CVR Editor v1 (4/2/2014) is now available.

[Ford_Prefect]

Screenshot:


Download

Changelog:
Version 1:
* Multi-part objects load correctly.
* Save (Ctrl s) has been added.
* Undo (Ctrl z) has been added.  You can undo the last 100 changes.

(click to show/hide)

Alpha 3: 4/2/2014
* Can save files again.
* Automatically adds .cvr if you don't.

Alpha 2: 4/1/2014

• Much better drawing
• Back button now works
• Remembers which folder you last opened and saved
• Slightly faster loading
• Mesh name is displayed properly

Notes:

• Requires python 3 to run.  https://www.python.org/
• I recommend Caviar Player to quickly preview the results of your work
• Middle mouse click will zoom in/out on a view.  Makes editing allot easier.
• The program doesn't know what all the colors should be.  If you look at the bottom right of the palette, I have the unknown colors represented with a pinkish purple.  You can change what color is used to represent the unknown in the options.
• https://github.com/uaEquals42/CVR-Colorizer is where I'm working on the code.
• Save as - Will save as a cvr file.
• Export - Will save the data as a text file that is machine and human readable.
• < >    Will cycle through any submeshes (if more than 1 exists)
• |< >|  Will cycle through the parts (if more than 1)
  
• Here is a handy list of cvr files
  

Known bugs:

• Occasionally, an unknown color will be represented with black. 
• Undo is slow
• Many colors are unknown as to what color should be displayed.  I can't fix this until someone figures out where the rest of the color codes are stored in the .cvr files.

 Caviar (.cvr) specification. (WIP)

[Buster's Uncle]

[Ford_Prefect]

 

If anyone is confused, once you have python 3 installed, the file you want to run is cvrColorizer.py.
CVR.py is the backend that does allot of the heavy lifting.  All the gui code is contained in cvrColorizer.

[Ford_Prefect]

Soooo...... anyone try it out yet?  How you like it?

Also http://www.weplayciv.com/forums/showthread.php?6789-HOW-TO-SMACX-caviar-files-listed has a handy list of the cvr files.

[Geo]

Also http://www.weplayciv.com/forums/showthread.php?6789-HOW-TO-SMACX-caviar-files-listed has a handy list of the cvr files.

[Geo]

At first look it will be slow-running on my desktop. Will tinker a bit more later on, after groceries are done.

[Ford_Prefect]

Geo - Could you be more specific in what is running slow?  I know of several areas that could be easily optimized to run faster and some that would be really hard to optimize... it would help me if I knew were you were experiencing problems.

[Geo]

Perhaps it was false alarm. I happened to open the alien colony pod as first try, and this model appears to be among the largest .cvr files in the game. It took 5-10 seconds to load the 6 viewpoints of this model.
For improvement, the only thing I'd propose right now would be to remember the last folder path used to open a .cvr file. Now it links to the Python folder when the user runs the application.

[Ford_Prefect]

Oh yeah... the alien colony pod.  That thing takes 5 seconds to load on my fastest computer.  The sad thing is there is only one thing I can think of to speed it up and that would be to make it multi-threaded  and it would only, at best, double the speed that they are displayed. 

I know I can make painting faster, but I didn't notice any slowdowns when drawing, so I concentrated on making the program work instead.  But if anyone notices lag when drawing, I would like to know.

[Kilkakon]

I admit I am retreating away from working on this game, but hey, I hope it helps the next person out. It is amazing to have this barrier finally demolished or at least close to. I had to do so much fiddling with the 9 unit pcxs available, haha.

[Linamints]

Gotta say I LOVE THIS! I've had a lot of fun re-designing units with it.
My only critique really is the fixed brush size, if you want to go for a re-color it is a very tedious process to recolor with a 1 pixel brush.
My suggestion would be to put in a toolbox like MS paint has where you can change your brush size between a few different sizes. (or possibly a feature to import textures someday? )

The only bug I noticed was that attempting to do scribbles on the cvrs will make the brush start to fragment, going slower will create nice solid lines though. I'm not sure if it was intentional but just thought I'd point that out.

Overall I must say, you deserve the highest cheers for this!

[Ford_Prefect]

http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=8083.0

Alpha 2 is now out! 
Painting now works properly (no more solitary dots).
Also it remembers the folder you last opened/saved to.
Plus numerous other bug fixes.

@Linamints
I'm thinking about adding different brush sizes.  I just wanted to get alpha 2 out because it fixes allot of the bugs.

[Buster's Uncle]

What I'd really like is the ability to copy/paste to and from other graphics editors...

[Buster's Uncle]

BTW, let me know when you're ready for publicity, and we'll put our heads together and I can promote the heck outta yer .cvr editor the way Yitzi's patch is getting a push right now.  It's good for AC2, and it's good for getting your mod into maximum user hands.

[Linamints]

@Ford_Prefect Wow that was fast! I love the improved brush function. It really helps a ton.

Edit: I did notice a bug though that is a bit critical. Using the save option does not appear to be saving the files any longer. By habit I add .cvr to my filenames, this has worked fine so far but I noticed this evening the changes made no longer seem to be saving. When not adding .cvr to my filenames manually it doesn't seem to register it as a cvr, even pasting it into the game folder won't replace the original cvr file.  The normal cvr files tend to have an icon that is a page with icons on it, the cvr files saved without adding the extension manually save as a blank page. I have tested a few different methods of tinkering with the cvr extension but none of them have resulted in the files loading via the program or AC with the changes made actually being saved.

And just for the sake of information, I was editing Drop.cvr on Windows 7.

I was also a bit curious what features are planned/in the works, and if you wanted people to offer suggestions for additional features?

Though I must say, I am really impressed with the program's stability and performance so early in it's creation. You've done a great job on this!