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Malenko's Pin2DMD colorization tutorial

a brief generalized over view of coloring games for Pin2DMD

This Tutorial will be expanded upon in the future, but I want to get the basics going first. Source files will be downloadable from here:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=15r3ty4eu7Mkg2CBIEul65AjmkGpTWdZ-
The recording is from Star Wars and was sent to me by @thebarto

This tutorial assumes you have the editor software installed, and have recordings of the game available.

Open the editor and choose Animations -> Load recording and load the gz file. Or go to file->load project and load the XML file. I tend to save a new project as soon as I load the recordings.
editor.thumb.png.1b2c1692f42b6a38605edd92a0e5170b.png

 

It is best to  keep all projects in their own sub-folders, for organizational purposes.
folders.PNG.440440287e6b7db71a752470b6cf39f5.PNG
I have also opened the XML file and removed the pathing to the file so that it reads:
<string>060118_113731_pin2dmd_dump.txt.gz</string> instead of  <string>d:\Pin2DMD\Malenko\060118_113731_pin2dmd_dump.txt.gz</string>

 

Let's begin with the score screen.  You don't need more than 1 frame when you use a mask.  If you click on the keyframe, you'll see the word "Player" is masked. That means anytime the game sees that word in that location, it'll apply the masking from the frame "score screen" . I did not draw a box around the word player, since stars fly behind it, and that would make the mask not work.
Mask.thumb.PNG.2effe07caad9aa3e73fdbe5820f6bd04.PNG

Zoomed in:
player.PNG.5e32ab9f57a46eaecde7ea4ec8111f9a.PNG


If you look at the single frame scene called "Score Screen" you can see my color masking. I changed the default colors to red, I filled in the words with blue, and I drew a box around where the numbers are using the black,red, and white section of the palette. What this does is let the "stars" stay red when they fly behind the numbers AND let the numbers stay white no matter what number is on screen. So player 2 on ball 3 with 7 credits will look exactly the same as player 1 on ball 2 with 0 credits. 

Frame prior to colorization:
unmasked.PNG.1485877009416027afee8aa96a64ef99.PNG

 

Frame WITH colorization:
masked.PNG.ed9b7f5b20e523da0f14e1b9df296e3e.PNG

You cannot have the score and the stars different colors on  since the score moves around based on how high the score gets and they share a colors.

This is the exact same way I did the score for Terminator 2 , Street Fighter 2, and Lethal Weapon 3 ; so you can DL those files and poke around there too.

Here is a better break down of the color masks:
colors.png.b2ddc255de8abad5d798e57834866819.png
Default Colors: Apply to the entire scene where ever a color mask is not present
Mask Colors apply where every you draw them. A single dot, a fill, a shape, a line it doesnt matter.
If you have the 1st mask colors selected and you draw a box, where ever that box is drawn will convert 1 to A , 2 to B, 3 to C and 4 to D
If you have the 2nd mask colors selected and you draw a box, where ever that box is drawn will convert 1 to E , 2 to F, 3 to G and 4 to H
If you have the 3rd mask colors selected and you draw a box, where ever that box is drawn will convert 1 to I ,  2 to J, 3 to K and 4 to L

 

Now you're probably asking "but why are you reusing colors"
That is to simplify masking, instead of coloring each dot in every word we can draw a box. This is also used to mask the numbers so that when the numbers change to any value, the lightest color stays white while allowing the stars to still hold their color as they pass behind.
If you ever decide to change the colors in the default section , you'll have to update the the colors in the other section as well if you use this technique.
colors2.png.9e807fbf796b9884d23dee947917ab43.png
Its much easier to see the actual color masks with the values changed  in the above example.

 


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