# Request: Advanced Idle pointer

**URL:** <https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/request-advanced-idle-pointer/65767>\
**Category:** II - Modding\
**Created:** [December 21, 2019, 5:09pm UTC](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/request-advanced-idle-pointer/65767 "2019-12-21T17:09:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 4

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**Author:** ![GregRising](https://forums.ageofempires.com/user_avatar/forums.ageofempires.com/gregrising/32/43990_2.png) [@GregRising](https://forums.ageofempires.com/u/GregRising)\
**Post date:** [December 28, 2019, 1:47pm UTC](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/request-advanced-idle-pointer/65767/4 "2019-12-28T13:47:03Z")

</div>

The procedure is a bit exhausting… I compiled openage library to extract the sprite sheet which includes all the 960 frames of an smx file: And yes there are no shadows but you can choose player palette color in your extraction command

**Compiling openage using my ubuntu machine**

`git clone https://github.com/SFTtech/openage.git`  
`cd openage`  
`./configure`  
`make`  
`cd bin`  
`python3 -m openage convert-file --player-palette-file ~/games/aoe2de/Data/playercolor_blue.pal --palette-file ~/games/aoe2de/Data/b_west.pal u_elite_eagle.smx /tmp/rofl.png`

In the command above you can choose different color palette and extract the png file (sprite sheet)

After you extract all the sprite sheets you’ll have to cd into convert folder and edit ‘texture.py’

`nano openage/openage/convert/texture.py`

Then replace these lines:

```
for frame in input_data.main_frames: 
     for subtex in self._smp_to_subtextures(frame, 
                                            main_palette, 
                                            player_palette, 
                                            custom_cutter): 
         frames.append(subtex) 

```

With these lines:

```auto
frame_ctr = 0
for frame in input_data.main_frames: 
    for subtex in self._smp_to_subtextures(frame, 
                                           main_palette, 
                                           player_palette, 
                                           custom_cutter): 
        self.image_data = subtex
        frame_name = "frame_%s" % (frame_ctr)
        frame_ctr += 1
        self.save(Directory("/home/user/frames/").root, frame_name)
        frames.append(subtex) 

```

and cd back into openage folder again and rebuild the project

`make`

Now use the same command as previously:  
`python3 -m openage convert-file --player-palette-file ~/games/aoe2de/Data/playercolor_blue.pal --palette-file ~/games/aoe2de/Data/b_west.pal u_elite_eagle.smx /tmp/rofl.png`

Done your 960 frames are extracted into /home/user/frames as png filetype images

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