Editting Palettes with Character maker 1999 and more

Firstly open your sprite in Paint. Resize it to 64x64 pixels by press Image->Stretch/Skew or Ctrl + W, then try to resize it to a smaller one that fit 64x64 pixels. (or 80x80 pixels if u're using DP ot BW room)

In my tutorial I use Sugarmon of Centurymon on DevianArt. The attributes are 597x624 pixels. So I decrease it to 10% in width and 10% in height. The new one attributes are 60x63 pixels so it'll fit 64x64 pixels format. Okay. After you decrease its dimension, change the attributes to 64x64 pixels again (80x80 pixels for DP and BW)

Now change the picture background to a different color that your sprite doesn't have. We'll use this color to make a transparent background. You don't want to have a pokemon without a head or a leg, do you? So make sure no part of your sprite/pokemon/trainer have the background color. Fill the color in the background.

Using fill tool in Paint won't make all the old background color come to the new one, because when you change the dimension, it'll automatically add more color to the background. So use the pecil tool to fully change the background color to the new one.

Save your work as 24-bit bitmap format. This format works perfect on Character Maker 1999. Don't save as Jpeg or gift because these format will destroy your sprite.

I have a little explane here: color depth is number of colors you use in your sprites. There are some standard color depth: 2 colors (1bpp), 16 colors (4bpp), 256 colors (8bpp) and 65536 colors (24bpp)

So what does it mean when we save as "24-bit bitmap"? That means the image will be saved with 24bpp format with
65536 colors. But the number we must use in our sprite is only 16 colors. So we must "decrease color depth" it

There is two program that can do this work. IrfanView or Corel Paintshop Pro. Corel may better a little, but just a little. If you don't have Corel Paintshop, don't worry about it. IrfanView will be OK, as long as you uncheck "Use Floyd-Steinberg ditherring" option, because that option make our sprite really terrible.

Okay, now you must have one of two program. You can download IrfanView here http://download.cnet.com/IrfanView/?part=dl-IrfanView&subj=dl&tag=button

Open your sprite in one of two program. Go Image -> Decrease color depth -> 16 colors depth. Choose option and then press OK to decrease your sprite (If you use Irfanview you should uncheck "Use Floyd-Steinberg ditherring" option)

Save your sprite as "something-indexed.bmp". Don't save to the old one because Corel sometime cause bug with 24-bit bitmap and 256 colors bitmap,... and something more can confuse your head. I'll save my sprite as Sugarmon-indexed.bmp

Okay. We finish decrease color depth it. Let's go to step3

Open you sprite in Character Maker 1999. Go to Palette-> Edit palette. All the work we have todo here is cut the background color and paste it as your first color in palette table.

If you use Corel you may notice there are more than 16 colors. All colors after the first row (first 16 colors) are useless. If you don't delette it, it's Ok because Unlz GBA can read/write 256 colors bitmap and it'll understand that you're using first 16 colors. But for safe you should delete all these colors. So delete all the colors after the first row

Now save your work. Press File -> save as, this time choose 16-colors bitmmap.

Okay! You've successfull indexed a sprite. Congratulations! Now you can add your sprite to game using Advance Series if your sprite is Pokemon or Unlz GBA if your sprite is trainer.

Prepare your image resource. You can find on Internet or drawing yourself. If you find on internet, make sure you have permition to use them, and don't forget to credit the authour. I'll use Zein tileset in this tutorial.

In gen 3 room, every map is made by two tilesets: one is the Main tileset, which has tileset of trees, roads, water, sand and sea,... that make the overworld view or TV, household appliance ,.... The Main Tilesets in game are 0, 14, 20,37, 55 (Ruby), 0, 12, 16, 24, 33, 35, 39, 55, 56 (FireRed). Not all of Main Tileset is used in game

One map is based from 2 tilesets: one Main-tileset and one Sub-tileset. Every tilset have 6 diferent palettes: Main-tilset has palette 0 to 5. Sub-tileset has palette 6 to 11. palette 12 is error palette. Don't ever use it. When you add new tilset, you must replace the old palette by the new one. So choose the palette you want to replace carefully. Changing palette at the palette section in Block Editor

Now open your Image resource. To save the number of palette use, you should make some of tree, grass or house that have the same palette at one place, then delete others. Then changing the background to a strange color and save your new image as 24-bit bitmap format.

Just like Decrease color depth in Part 1: Indexing Sprites from custom sprites

Do everything in step 3 of part 1: Indexing Sprites from custom sprites, but this time you have a little bonus work. Before you close the palette editting window, press the "15-bit colorize" button. This button will make all RGB values are devided by 8. Then save your Palette as *.act file (Adobe Color Table). Save your indexed image

Open your room in Advance Map. Press Ctrl + B to open Block Editor.
Choose the palette you want to replace (Remember: palette 0 to 5 is Main-tileset's palette, and 6 to 11 is Sub-tileset's palettes. Choose the corect one. If you want to edit the Main tileset, don't choose palette 6 to 11 and oposite...) , Then press Palettes -> Load current palette from file. In the new window, change the "File type" to Adobe Color Table (*.act). Then load your saved act file. Close Block Editor and choose Yes to apply the new palette.

Now Open Block Editor again. Choose the palette you have edited. Now you can see the color is changed. Export your tileset you want to edit. (Again: Choose the corect tileset) using Pictures -> Save Tileset 1 (or Tileset 2). The Main-tileset will be tileset 1, and the Sub-tileset is tileset 2. Okay. Now the exported tileset has the same palettes with your new tileset palettes. Just copy and paste, and then Load Tileset again in Block Editor by Pictures -> Load Tileset 1 (or Tileset 2), you have successfully changed the tileset.

All the rest things is making new Tile and edit Tiles behavior. It comesto easy now: to change to block number: Blocks -> Change amounts (Max: 512).

Then just make your tile. There are two canvas in each tile: Up and Down, and with behavior. I think everything is wrote in AdvanceMap and easy to learn

.....Just one note:
Up behavior:
"Jump with mach bike, splashing water" : is reflection on water and HAVE POKEMON
"Reflection on water, splashing water, waves": NO POKEMON
Behavior number 8: POKEMON ON THE GROUND

Down Behavior:
10: Block is covered by hero AND WEATHER EFFECT (include relection on water, mist)