Note: This topic doesn't cover how to extract and convert grp images. This is for the step of editing the images, assuming you extract each wireframe as a single image. This method might work with all wireframes extracted in one big image, but I haven't tested it.

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If you're like me and want to create or edit wireframes, but don't have Photoshop, and have trouble getting the colors right, this might help you!

Because of the whole index colors thing, it can happen that the green, yellow, orange and red colors you add are not the ones used for the wireframes, but instead other colors that have the same RGB value and appear earlier in the index. The image will not use the correct index color no matter what you do.

To understand what I mean, open GIMP, go to "Windows -> Dockable Dialogs -> Colormap", get a color with the Color Picker Tool, color a pixel in the image, select that new pixel with the Picker Tool again, and take a look at the colormap. If you placed green, it will select green at index position 117 instead of 209.
If you export the image like that, it will not use the correct colors, and thus will look weird in the GRP program preview and ingame.



I'm not an expert with colormaps and indexes, but I've found a brute force solution to make it work for everyone: Replace ALL colors of the colormap (except the ones used for wireframes-only) with purple, thus forcing GIMP to use the correct index position.


You can even edit your wireframe image in another program and then paste it in GIMP, merge layers, export it and voila - it works!

PS: Be sure to check both available options when exporting a BMP file with GIMP, it makes sure the file works properly with Starcraft.




I've attached some empty images to this topic whose colormaps have been "wiped" already. It should make the whole process with GIMP quite easy!

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Awesome. I am pretty sure many people will appreciate this.

Thanks for the tip!