painting graphics in pak files

[BTBEI2016]

hi everyone anyone can give me a tip what tool we can use to paint vehicles for Pak 192 comic ? Thank you

[Leartin]

Any tool that can edit graphics on a pixel level.

The team uses:
Adobe Photoshop
The GIMP
Microsoft Paint

Photoshop can do so much that it's hard to learn how to use it, and it costs too much to do just pixel art with it, but in case you use it for other stuff already, just continue.
The GIMP is similar to Photoshop in how much it can do that you don't need for Pixel Art. Things you can use in Photoshop for Pixelart that are not available in the GIMP are mostly just convenience things, so you can do it anyway with a few buttons more. And it's free, which is the biggest Plus.
Microsoft Paint can't do a lot, but that's also one of it's strengths - you can do real Pixel Art without fancy Fake-Tools. Even though it lacks even layers, you can achieve everything you can do in bigger programs - it might just take longer.

Other than that, there are the common PixelArt-Tools. Aseprite is pretty good and on steam, but not free anymore. GraphicsGale is probably the best known Pixel Editor and free. GrafX2 comes to mind, too.


In the end, I don't think the program matters much for pak192.comic graphics. Just pick any tool and stick to it for a while, until you hate it. If you never start to hate it, it's good enough for what you do, and it will be until you want to do crazy things

[BTBEI2016]

dear Leartin Thank you for the valuable information my question as well is how to import pak files to paint them ? Thank you

[BTBEI2016]

I have a question as well please , is there a way to convert google sketchup models to simutrans objects ? if there is how and what tool we can use ? Thank you

[Leartin]

A pak file is a somewhat proprietary format, which cannot be opened*.

If you want to edit someone elses graphics, you need the sources, that is, a PNG file. Sometimes they are published with the paks, but usually you would have to find the author and ask them. This goes hand in hand with copyright, since legally you would not be allowed to change someone elses graphics anyway.

A sneaky, not recommanded way is to just start the game in native resolution (no zoom) and make some screenshots, it's rather easy to seperate objects from the background since up to now there is no transparency in the game. to make it even easier, you can create single-colored landscape and ways, to make it even easier to seperate object from background. But keep in mind, you might not be allowed to edit those graphics, publishing them without permission in the community would probably seen as theft.



*Well, technically, since Simutrans is OpenSource, anyone could look at the code and create a file reader that reconstructs PNG and DAT from the PAK. However, this would not be appreciated by the community.


EDIT:
You can use Google Sketchup to create models. You'd have to render them in the correct, parallel perspective, and then scale them. Currently, you would further need to edit the edges, but alpha transparency is to be added to the game, which would mean no further changes would be needed. Though keep in mind that we are in the pak192.comic subforum, and pak192.comic is made of pixel art. Anything made with google sketchup won't fit in.