And
another description bam tutorial... Hopefully this will be the last. Though, the way I'm going, it won't be.
This tutorial is in html for which you can download at the bottom of this post.
First, find an image. For this tutorial I am supplying you with a sword. Here it is:
I will be performing all of the actions in this tutorial along with you, so this is exactly how it is done.
1. Open up the sword in Paint Shop Pro(There is a 9, but I'm still using 8).
2. Go to the Image menu on the top bar(you know, the one with "File","Edit","View", and all that goodness) I will be refering to this by the name Top Bar. Now go down until you see the words "Increase Color Depth" and it has a little submenu. Go into the submenu and select the 16 million colors option. Note: this may be ghosted, if it is don't worry, it means that the image is already set to this.
Now there are two ways you can do the next step, but I'm going to tell you which one that
I do.
3. Go to the Effects menu on the Top Bar and select it. Go down into the submenu of Art Media Effects, which should be near the top. In that submenu is a selection called "Black Pencil" and you want to select it. Note: I just figured this out. I was using "Charcoal" at the start of the tutorial which works just fine.
4. A window will now pop up with two screens on it. The one on the right is the before, and the one on the left is the after shot. Put detail at 100 and Opacity at 100. This will give you an image that looks like this:
Aren't you glad that you have Paint Shop Pro?
5. Now for the calm before the storm. Crop out a small amount of the sword. Preferably the hilt so you can keep consistency with the description bams already in the game. Here is what I am using:
6. Now, go back up to the Top Bar and go to the Image menu again. This time go to "Rotate Clockwise 90" This is perfect because that is almost exactly the angle that all the other swords in the game are pointing.
7. Take a deep breath.
8. Select Paint bucket from wherever it is on your toolbar. We all understand this tool I'm sure. The color that I use for this step is the 0,151,151 turquoise color. In case this is you first bam ever and don't understand this stuff, here is a quick lesson. Red:0; Blue: 151; Green: 151. In order to get these colors click on one of the two colors that you have selected. This will open a dialogue box. In the bottom left hand corner there are three rows of numbers. They are labled R, G, and B, AKA Red, Green, Blue. I'm sure you can guess the rest from here.
9. Zoom into 400 to 600 percent. With your paint bucket selected fill in all the white spaces you can. It is best to get rid of all of it and to just leave the black bit. But you may wish to leave some of the gray. Also, don't worry about the part that is right next to the bottom of the image. That won't be there later. Your new result should look something like this:
10. You will notice that there are some lighter spots in there. I don't get rid of all the gray spots. This will give more appearance of being a little sketch, which I assume was Bioware's goal. Notice how I didn't touch that bottom part? That's because we will be getting rid of part of that, as the swords are in the games.
11(AKA The real step 10). Clean up around this part as well as you can without stressing out over it. Select the Air Brush tool. This tool is on the image editing toolbar. Select the little submenu and you will see three options. Select the Air Brush one.
12. Set the Size to 24, Hardness and Opacity to 100(OPACITY AND HARDNESS MUST BE SET TO THIS IN ORDER FOR IT TO BE INVISIBLE), Step to 10, Density to 24, Rotation to 0, and Blend Mode to Normal.
13. Go to the bottom of the image and catch the blade at an angle and cut it off as shown in the next image.
14. Now go through the remaining bit of the bottom and make sure there are no light green or white spots left. This has already been done in the last image.
15. Click on the drag bar of the image. Go to the Edit menu on the Top Bar and select Copy.
16. Start a new image. For the dimensions set Width to 175 and height to 175. These are good dimensions for our current bam, but they can change depending on what you are using or whatever your preferences are. A larger image makes Step 18 much quicker and less infuriating.
17. Using the cropping tool select the whole entire new image and then go to the Edit menu on the Top Bar and go to the Paste submenu and choose "Paste into Selection"
18. Exhale your last deep breath and take a new one. Now go through and do basically what you did in step 9, but this time you are going to be getting rid of all the green that isn't quite the right color. Here is the new result:
And now, just to double check we are going to open up Bam Workshop. For a tutorial on making bams, I suggest Sir-Kill or Seifer's(I think he wrote it) tutorial on inventory bams. Or you can just follow the one I'm making here which is much better since it is directly associated with description bams.
Actually Making the BamOpen up Bam Workshop. I prefer the first one, BWII makes no sense to me and just totally ruins bams. At least that's what I think. Of course I have no right to insult them as I can't write a program like that. Anyways... onto the tutorial.
1. On the right hand side of the screen there are two tabs. One says Sequences the other says Frames. Right click inside the window of the Sequences tab. Select "Add Sequence" and a sequence will be added.
2. Click on the Frames tab and right click in the window and select "Import Frame"
3. A browser will open up. Find the frame that you just made in PSP, which should be saved as a .bmp, click "Open"
4. Now to do some
more touchup on the image. Select the "Masked Eraser in the upper right hand of the left toolbar.
5. Make your primary color(the one that shows up in the palette on the bottom of the screen to be on top) the transparent pink.
6. Make your secondary color any colors that are not the transparent green. This is requires good perception to do this.
7. Check your bam by clicking the preview button below the window that displays the frames and sequences.
8. Repeat steps 6 and 7 until you are entirely satisfied.
9. Save the bam as whatever.
10. Read a DLTCEP tutorial. There is one at igi's forum:
http://forums.mcwrench.com