Import Walk-Behind Mask from Photoshop / Gimp

[Sparky]

I have all the walk-behinds for a room  drawn in Photoshop. I am running into problems when I try to "import mask..." from within AGS. I think it has something to do with the palette slots Photoshop is putting the colors into.

I understand that mask color 0 should be the unmasked areas, and colors 1-15 should be the different walk-behinds. But whenever I convert to indexed mode, I end up with the colors in the image scattered randomly throughout the palette. For reference, I've tried a number of different conversion methods.

When I try to import the image, AGS says:
The GIMP works fine. I'll just use that for now, but I'd like to understand what I'm doing wrong in Photoshop.

[Ashen]

Since it sounds like this is an issue with Photoshop, it doesn't really belong in the Beginners Tech forum (which is for AGS tech questions).

And unfortunately I can't be any more help than that, as I don't use PS.

[Galen]

Are you making sure to use only the pencil and fill tools and the pen tool will anti-alias causing extra colors and also make sure to sharpen and selections.

[nulluser]

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[MashPotato]

I think I had the same problem, this thread might help you ^_^
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=26744.0

[Sparky]

Ashen- thanks for moving the thread, and sorry for any inconvenience it caused.

Crazy- Everything has sharp edges, I removed all antialiasing before converting to indexed mode. That would be a mess if I forgot to, thanks for double-checking.

TheVintageDemon - I'm a little short on the Burly Men, but there seems to be a good amount of Photoshop wizardry going on around here, so hopefully things will work out.

MashPotato- Wretched's method (from your thread) seems to be working for me. Thanks for the link, I didn't come across that thread while searching. He's right about it not working for slot 7 though, which is weird. But that answers my question, I'm officially happy now!

For anyone who has this problem in the future, here's a set of instructions:
1) Open the swatches window in Photoshop. Switch to the Windows palette.
2) Using the colors in the palette, draw the mask in Photoshop with no antialiasing (image > adjustments > threshold is handy here). Working right to left, bottom to top, the slots in the index seem to map to walkbehind 0 (unmasked), walkbehind 1, walkbehind 2, etc.
3) Copy the mask into a new document. Convert to indexed mode using the Windows palette.
4) Import into AGS.

[TheJBurger]

Sorry to bump - but I think what I have to say is relevant.

I used Sparky's method for importing masks in AGS 2.72 and imported them as .pcx files. It worked fine.

In AGS 3.0 however, .pcx files are obsolete so I switched to .png. However, my current walkbehind masks (.png files) aren't importing correctly from Photoshop, and they are giving me that same error in the first post about "Invalid colors were found..." Then I looked up in the manual and saw this:

AGS has the ability to import an external BMP or PCX file to use as the walkable-area, hotspot or walk-behind area mask

So, does that rule out all other file extensions? Anyway, I saved the file as .bmp, .pcx, .tga, and .png and tried to import the mask, with still none of them working. .pcx and .tga gave me different errors about invalid parameters.

I opened up AGS 2.72 and tried to import the same masks and they all failed with the same errors, except the *.pcx masks worked. That same file did NOT import in 3.0, but did import in 2.72. Am I doing something stupid or is importing masks broken?