EDITART FAQ v.1
by Dan Manning
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Introduction: This is the very first version of the Editart FAQ. I know there are going to
be a number of things that will be left out of this version, either because I have yet to do
them, or I just forgot to put it it. Feel free to e-mail me at Dophin25@aol.com and tell
me what to add. The FAQ is written in both Write and basic TXT. I suggest viewing and
printing from Window's Write, as you will get the bold, underlines, etc. Here goes...
============================================================================================
Credits: Thanks to Ken Silverman, ZTXjim, and someone named willy
============================================================================================
Table of Contents: _
I. Beginning
II. Working with art tiles from the game
1. to run editart
2. to choose another tile
3. to get a specific tile
4. to use a color from the pallete at the bottom right
4a. picking up a color already on the picture
5. applying the color
6. filling an entire area with color
7. to randomly plot dots of color
8. to change all pixels of one color to another color
9. to make image 3D
10. to rotate a picture in a specific direction
11. to name your artwork
12. to plot random antialias of color
13. to back up your work
14. to export a tile
15. to leave editart
16. to save your work
III. Creating New Art for Duke3D
1. Where do I start?
2. How do I create art?
3. Getting your art into editart
4. To resize the art
5. to get rid of the picture
IV. Creating Your Own Animations
1. Tools
2. Starting out
3. Getting the frames of animation
4. turning the frames into editart animation
5. setting the speed of animation
V. Other Stuff
[ TOP ]
I. Beginning: The first thing we need to do is load editart into Duke3d. If you have a
working version loaded, congratulations. If not, do the following:
1. exit to DOS mode. For some odd reason, editart copies over in dos, not windows.
2. go to your Duke3d directory and type copy D:\goodies\build
(this will copy the Build and Editart files into Duke.)
3. After, type kextract duke3d.grp *.art *.dat
(I didn't have to copy the dat files myself, but some people swear you have to)
4. You should now be able to run editart. If it still doesn't work, another suggestion is
to delete your bsetup configuration file. I didn't have to do that.
The following is a list of things I did before that DIDN'T work:
A. tried loading editart through windows. It just didn't work. I got a blank screen.
B. tried copying the bsetup file and running editart. Didn't change a thing.
C. tried running editart through windows. It doesn't work, 'cause it doesn't have the
necessary art tiles to read from. (had to try it :)
D. tried to copy dat files. I already had them in Duke, so I couldn't figure out why I
needed to do that, but I took someone's advice, and it did nothing.
E. tried making a separate folder (directory) for editart....nada.
What I'm saying is, what is above is what worked for me (on a fresh copy of Duke) after I
tried everything else. Try it.
[ TOP ]
II. Working with the art tiles from the game.
No doubt, the easiest thing to do in editart is to manipulate the original tiles from the
game. They are already made up for you. All you have to do is change this and that to get
new colors or rearranged tiles. _
1. To run editart, simply type "editart" at the Duke prompt. The warning sign should come
up. Hit a key and the Ken Silverman Editart sign should come up in red. It will then load
all of your art and show you tile number one (the ugly brown tile).
2. To choose another tile: hit "v" just like you would in build. It will then show you the
surrounding tiles.
3. To get a specific tile: either use the arrows to page up and down to get the close ones,
or type "G" which stands for "go to". You may then type any number up to something close
to 4095, which is the end of the art file. This is helpful when you need to get your
original art which is almost always at the end of the list.
4. To use a specific color from the pallete at the bottom right: just hold down the shift
key and use the arrows to scroll through the colors. When you have the one you want, let
go. To use the pink background that makes the background "clear", you can just hit the
"backspace" key.
4A. Picking up a color already on the picture: is easy. Just put the cursor on the color
(on the picture) and hit tab. It will pick up that areas color, just like Build.
5. Applying color: Once you pick the color you want, you can apply the color to the picture
in two different ways.
A. You can press and hold the left mouse button as you drag it to produce a line of color.
Good for large pictures.
B. You can use the arrows to move the little cursor around the picture and then press the
space bar to make a single drop of color on the picture. Very good for detail and touch-up
work.
6. Filling an entire area with color: this is great for adding the pink background, as
well as a few other uses. To "fill" an area, you must have the area surrounded by the
color you plan to fill it with (if you want to floodfill the background pink, outline the
edges and the entire object with the same pink color). Press "F" in the area you want
filled and it will turn everything within the color's boundary that same color. BE
CAREFUL... to make sure you have the ENTIRE area surrounded by the color, or you may lose
all or a good part of the picture.
7.To randomly plot dots of color over another specific color: place the cursor over the
color and hit "J". This will put a bunch of random spots of color ONLY over the color the
cursor is on. This works well to add random detail to big blocks of color. BE CAREFUL...
It will place the dots over any area on the picture that contains that color.
8. To change all the pixels of one color to another color: choose the color you want,
place the cursor over the color you want to change and hit "C". BE CAREFUL... It will
change ALL the areas with that color to the new one, not just the specific area.
9. To make an image 3D: You can press ";" which is supposed to make the colors in the
rows of the color bar either appear to stick out or recess into the wall. I have tried it,
but I don't see a major difference, unless I press it a number of times. Try it out after
you have saved some work.
9A. To make the picture 3D the opposite way: press " ' " which will do the same as above,
but in reverse.
10. To move or "rotate" a picture in a specific direction: press "R" which will bring up a
prompt asking you to use the arrow keys to point which way you want the picture to shift.
One note: this will slide the picture the way of the arrow, not actually rotate it. The
end of the picture will show up on the opposite side of the picture. I didn't find this
very useful.
11. To name your artwork: press "N" and enter a name for the tile. This is by no means
necessary, but it can be helpful to identify really small tiles.
Some other features that I rarely use:
12. To plot a random antialias of colors: press "[" or "]" for the opposite. This is
technically supposed to plot an antialias of colors. Non-technically, it just seems to
create a blurry picture if pressed enough times.
13. To temporarily back up your picture: Press "M". This temporarily saves the picture in
case you make a boo-boo and have to recall the picture. Press "P" to recall the picture.
Kenny S says its good to have when you use the floodfill option. Guess he's right. I just
never remember to use it.
14. To export a tile of art: bring up the tile you want to make a copy of and press "F12".
This is technically a screen capture. It will save your work as a PCX file under the Duke3d
directory. They will be called capt0000.pcx, then capt0001.pcx and so on. You may work with
these files in another paint-type program and then bring it back later.
Features I always use:
15. To leave Editart: press "esc". It will ask if you want to leave. If you have done any
work, it update your files and then take you back to the prompt.
16. To save work: hit "PgeUp" or "PgeDown" and it will ask if you want to save. hit Y for
yes.
[ TOP ]
III. Creating New Art for Duke3d
The coolest thing about editart is that you can create entirely new art for the game. You
could conceivably recreate all the art if you wanted to. I just made a level called
Sineplex (don't bother looking for it, I only sent it to the members of DBEC over 18.)
1. Where do I start? There are a number of ways to use original art in Duke. To begin with,
use a paint program that uses GIF files. Yes, I know it is possible to use BMP and PCX
files in Editart, but then you have to worry about exact sizes and so on. The easiest way
is to simply use GIFs. I will not touch on the others, as I don't even bother with them.
Some of the programs that I have used are CorelDRAW, CorelPAINT, Paint Shop Pro, and
a Twain compliant scanner. It was also helpful to have an MPEG player, which I downloaded
off AOL's software directory. (I don't know if win95 has one, but I still use win3.11,
which doesn't. An MPEG player plays movies)
2. How do I create art? This is something I can't teach. You need to decide what you want
to create. If it is from scratch, remember that the bigger it is, the bigger it will be in
the game. This sounds obvious, but my first pictures were HUGE and had to be resized
dramatically. You will notice how big it should be when you place your first sprites.
In inches, I shoot for a height of no more than one inch ( as an export in CorelDRAW).
The one thing I can tell you is that no matter what it is that you draw, make sure you
save it as a GIF. I know CorelDRAW doesn't permit that, but I just export the picture to
PaintShop Pro. I think you could also export it to CorelPAINT. Anyway....
Try not to make large areas of solid color. If you look at the sprites in Duke, you
will notice that even most of the solid-looking sprites have other colors mixed in with
them. If you have a paint program that has filters, different fills or gradations, you are
lucky and can use those.
3. Getting your art into Editart: isn't too tough. Make sure it is a GIF (trouble free)
and start Editart. If there is a possibility of sending this art to others (they will need
it to play your map), then you will want to put it in 014.tiles or 015.tiles, which are
the two areas after all the normal Duke art. The areas begin with the tile that says "user
art". That is area 014. Area 015 is the area after the white line (if you scroll down with
the arrows) and continues to the end at space 4095. You may fill any of those areas with
your art.
You may also fill some of the empty spots in Duke, but if it going out over the
internet, I wouldn't recommend it, because art takes up a lot of bytes and you would be
spending forever sending people the same art they already have.
*************************************************************************************************
A. Now then, pick your area you want the tile to go in, and press "enter". This will
load up the blank space. Press "U" to pull down your computer's directory. Most files will
appear in yellow. These cannot be imported. Any file that is white may be imported.
B. After picking the GIF, you will see a white box around all or part of the picture.
This is the default size of the tile. If it is around your entire picture, press "enter"
to bring the picture into Editart. "Enter" converts the image to Editart's pallete as it
brings the picture in. You can also bring it in by pressing "spacebar", which convert the
picture into the pallete. What it usually does is mess up your picture.
C. If the picture is too big for the white square, press "O", which will optimize the
artwork and bring it in "as-is" full size (converted to the Editart pallete).
D. You may also press "P", but be careful with this too. "P" should be pressed after
going to the screen where you pick your picture, but before you actually grab the picture.
If you hit "P", Editart will REPLACE its original pallete with the colors from that
particular picture.
*Yes, it will retain the true color of the picture.
*No, you will not have your old pallete anymore.
*Yes, it will change all the other art to this new pallete.
*Yes, you may get the old pallete back by kextracting the pallete dat files again.
I wouldn't recommend screwing around with this too much.
4. To resize the art you brought in: hit "S" and it will bring up a prompt asking for
new X and Y values. These are grid values (those of you in Geometry should get this).
Basically what it does is re-size the side's size and then the top's size. You may enter
any value for X from 0 to 1024 and for Y from 0 to 240.
This works well, especially for creating same-size pictures for animations or cutting
off portions of unwanted space.
5. To get rid of the picture: hit "delete", which technically sets the X and Y values to
zero, making the picture so small you cannot see it.
[ TOP ]
IV. Creating Your Own Animations
There are several ways to create your own animations. If you use a program that I don't
feel free to send me the info on what you do, and I'll add it here. The following is how I
made all the animations (seven in all) for Sineplex. _
1. Tools: I used these tools: CorelCapture, CorelDRAW, CorelPAINT, PaintShop Pro, and an
MPEG player I downloaded, called NetToob.
Other tools that are helpful: any paint program, any screen capture program, and any
"movie" player, like an AVI, MOV, or MPEG player.
2. Starting out: I wanted movie animations, so I went online and tracked down some links
to the animation. I started in AOL, which proved pretty useless, but I did pretty good on
the web. In fact, there was a few places just loaded with movie clips, clips of swimsuit
models, Pamela Anderson, vehicles, etc. I chose Under Seige as my first clip and
downloaded it.
3. Getting the frames of animation: can take a little while. I ran the MPEG movie at a
15 frames per second rate (I can vary the speed on my player) and watched the MPEG. When
I got the scene I wanted, I paused the player and went through frame by frame to see how
many shots I would need to make the animation (I have animation that varies from five to
ten frames). I went back to the first frame of the shot I wanted and took a screen capture
of just the window (of the movie), with CorelCAPTURE. Use whatever you have.
B. I then went into CorelPAINT and pasted the capture, so I could work with it.
C. I used the select tool to grab just the area I wanted to use and copied it to the
clipboard.
D. I then went to CorelDRAW and pasted the picture from the clipboard. I could
have taken my "capture" from PaintShop, but I wanted to resize it first.
E. I re-sized the picture until it was about and inch-inch and a half in height. I then
exported it as a 256 color GIF to PaintShop (remember to use GIFs).
F. In Paintshop, I flipped the pictures (they always import in upside down?) and
saved the picture as ********#1 (* =the name)
==============================================================
That is one picture. You have to then do the same thing again and again until you have all
the frames that you want for the scene. It's tedious, but you get to rather quick at it
after a while. When you have all the frames leave windows and go to editart.
4. Turning the frames into Editart animation: isn't too hard. You already did the hard
part.
A. Find enough open spaces in your art file (in a row) for your number of frames.
B. Hit "enter" to get the first space, then "U" to go to the directory. Pick your frame
and hit "O", which will optimize your pictures size.
C. Go to the next picture (after saving) and bring it in the same way. Then again
until you have them all.
D. You should be able to go through the pictures and see the motion of the
animation using "pge-up" and "pge-down". At this point you have just a series of
pictures.
E. To make them linked as animation, go to the first one. One the bottom right, you
should see something that says "NoAnm". That means its not animated. Use the
"-" key to change between types of motion (while it says NoAnm=0). If you have
number value (NoAnm=1), you cannot change the type of animation. You need to
hit the "-" to take the number back to 0 first.
The types of animation are "Oscis" or oscillating. (EX.0,1,2,3,2,1,0,1,2,3,2,1,0)
"AnmFD" or forwards (EX. 0,1,2,3,0,1,2,3,0,1,2,3,0)
"AnmBK" or backwards (EX. 0,-1,-2,-3,0,-1,-2,-3,0,-1)
* AnmBK will most likely confuse. It takes that first frame and uses the ones
Behind it, so you could end up with part of one thing and parts of others.
* Oscis is good it you want whatever the animation is to run to the end and then run
(ex. a woman running her hand down her body, then back up in a continuous
motion)
* AnmFD is great for sequences that just run to the end, and then restart from the
beginning and run again (ex. OJ's bronco running up the street)
F. Link the animation together using the "Shift and +" key. If you have five frames in
the sequence, count the first as "1" and add the other four .
(ex. 5 frames running forward... AnmFD=4)
5. Setting the speed of animation: is done by hitting "A" on the first frame. It will show
you what the animation will look like at max speed. There are 16 different speeds. You will
probably only use two. To slow down the speed, hit "-" until it moves at the desired speed.
You may also hit "+" to speed up the frames. When finished, hit "enter" to save. This is
the speed for both Build and the game. Nice, eh?
[ TOP ]
V. The other stuff... _
The following a commands I do not mess with, but you can:
~ this allows you to center a sprite using the arrows.
ALT+U regrab artwork from original pictures.
ALT+R generate a tile frequency report. It will scan all your maps and tell you how often
it is used. Interesting, I guess.
There are also commands for copy and paste operations, but I'd do that in the paint program.
(they are numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
< and > changes the shade of the selected region of the sprite. I do this in Paint as well.
\ moves the cursor to the center of the tile.
===============================================================
- END -
[ TOP ]
----------------------------EditArt FAQ written by Guru/Minion------------------------------
<0>About this FAQ
<0.1>How can I contact the author?
<0.2>Additional Credits
<1>Getting Started
<1.1>what files do I have to extract in order to get EditArt to run?
<1.2>List of EditArt Keys and their uses
<1.3>How to edit tiles within editart
<1.3>How to edit tiles in your favorite graphics program
<2>Importing and Animating Tiles
<2.1>How to import your own graphics into EditArt
<2.2>Common problems when Importing a tile
<2.3>How to Animate your Tiles
<3> Making Weapons Look Right
<3.1> Problems While Making New Weapons
<3.2> Centering Weapons
<3.3> A list of the best Weapon patches
<4> Making it Possible to see the bullet come out of the gun
<4.1> Problems with this theory
<5> Problems while making textures
<5.1> Making it possible to put a texture on the floor
<5.2> Paralaxed textures
<6> Problems with invisible parts of sprites
<6.1> Ways to fix these problems
<7>Tips and tricks
[ TOP ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<0>
About this FAQ
--------------
This FAQ was started because it seems that almost everyone is having trouble trying to get
EditArt to run, import tiles, animate tiles,etc. So I decided that since I knew alot about
EditArt that I should write an FAQ on it .
<0.1>How can I contact the author ?
If you have any questions or comments , please feel free to email me at
build_guru@hotmail.com
<0.2> Additional credits =
Stiffie for the Tips and Tricks section of this FAQ
[ TOP ]
<1>
Getting Started
---------------
<1.1>What files do I have to extract in order to get EditArt to run?
You have to kextract all of the Tiles0**.art from the duke3d .grp file , and the
.dat files.
<1.2>List of EditArt keys and their uses
page up/page down : lets you scroll through the tiles
a : this will animate the tile
' or ; : alters the brightness of the tile that you are working on
F12 : takes a screen capture of the tile you are working on
u : loads a picture into EditArt
g : lets you go to a certain tile by number
m : copies tile that you are working with
p : pastes tile that you copied
v : lets you view a set of tiles as it would look in build
ctrl+[ : closes EditArt
del : this will delete the tile you are working with
; : Creates a 3d image out of the tile you are working with (doesn't appear to work very good)
' : Creates a 3d image out of the tile you are working with , opposite of ;
ARROW KEYS or MOUSE : Moves the cursor
SHIFT+ARROW KEYS : Moves the color cursor
~ : This is mostly used to center the weapons but can also be used to center sprites
BACK SPACE : this changes the current color to the transparent color
T : This turns the drawing trail off and on
+ : this increases the speed of animation while a tile is being animated
R : rotates tile in the specified direction
N : This allows you to name a tile , it is saved in names.h
F : Flood fill a certain area with the selected color
<1.3>How to edit tiles within editart
EditArt is pathetic when it comes to editing tiles within itself so,It is not recommended
that you do this , but if you do there is a small dot on the screen then is what you
will be using to edit the tile all you do is point to the spot you want and click to
change the colors use the arrow keys to choose the colors which appear at the bottom of the
right hand corner.
<1.3>How to edit tiles in your favorite graphics program
If you have Windows 95 then you have a graphics editing program , is called Win Paint or
something like that , anyway all you have to do is go into editart , find the tile you
want to edit hit F12. Now close editart and find the file capt0000.pcx and load it into
your favorite graphics editing program and when you are done editing it save it as a .gif
file and go into editart and find the same tile once again and hit u , now browse for
the .gif file you edited and saved.
[ TOP ]
<2>
Importing and Animating Tiles
-----------------------------
<2.1>How to import your own graphics into EditArt
Alright , now you're starting to get into more complicated things, but in reality this
is not complicated at all , it just seems that way at first . Now first , load EditArt
and you should get that gray brick texture , now hit F12 ,exit editart and load the
capt****.pcx into your graphics editing program ( I would download Paint Shop Pro for
this , because it works the best ) now go up to colors and click on save pallet , browse
to where you want to save this pallete and save it, now we will begin to import our
picture , make sure to resize the picture so that it is smaller than 320 X 200 if it is
already smaller than 320 X 200 then there is no need to resize it , now save reduce the
color depth to 256 colors , now save it as a .gif file , if you are using PSP then when
you save the picture as a gif it will automatically reduce the colors to 256 , so you
don't have to , now open EditArt and go to tile 3584 ( this is the start of the user art
section ) when you are there resize the blank spot to the size of the picture , you can
do this by hitting S and entering the size , once you have resized the picture to the
right size hit U and browse for the picture you want to and and hit ENTER twice , the
picture should appear in the new spot, sometimes the top of the picture will get messed
up , just keep on copying the picture until it looks right.
<2.2>How to Animate your Tiles
This is very simple yet seems quite complicated at first . First you have to know what
the different types of animation are
oscil-This type of animation will go from the first frame to the last then back down
to the first.
anmbk-this type of animation will play the last frame down to the first frame
anmfd-this is normal animation , it will play the first frame up to the last one
Note:the animation type will appear at the bottom of the screen
Note:you can change the type of animation by hitting the - key
To animate the frames pick the type of animation you want then hit the + key to tell how
many frames it will animate not including itself, the number of frames it will animate
is shown at the bottom of the screen next to the animation type.That's it, to change the
speed of the animation hit the A key and while it is being animated hit the - or + keys
to adjust the speed.
[ TOP ]
<3>
Making Weapons Look Right
-------------------------
<3.0> If you have ever used the Uzi weapon patch I'm sure you noticed that the artwork was
great but the weapon was in the center of the screen so it didn't look right , if you have
ever downloaded and played the M16 weapon patch then you would know that the weapon was
perfectly placed in the corner of the screen just enough so that you could not see the
BK ( it stands for Bad Karma who created the weapon patch ) in the actual game but can be
viewed in EditArt . In this section I will teach you how to place your new weapons
correctly in the corner of the screen.
<3.1> When you import your weapon tiles they almost always appear in the center of the
which makes your weapon not look right while in the actual game , here is the solution:
When in EditArt hit the ~ key which is located above the TAB key , now use the arrow keys
to place the weapon in the corner of the screen , sometimes you have to constantly switch
between EditArt and Duke3d to check to see if you got it perfectly right if you are
on a replacement for the RPG then it might take a lot of switching to get it right.
<3.2> The best weapon patches I have played would have to be the DN3DGUNS.ZIP patch made by
Bad Karma and Black , which gives you an M16A2 Assault Rifle and an M249 Squad Automatic
Weapon. Nuke.zip is a really good one but it's not really a patch but it's pretty damn
cool . And last I made a weapon patch , it's not the best but its cool , it adds these new
weapons, an M16 Assault Riffle , a double barrel shotgun , a standard Assault Riffle , a new
rocket launcher with new rockets , Nuclear Pipe Bombs , and my favorite , the
Super Devestater , it's called CoolGuns2.zip and it's only available at www.dukeworld.com
[ TOP ]
<4>
Making it possible to see the bullet come out of the gun
--------------------------------------------------------
There are a few ways to make it possible to see the bullet come out of the gun :
A: Major CON hacking
B: Altering Dukes engine
C: EditArt
Since this is an EditArt FAQ it's obvious that I'm going to tell you how to do it through
EditArt , all you have to do is add the bullet to frames of the weapon , because the bullet
hole doesn't spawn until all of the frames of animation are done , it works great. This is
the most effective way of making this effect , if you have played DIB , then I'm sure
you've seen this effect , and it looks great.
<4.1> Problems with this theory
There are no real problems to this theory except that the other players while in a
Dukematch game will not see the bullet , only you will.
[ TOP ]
<5>
Problems while making textures
------------------------------
While making textures you will run across many problems , in this section I will teach
you how to fix some of these problems.
<5.1>Making it possible to put a texture on the floor
If you have a texture you have made to be placed on the floor , and it comes out all
retarded when you actually place it on the floor in build , then the textures size
contains an odd number ( ie: your texture is 129 X 129 or 6 X 9 ) , if you want your
texture to look right when placed on the floor it has to be completely even numbers ,
it doesn't have to be a perfect square it just has to be an even number by an even number
( ie : 128 X 128 or 128 X 64 ).
<5.2> Problems with Paralaxed textures
Sometimes when you have made a paralaxed texture it will come out as a bunch of lines in
Build and in the actual game , as of right now I do not have a solution to this problem.
Sorry. If you do have a solution to this problem then please contact me , my email address
is in section 0 .
[ TOP ]
<6>
Problems with invisible parts of sprites
----------------------------------------
If you have made a sprite and the pink part shows up then here are a few solutions
<6.1> Sometimes you can just turn all of the invisible parts to a really bright shade of
white and when you import the picture it will automatically switch the white to the
invisible pink , but this doesn't always work. If you are using your own art program and
still see the pink then you are using the wrong shade of pink , the correct shade of pink is
R-255 G-0 B-255 , but if you are using Paint Shop Pro then it's R-252 G-0 B-252. And last
with some art programs it will allow you to take the color from an image and use it in
another , in this case then all you have to do is take a sprite from Duke and save the
invisible part as a color and use in your own picture.
[ TOP ]
<7>
Tips and tricks written by Stiffie
----------------------------------
When you make an image you want to be a sprite, usually you fill the
area around it pink so that you have a reference point to use the
"invisible" pink in Editart. But it isn't till you either have it
animated or in the game itself that you realize the art image has little
colored dots on the outside making it look cheesy. Here is a way to fix
it:
In Editart, change the pink to something bright and not used in the
image itself (ie yellow or bright green). Once you do that you can see
the little dots that don't belong! If your sure they are on the outside
only and not in the image itself, you can move the dot over the unwanted
color and hit C which makes all the other dots of that color go away.
Before you save your image, you can change the color back to the
invisible pink and it should look allright. I found this to save a TON
of time.
Also....
Duke's pallet tends to alter an imported pic into a crappy looking image
(ie you can take a pic of a car, run it through Duke's pallet and it's
covered in colors you didn't want, plus those annoying green dots!) Here
is a way to somewhat fix that, it isn't a cure all bt can help:
Take your pic, run it through Duke's pallet but DO NOT save it as a GIF
yet. For example if your using an art program and your painting BMPs,
save your art back to a BMP, but under a different name. Then open the
new image up and look to see what changes need to be made. Beats the
heartbreak of finding out too late your image was thrashed.
-END-
[ TOP ]
EDITART Tutorial for Duke Nukem 3D
First things first. I run EDITART and BUILD in a MS-DOS (6.0) prompt
window and am working on a Pentium 133c with 32 megs of RAM. To make
things work, copy everything from the folder from d:\goodies\build to
c:\duke3d. (I'm assuming your CDROM is d: and Duke Nukem 3d is located
in c:\duke3d.) Now right click on all the files you just copied. Select
properties from the drop-down window. Now, make sure there are no checks
in any of the archive and read-only boxes. (There should already be no
checks in the hidden or system boxes.) Make sure you do this to BUILD,
EDITART, and the other programs, also.
IMPORTING/EXPORTING
STEP 1: Go into the MS-DOS prompt (I use the one in the start menu.) But
first, right click on
the program (to open the start menu, just right click on the start tab
and select open.) and
select properties. Select the Program tab. Then, click the Advanced
button. Place a check in
front of the box that says Prevent MS-DOS from detecting Windows.
STEP 2: At the c:\duke3d prompt type kextract duke3d.grp *.art. This
should extract all of the art (tiles000-tiles014) in Duke Nukem. I
unchecked the archives and read-only boxes just to be safe.
STEP 3: Okay, now type editart at the c:\duke3d prompt. You should see
red letters saying something like loading tiles000.art. Then the first
tile should appear in the center of the screen. If none of this
happens, you might try to exit Windows to MSDOS but first make sure you
followed all the instructions.
STEP 4: Now press ‘G’ to goto any tile, let’s say tile 147 the
nuke-button. Now press F12. This saved this picture as Capt0000 in your
Duke Nukem 3d directory. If everything has worked your doing great.
STEP 5: Press escape the press ‘Y’ to quit. I make all of my new art in
Paint Shop Pro because EDITART kinda a crappy draw program, but it is a
great import/export program. If you don’t have it you can download the
shareware at http://www.jasc.com, I think. Okay, now open up Capt0000 in
your Duke Nukem 3d.
STEP 6: Now up top select Colors/Save Palette. Save it as duke3d.pal.
Now you have the correct palette to draw with.
Note: The magenta color means that that part of the picture doesn’t show
up in BUILD or Duke Nukem 3d. I had some trouble making things invisible
because there are to magentas exactly the same color. The only
difference was the palette number. This appears to be important to
EDITART so change you have to change one of the magentas. Go to
Colors/Edit Palette and sort by Palette Order. Double click on number
245 and change it’s color just a tad. Now you have to re-save your
palette. The correct ‘invisible’ color is number 255 with R:252 G:0
B:252.
STEP 7: If you want to import a picture to EDITART you just open it in
Paint Shop Pro, then click Colors/Load Palette. Select duke3d.pal. Then,
click File/Save As and save into your Duke Nukem 3d directory. You must
save it as BMP, PCX, or GIF, however, the EDITART likes GIF the most.
This must in the 87a Noninterlaced format. To change it to 87a
Noninterlaced select it from the subtype drop-down menu at the Save As
menu. Also you must save it in 256 color and it can only be as large as
320x200. You select 256 color when starting a new picture and you can
resize under Image/Resize. It doesn’t matter if a picture looks
distorted in Paint Shop Pro or EDITART because you can resize it in
BUILD anyway.
STEP 8: Fire up EDITART and go to tile 3585 (beginning of user art
section). Press enter on one of the blank squares, then press ‘U’. If an
unwanted image appears just press escape and a listing of filenames
should appear.
STEP 9: Select the image you want with enter. The picture should be
displayed. You must click and drag a flashing box on the part of the
image you want to appear. Press Enter.
STEP 10: Now press ‘v’ to go back to the tile selection screen or escape
to quit and EDITART should ask you to save the tile. That’s pretty much
all there is to importing a picture! Now go make some killer levels!
ANIMATIONS
STEP 1: Animations are simple. All you have to do is draw the frames of
the animation, then import them into EDITART (see instructions above).
Make sure that they’re in order, though.
STEP 2: Now, just press enter on the first tile of the soon-to-be
animation. Press the minus key
[ - ] to change the animation to an oscillation, animationFD, or
animationBK. I’m guessing the last two are animation forward and
backward. Now press SHIFT+ = change the number of other tiles you want
in the animation. So if there were 5 tiles total in the animation, you
would use the number 4. That’s all, except saving the tile!
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================
Editart Key List
By Jonah Bishop
Version 1.0
================
This file is copyright (c) 1997 by Jonah Bishop.
Version Information
V1.0 - Everything is new.
KEY STROKES DESCRIPTION OF KEYSTROKE FUNCTIONS
----------------------------------------------------
[A] Sets the animation speed of the current tile. Press
the [+] and [-] keys to change the speed of animation.
There are 16 speeds to cycle through, and once you
have selected the speed you want, press [ENTER].
[C] Change all the pixels on the tile, having the same
color under the cursor, to the color currently
selected.
[F] Floodfill a region with the selected color, and with
the current color as a boundary.
[G] Goto a tile by typing in the tile's number.
[J] Randomly plots dots of current color over any pixels
having the same color as the color under the cursor.
[M] Back up a tile into a temporary memory buffer.
[N] Name a tile. Naming the tile changes the #define
statement in NAMES.H. Use this to make names for
sprites you wish to find quickly (i.e. - the name
of the sprite you want to use might be CANDYBAR).
[O] Optimize the size of an individual piece of artwork.
Use this for tiles with invisible pixels on the sides.
[P] Restore the tile in the temporary memory buffer.
[M] sets the tile to be backed up.
[R] Rotate the tile in a specified direction.
[ALT]+[R] Generate a tile frequency report by scanning all the
maps in the directory. Use in "V" mode only!
[S] Resize a tile. The X and Y sizes can be any unsigned
short integer. X sizes range from 0 to 1024 and Y
sizes from 0 to 240.
[T] Turn drawing trail on or off.
[U] Use this key to import a section of either a .BMP,
.PCX, or .GIF file. The following keys are used with
this keystroke:
[ENTER] - Convert the image that is inside the
rectangular selection window to the BUILD
palette.
[SPACE] - Convert the image that is inside the
rectangular selection window without
changing the palette.
[P] - When selecting the parts of the picture you
want to use, and you press [P], the palette
of the current picture will become the
palette used by BUILD.
[ALT]+[U] Re-grabs the artwork from the original pictures,
according to what the CAPFIL.TXT file says. Pressing
[ALT]+[U] in the main screen will re-grab everything.
If you press it in "V" mode, first select the boundaries
with the [1] and [2] keys.
[V] View and select a tile to edit. The following keys can
be used with this keystroke:
[SPACE] - To swap 2 tiles simply press [SPACE] on the
first tile, the press [SPACE] on the second.
[1,2,3] - To move a group of tiles to a new location in
the current .ART file, press [1] on the first
tile in the group, [2] on the last tile, and
[3] at the place where you want to move the
files.
[1] Mark the first portion of a tile you wish to copy.
[2] Mark the other portion of a tile you wish to copy.
[3] Paste the portion of a tile that you copied onto another
tile.
[4] Flip the copied portion x-wise.
[5] Flip the copied portion y-wise.
[-] Change the animation setting. To change the setting,
press [-] when the animation value is 0.
There are four different types of animation. Here is an
example of each:
NoAnm=4 sequence: 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,... (no animation)
Oscis=4 sequence: 0,1,2,3,2,1,0,1,2,3,2,... (oscillate)
AnmFD=4 sequence: 0,1,2,3,0,1,2,3,0,1,2,... (forwards)
AnmBK=4 sequence: 0,3,2,1,0,3,2,1,0,3,2,... (backwards)
[+] See [-].
[DELETE] Short cut key. Sets both the X and Y sizes to 0 (thus
deleting the tile).
[PGUP] Select a tile to edit (scrolls through all the tiles).
[PGDN] See [PGUP].
[~] Centers a sprite. Use the arrow keys to center the sprite.
This key is right above the TAB key.
[F12] Screen shot. Saves the current as a *.BMP file.
[ESC] Quits.
[ARROW KEYS] Moves the cursor.
[MOUSE]
[SHIFT]+[ARROWS] Changes the current color.
[SPACE] Plots a pixel under the cursor with the selected color.
[TAB] Select the color under the cursor.
[BACKSPACE] Set the color to 255, which is the transparency color.
[;] 3-Dimentionalize an image.
['] 3-Dimentionalixes the image the opposite way of [;].
TOP