Hair import quality (1 Viewer)

[Diaree]

Hi.
Simple question: Why do kona's hairs look much smoother and don't decrease in quality
when zooming in? I'd think because it's a "vector graphic" and those don't decrease in quality if
you make the picture bigger but even with Photoshop for example if i make the hair with vectorlines
they decrease in quality. I'm also surprised that literally ALL of the hair imports have this problem, no
matter who did them. (not really talking about dynamic hair - i don't know anything about that stuff and
that'd take too long for me to learn)
So what does konashion do different when he puts them in? Is he using some special program where he's
not simply "drawing" it? (still not talking about dynamic hair, his old hair had the better quality too)
Just bugs me a lot because the hairimports kind of look out of place.

 

[kojiro]

if you are making hairs with photoshop using the pentool then you wont get the same result. photoshop doesnt use vector like flash and illustrator if you zoom in enough on what you are drawing you'll see it starts to pixelate because its bitmap not vector. the hair kona uses are made in flash even the ones that dont move. dynamic hair imports dont loose quality because they are swf files that keep the vector info. the quality of hairs that are not swf files will start lose quality when zoomed in because they are exported as png which is a normal pic so even if it was a vector its not anymore. but it think the quality of the pics saved in flash as a png will be better than one made i photoshop.

 

[RajasGrime]

Imports drawn as vectors, but exported as an image are still pixels. To keep them as true vectors, you must make them an SWF import.

Import your Photoshop or Illustrator file into the hair modding Flash file Kona released and export it as an SWF. That will keep the vectors nice and smooth.

 

[anonymous]

Import your Photoshop or Illustrator file into the hair modding Flash file Kona released and export it as an SWF. That will keep the vectors nice and smooth.

Keeping in mind that a .PNG file is NOT a Photoshop or Illustrator file. Importing a .PNG into Flash will do you no good.

 

[RajasGrime]

There are people who do require such a clarification, don't they?

 

[anonymous]

There are people who do require such a clarification, don't they?

Yes... many

 

[Diaree]

Imports drawn as vectors, but exported as an image are still pixels. To keep them as true vectors, you must make them an SWF import.

Import your Photoshop or Illustrator file into the hair modding Flash file Kona released and export it as an SWF. That will keep the vectors nice and smooth.

Is it the CS5 Moddings files here you're talking about? http://konashion.blogspot.com/p/modding.html
(I'll download and check what it's about now but it sounds quite complicated)

 

[kojiro]

hmm ill try to be clear as possible. if you want to have a vector file that wont loose quality you can make it from scratch in flash using konas SDT mod fla with adobe flash cs5 or cs5.5
or you can make a hair drawing in photoshop(PSD) or illustrator which you can import it into flash and use on the SDT mod fla to save it as a swf that will not loose quality. but i believe if you made the the hair with the pentool on photoshop you will have to use trace bitmap to turn the pixelated lines into vectors first.

 

[Diaree]

Okay so.. I have flash cs5 and photoshop cs5. Let's assume I'd rather draw it in PS since
I have no experience with Flash and it looks way different. What do I do?
For one hair i downloaded the hair template and finished it [attachthumb=1]
(I still have the .psd file with all the layers).
I opened Flash with the sdtmod.fla, then importing to stage and imported the .psd file with all the layers.
What do I do with this now? I have no idea how flash works really or where I'd even have to draw if i wanted to do it in flash directly.
Might sound lazy to ask here instead of learning but i wouldn't know where to start and I just want to know it
for this one purpose of making good quality hair.

 

[kojiro]

believe me i was a strictly photoshop person but flash is alot more simple. its not that difficult since you're only using it to draw stuff. ok so you have your psd in the fla file but you should import it to library instead of the stage. once you do that go duplicate the hair template symbol in the library for the different sections of hair like ontop, or below ear, or under everything. . then in the library go into the psd imported hair and copy it then go back into the hair symbol and paste it position it and resize using transform tool(Q shortcut). since its a psd though you'll have to select everything and then go to modify bitmap and use trace bitmap to make it a vector. you should read the tutorial in the template for publishing hair when youre finished since it wil make more sense and look at this
http://superdeepthroat.undertow.club/index.php?topic=788.0

im guessing you wil still be lost but i tried. my advice would be to get familiar with flash and understand how the SDTMod fla works

 

[RajasGrime]

Differences between the pen tools of Flash and Photoshop are minor, if you know how to use one, you will know how to use the other. Illustrator is by far superior to these two in drawing vectors, vectors are the main focus of the prgramm after all.

For future reference when creating image exports, your PNG export is rather large. You could do with half the height because 3/4th of it is completely empty.

Oh and beware of people complaining your SWF hair imports not being dynamic.

 

[Diaree]

Aalright so I'm giving up on attempting to draw in on photoshop and importing stuff.. trace bitmap was greyed out and stuff confused me a lot.
By the little tutorial you sent me a link to I managed to make a quick hair which is above all.
Now what I did not understand and what isn't explained in
that tutorial is how i do it with the below ear and below everything.
I know you said to duplicate the Hairtemplate, so let's say i do that once so now
I have 2 hairtemplates in the library. (i don't need the below everything for the hair i'm making first).
I guess I have to just draw the left part of the .png hair i posted on the first template and the right part on the second template.
Here's my first problem: How do I know where to position them? In PS i could kinda
put them next to each other to see where one starts and ends so they don't leave a gap in between or something but here it's like i have 2 seperate images open
and i can't just seem to copy the first one onto the second and draw the right part onto it, then delete the left part...waah hard to explain x_x
so that's somewhat the first problem and let's say I'll eventually solve that so i have them in the right position on the 2 templates. What do i do with them now?
If I only had hair on 1 template I'd understand but with 2+ i don't really get it..

 

[kojiro]

this is how under ear or ontop works. lets say youre drawing a part of the hair that you want to be under the ear. you draw that and when you finish go to the rectangle on the timeline on settings layer(its called a keyframe) right click that and go to actions. this will show you the action script which is the commands that lets the game know what to do with the hair. you'll see this

/**
* Target layer. Options are:
* Elements.HAIR_TOP (Above all.)
* Elements.HAIR_UNDER (Under ear and body, above dynamic hair "under" layer.)
* Elements.HAIR_BOTTOM (Under ear and body, below dynamic hair "under" layer.)
* Elements.HAIR_BACK (Under all.)
*/
var targetElement:String = ModElements.HAIR_TOP;

this part lets you tell the game what if the hair will be on top under ear or under the body
var targetElement:String = ModElements.HAIR_TOP;

you change it by simply changing the word after the underscore. so if you want it to be ontop leave it as TOP. if you want it to bee under ear change it to UNDER if you want it to be under and behind body chage it to BACK

now for positioning what i do is make the base of the hair first. after that select all of it with the select tool(Shortcut V) and then right click and copy. then on the duplicate symbol for say the top part of the hair lock the Hair layer and then make a new layer then right click and past in place then lock that layer and go back to the hair layer unlock it and begin to draw now that you have the base there. you can move the layer over or under the layer for the base depending if you are drawing the top part of the hair or the back.

when you finish the hair you publish it like how described in the easy swf importing guide. you have to delete the reference layer for all the symbols you drew hair for( the grey face model) then go to the main stage. when on the main stage click the symbol from the library and drag and drop it onto the stage. then give what you added to the stage an instance name you do this by having it selected and click properties at the top right and you will see <Instance Name> click there and give it a name like hairtop or whatever you want. Make sure everything you drag and drop is on the Mods layer of the stage. after that click on right click the keyframe on the settings layer an go to actions to se its actionscript like you did for the hair parts. for ever hair part you gave an instance name you will have to register it in the actionscript here. yo do this by copy and pastig this line on the empty lines

registerMod(ModInstanceName);

so if you gave the top part of the hair the instance name of tophair you register it by changing the ModInstacneName to tophair so it will look like this

registerMod(tophair);

i dont think i can get any clearer than that hope this helps

 

[Diaree]

Really appreciate the help but I think I'll have to stick with the low
quality hair =/ i thought with years of photoshop experience this can't be
too bad but it's all very different and seems so complicated compared to
PS. my patience stopped when i drew some ugly hair within 3 minutes which
i could've done in 20sec in PS, layers wouldn't merge and then when they did and
I checked "Actions" there was no script there at all and gaah x_x I hope your explanations
will help someone else, i tried and failed.. might try again eventually but it's too much
for me right now, maybe because I've never done any kind of modding before or worked with scripts/programs
like that.
Please let me know if you find some simple way to do it like how you do it with the worse-quality ones. =x

 

[Diaree]

Okay I don't like being beat by a program so I tried again, same problem, the Actions are
not showing what you said they would (screen attached)
Any idea why? I opened the sdtmod.fla, went to templates, duplicated the hairtemplate twice
and drew on the 1st hairtemplate duplicate, then rightclicked the rectangle and went to actions
so this is what i see now.
Edit: While I'm at it, I always have to rightclick>break appart all the lines if i want to fill the gap in them,
is there some way to automate that?
Edit2: Seems like I overlooked the part where you said i have to click the rectangle on the settings layer, not on hairlayer..x_x I'll try and
see how that goes

 

[RajasGrime]

Select the keyframe on the timeline that has a small 'a' in it. Those frames have script in them.

 

[anonymous]

I'm not sure, because it's been a while since I worked with flash... but I think you have to save your template, go back to the main scene, place your template on the hair layer, then proceed to go to the actions tab.

If you were to post your .fla file I could definitely fix it for you and give you your .fla back fixed so you can see what I did.

 

[Diaree]

Select the keyframe on the timeline that has a small 'a' in it. Those frames have script in them.

Yeah I got that now, thank you.
So that worked, then i didn't change anything for the tophair on Hair Template copy Symbol.
So then I went to Hair Template copy 2 and drew the hair for under the ears, then changed it
to HAIR_UNDER in the Actions when i was done. After that I went to File>Publish.
So then you said I should go to mainstage and drag/drop the Symbols there.
I did that but I have to place them myself so I can't tell where to put them on there (there isn't
even a reference on main). So I need to put them in there in place somehow. Tried it with copy>paste in place
but there's nothing being pasted. (There are only "README", "Settings" and "Mods" Layers on Main, i tried it on
default Mods layer)

 

[kojiro]

when you finish the hair(if you did what i said by copying the base hair to the other symbols dont forget to delete that layer And the reference grey face layer) drag and drop the symbols to the main stage Mods layer and give them instance names and register them in the main settings actions. you dont have to arrange them on the main settings mods layer it keeps the positioning from the symbols. after that you just publish it

 

[RajasGrime]

Charming username by the way. Nice and fluid.