Pin2DMD Editor Tutorial

[cb3]

Hi Everyone,

    I thought now would be a good time to share some of the things I've learned working with the editor this past year.  We do not really have a thorough tutorial or manual available to help beginners get into coloring DMD's.  I have completed the first 3 chapters of what will be a continuing document of resource material to help anyone color their favorite DMD's.  My hope is that there is enough detail in this tutorial to get you started and comfortable working with the editor, which can be a bit overwhelming at times.  I will continue to add to this but I wanted to get something out there for the community, maybe this will spur a new wave of artists to join the effort in colorizing all DMD's out there!

Before we begin I want to acknowledge a couple members who have helped me get to where I am in this process and are very valuable members of the Vpin comunity.

Thanks to Lucky1 for the patience in answering my thousands and thousands of questions probably some I asked multiple times.  Thank You, You are the Best!

Thanks to DJrobX for shedding the "light" on keyframing for me, I swear It just didn't make any sense to me(for months) until you explained it , Thank You!

Thanks to Malenko for inspiring me to want to get involved with your amazing work and the first tutorial you put together though short helped me get started, Thank You!

Here is the link to the GDrive,  I will also post this in the Tutorials section.  Thanks!

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1-SpwIigih3Hty-bXVyEtLy2O9zr10ihR

[lucky1]

Wow ! Great work ! Thanks for starting this project !

[SteveNZ]

Thank You, this Tutorial will help a lot.

[DJRobX]

Nice start.

You touch on the fact that you can switch between ColorMask and replace mode, but I might recommend using Color Mask as much as possible as it always preserves the original dots, and thus is tremendously easier to work with once you understand how to set up the palette groups.

Once you've finished colorizing you pretty much always want to switch to Replace mode for non-dynamic scenes, since the ROM and colorized sequences are pretty much never in perfect sync.  

[lucky1]

That is a good point. Use ColMask for editing as much as possible and later switch to replace when keyframing the scene to avoid sync problems

[dpannell2]

Thanks CB3 for this tutorial.     I've been meaning to learn the editor, this seem like a great place to start!

[slydog43]

Wow, this is just what I have been wanting.  I tried just to color a few frames but had trouble as the editor has changed a lot over time and was a little hard to follow the older video tutorials.   I know what I will be doing tomorrow.  Thanks!!!

I tried again to create a simple coloring of the first few frames of Addams Family.  I just want to color the first words in the game to make sure everything is working.   I get the editor to crash many times, and can only create a .pal file.  I think I also need a .vni file.  I have done this in the past, but can't remember how I created that file.  Running the windows 64 bit version 2 program.   Will try the MAC version later today, but any pointers would be very helpful.  It can't be that hard to do what I want.  Thanks   (I was only using replace mode with 1 scene)

 

Can we report bugs here.   If I click start new project while I have 1 scene selected, program removes Imported Animations as it should, removes scenes from list box, but scene is still showing in the large DMD area, weird.

 

[cb3]

My plan is to release another chapter this weekend.  Thanks everyone for the feedback.

@slydog43 which version of the editor are you using?

[lucky1]

On 16.8.2018 at 3:15 AM, slydog43 said:

Can we report bugs here.   If I click start new project while I have 1 scene selected, program removes Imported Animations as it should, removes scenes from list box, but scene is still showing in the large DMD area, weird.

 

This thread is about the tutorial of CB3. Please ALWAYS report bugs found in the editor of Steve45 here https://github.com/sker65/go-dmd-clock/issues
That is the only place you can be sure that Steve gets notified.

[cb3]

Chapter 4: Key-framing Non-Dynamic Content Scenes is uploaded and available.  Thanks!

[DJRobX]

On p5, about the plane selection:

You can try checking the other plane to see which one is the most clearly defined.  As you state 90% of the time it won't matter, but if you encounter something that's only a couple of dots, you may find that the other plane could be a more reliable choice.  

I would also probably make a short note here that whenever this frame is seen, the keyframed animation will play.   So if there is any repetition in the animation it might restart the sequence from the beginning.    I sure you'll dedicate whole chapters to gotchyas, but this is a big one that we probably want to get into people's heads sooner rather than later so they start to understand how they need to break scenes and frames up. 

[malenko]

Amazing tutorial, source files are clutch. Also, honored to be mentioned

[cb3]

Chapter 5: Coloring Dynamic Content is complete and uploaded to the G: Drive.  I hope to possibly get to the next chapter on key-framing the dynamic content this weekend.  Enjoy!

[SteveNZ]

Thanks for the tutorials, they really do make it easier to get started with colorization.

[slippifishi]

Just wanted to chip in and say thank you CB3 for your tutorials, I am much more confident in using the editor as a result. I am looking forward to the next part/learning about keyframing dynamic scenes

One suggestion/request, it would be great if we could open the example project files ourselves in pin2dmd editor as well - that is, the raw source XML project file(s) for these tutorials. This would certainly help me, and perhaps others, to validate what we are seeing in your screenshots vs what we see on screen, and also play around/confirm settings for a "known working project".

Thanks again!

[Petar2]

Hi, I'm translating the tutorial into Spanish, to better understand how this works. The tutorial is very good, but I notice a difference with the images included, when comparing them with the editor that was downloaded the same week.

has there been an update of the editor after this tutorial? I say why, for example, in what I downloaded, I do not see the "recordings" window.

I'm using the 32-bit version, I do not know if it has anything to do with it, or the editor actually updated and the "recordings" window does not appear anymore.

I use Google translator, and it is more difficult for me to try a correct translation and I would like to not lose any of the information, once I finish translating all the chapters, I would like to share it for people who speak Spanish if the author gives his permission, of course .

a greeting

[slippifishi]

Hi Petar,

I am quite familiar with the tutorial and did not notice many significant differences between the screenshots and the latest version when I was using it in the last couple of months, certainly no big differences like you describe.

I reckon you are using the old "v1" version of the editor. I believe you can always download the latest compiled editor from the following URL (though someone may be able to tell you otherwise) - make sure you get the v2 exe!

https://dl.bintray.com/sker65/pin2dmd/

I just downloaded version 2.5.0.5 from here and it isn't far off the screenshots - try that and let us know if it still doesn't look right.

Good luck!

[lucky1]

@NetzZWerg just published a tutorial video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMyt5doiiAE

 

[Petar2]

thanks slippifishi, tonight at home download that version and check it. Surely that's what you comment, and be an old version what I installed.

regards

[Petar2]

confirmed, I have installed the old version, with the Link, it looks like in the images of the cb3 tutorial, thanks for the help, I will continue to translate into Spanish and see if I learn a little the editor and if not sure that someone will serve the translation.