drawn over the gib. In this case, there will be no Y offsetting because the line is flush with the top of the sprite. Now check the info box (make sure you have units set to pixels). The width is the x offsetting and, if there was need for y offsetting, the height of the selection box would be the height.

photoshopPic.png

Then just go to the .xml for the ship you are editing and enter the proper x and y offsets. Lather, rinse, and repeat!

I hope this was helpful to someone!

[cogitator]

Oooo shiny!

Can't say I have immediate plans to use this, but very informative none the less. Thanks!