Joost Editart Faq
Don't stop reading after the first 'chapter' later will be explained how to install the tiles into BUILD and Duke(That's VERY important). My homepage: (http://www 1) How to install editart: First of all, go to your Duke3d directory and type this: 'KEXTRACT DUKE3D.GRP TILES0??.ART' with this line you get the tiles out of the group file, and you can edit them. You can use editart two ways, one not so safe way and one safe way. The not so safe way is very easy, just start editart from your Duke3d directory and use it...(go to 'chapter' 2) But if you're not paying attention or something, you might screw up some tiles.(Backup the .ART files) I prefer the safe way (I use it). To do it the safe way, go to your duke3d directory, and make a sub-directory (in DOS 'md') named editart, then copy the whole Duke3d directory except the .GRP file, screenshots etc.. to that sub-directory. Now go to your Duke3d directory again and copy the .ART files to the sub-directory editart. Now you can delete the .art files EXCEPT for tiles014 (If you have atomic edition or plutonium pak also tiles015)in both the Duke3d directory and the editart directory. Don't worry, they're still in the group file... tiles014.art (also tiles015.art in atomic edition or plutonium pak) are ment to be edited, they're empty!. Well, if you've done the above things you will be able to use editart and paint away: just go to your editart directory and type EDITART. 2) OK, I'm in editart, what now? When you've started editart, you'll see that ugly brown-grey-green texture in front of you. use page-up and page-down to scroll through the tiles. If you want an overview, press 'V' just like in BUILD... now scroll down until there are only blank(black) tiles (NOT ONE BLANK TILE BETWEEN TWO PAINTED TILES, it might cause problems), it's a very large range... Move the rectangular onto the first of them, and press enter. you will not see much now... first give the sprite/texture you're about to create a width and a height. Do this with 'S'. The basic size is 64*64, so input that. (64,enter,64,enter) now you'll see a purple-pink rectangle, that colour is the transparent colour) you can move you're cursor (sometimes very hard to see) with the mouse or with the arrows. I prefer the arrows, because you can select any pixel very easy then. But enough of this... of course you want to PAINT, first, select a colour with shift and the arrows (you can see the colours at the bottom right, the purple-pink colour at the bottom right of the colour box is the transparent colour, you can switch to it very easy by pressing backspace). Once you've selected a colour, paint away! 3) I made some sprites/textures, what do I do now? Well, the textures/sprites you made are stored in the editart directory in the .ART files, now you must copy the .ART files from the editart directory to the duke3d directory: D:\duke3d\editart> copy *.art .. (.. = D:\duke3d) Then choose to overwrite the .ART files. (It's handy to make a BATCH file of the copying, so that you can do the above things a lot quicker) Well, start up BUILD now, press 'V' on a wall in 3D mode, scroll down or press 'G' and enter the number of your tile. And press enter on it. (if it was a sprite, press 'S' somewhere on the floor first, and press 'V' on the sprite. To do special things with sprites, (like make that they can break or be switched) you have to give them a name in editart: go to a tile in editart (in the close view, not the 'v'-view) and press 'N' , now input the name you want to give the tile. Keep in mind the number and name of the sprite, and quit editart. (This all is easier in DOS than in windows), go to the editart directory and copy the names.h file to the Duke3d directory, choose to overwrite it. stay in the editart directory, and edit the defs.con (make a backup first)(type edit defs.con in DOS). you'll see a list with thes sort of things: define SECTOREFFECTOR 1, at the end of THIS list, enter: define NAME-OF-YOUR-SPRITE NUMBER-OF-YOUR-SPRITE. now exit the defs.con and copy it to the Duke3d directory. To do special things with the sprite, download the .txt about editing the .cons from my homepage. (http:/www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Bay/2848) 4) I have a great looking tile, but not in editart, how do I convert it? First, convert the picture into a 320*200 256color .GIF or .BMP . (The tile itself can be smaller: 64*64 is the basic size). make sure that the .GIF or .BMP are on the same drive as editart.(a PCX doesn't work) Now start editart and go to the blank tiles, select one of them and press enter. Now press 'S' and input the size (basic=64*64). now you'll see a purple-pink rectangular. Now press 'U', you'll see the editart directory. Now find your way to the .GIF or the .BMP, and press space on it. Now you'll see the picture you've made on the screen, set the rectangular section which you can move with the arrows over the picture, and first press enter, and then space. And voila, there it is... 5) I want to make an animating sprite First draw all the frames of the animation (they have to be after each other in editart), then go to the first frame and press '-' on the numeric keypad. Now you'll see something change in the bottom right, it said: noanm:0 (no animation) now it says: anmfwd:0 (animation forward) if you press '+' on the numeric keypad now, you'll see this: anmfwd:1 , this means that this frame will be displayed first in the animation, and then the frame after this one. If you press '+' on the numeric keypad again, you'll see this: anmfwd:2 , this means that the computer will show this frame first, then the one after it, and the the one after him, the it will start again with the first one again. if you press '-' on the numeric keypad till it says anmfwd:0 , and you press '-' on the numeric keypad again, you'll see this: oscil:0 (oscillation) if you make it for example oscil:4 (with the '+' key on the numeric keypad), the first frame will be displayed first, then the second, then the third, then the fourth, then the fifth, and after the fifth the fourth again, then the third etc... There is one other option for animations: anmbck:0 (animation backwards) this means that the first frame will displayed first, the the frame that i before that frame in editart. no animation: 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,etc... forward : 0,1,2,3,0,1,2,3,0,1,2,3,0,etc... oscillation : 0,1,2,3,2,1,0,1,2,3,2,1,0,etc... backward : 0,-1,-2,-3,0,-1,-2,-3,0,-1,etc... once you're ready with the frames, go to the first frame and press 'A', you can change the animation speed now with '+' and '-' on the numeric keypad now, once done press enter. 6) important keys in Editart: J: randomly plots dots of the selected color on the tile U: grab a picture from a 320x200x256 GIF or Bitmap (PCX doesn't work) 1: select the 1st corner of a rectangle to be copied 2: select the 2nd corner of a rectangle to be copied 3: paste the selected rectangle (from the first corner you selected) 4: flip the selected rectangle x-wise 5: flip the selected rectangle y-wise 6: swap the x and the y coordinate of the selected rectangle M: store a tile in memory P: restore the stored tile from memory C: changes all pixels of the color under the cursor to the selected color S: size a tile N: names a tile O: optimize size of tile (very handy sometimes) G: goto a tile (not in the 'v-mode') A: set animation speed of a sprite R: rotate the tile in a specified position ;: 3-Dimentionalize an image (handy for tiles or bricks) ': 3-Dimentionalize an image the other way [: random antialias of colours in colour band under graphics cursor ]: non-random antialias of colours in colour band under graphics cursor F: floodfill T: trail on/off TAB: select the colour under the cursor SHIFT+arrows: select colour SPACE: plot a pixel BACKSPACE: set color to transparent ARROWS+MOUSE: move cursor F12: screen capture (.BMP) PGUP: scroll through tiles PGDOWN: scroll through tiles If you have any questions about this text, please E-mail to joostp@ Joost Palenstijn Feel free to distribute this text, as long as you keep my name in it.