Texture Edit 2.01 Readme file: =============================================== Copyright (C) John F Jones, 2001 All rights reserved visit: http://www.3dactionplanet.com/tombraider mail: tombraider@3dactionplanet.com This document provides complimentary or late-breaking information to supplement the Texture Edit 2.00 documentation. Please read this file carefully as it contains important information about Texture edit that may not be contained within any of the other documentation. -------- CONTENTS -------- Texture Edit description Acknowledgements Support This Program What's New since version 1.0 Program Requirements Preparing Your Hard Drive - If you have an older version of Texture Edit Known issues Additional Help ----------------------------------------------- Texture Edit 2.00 Description ----------------------------------------------- Texture Edit 2.00 doesn't just fix bugs from the last version of the program but includes many new features and additions that have been requested by you, the user. Existing users will notice a number of differences in the interface. If you have a question about the program and how to use a certain feature then feel free to contact me (See Additional Help below). I wrote Texture Edit because I found the task of aligning my Texture Tile Sets using Windows Paint to cumbersome. After an initial week of programming the original version was born and has since been recommended by some top Internet sites including tombraiderchronicles.com and primagames.com. ----------------------------------------------- Acknowledgements ----------------------------------------------- I would like to thank everyone who has supported Texture Edit since its creation and to all those who have suggested improvements. In particular I would like to thank Chris MacDonald for helping in adding the wide range of Image format Support, and Bart Ramekers who extensively tested the beta version of this program for a number of weeks, and made a number of suggestion of which only a small percentage have been implemented in the current version. ----------------------------------------------- Support This Program ----------------------------------------------- Because I have made this program available for free instead of slapping a forty buck price tag on it when it left my door I ask in return that people who use the program who create Texture Tile Sets with it to: (a) Send me an email on "tombraider@3dactionplanet.com" saying that you use it. You will be added to a mailing list so I can keep you informed about updates. Don't worry your address will not be giving to anyone else so you wont get any Spam. (b) When you distribute your level containing the Texture Tile Set you created using Texture edit, somewhere in your read me file could you include the following: "Texture Map created using Texture Edit available from www.3dactionplanet.com/tombraider". If you have a web site and make the program available from your site then let me know so I can add a link to you. ----------------------------------------------- What's New since version 1.00 ----------------------------------------------- Texture Edit 2.00 includes significant enhancements for all Texture Edit users, whether novice or advanced. Improvements to the Texture Edit Interface make it more Windows-like than ever; for example, larger buttons, and the inclusion of toolbars make up an uncluttered interface. And viewing those animations outside of the Tomb Raider: Level Editor has been a bit of a problem, but with Texture Edits new Animation Viewer makes viewing animations easy. Details on these and many other enhancements follow. More Windows-like interface - The inclusion of Toolbars, larger buttons, and tabbed dialogs make for a cleaner Windows-like interface. Not all of the options of the program are directly available from the main interface but are placed in floating tool windows which you can access any time you want. For example the Flip Selected Tile options are no longer available form the main interface. Instead they are available by clicking on the Flip/Rotate button. - The Colour Palette has now been removed from the main interface and has been replaced by the common Windows Colour Palette Dialog instead. - Support for the Windows Clipboard allows you copy and paste images from and to the Source Image Canvas, the selected tile panel, and the Target image. - Dialog boxes now warn you of irreversible actions prompting the user to decide what they want to do. You'll never forget that you haven't saved your target Image again. New Animation Viewer - Texture Edit can now view animations so there is no need to worry about how they will look in game. To use this feature, simply open a Target Image containing an existing Texture Tile Set. Using the right mouse button select an area you would like to animate. Take note you can only select from left to-right and top-to-bottom without going outside the edge of the Texture Tile Set. Once you have made a selection click on Animation Viewer from the Target Preferences panel in the centre of the main window. In the window that appears click on the Acquire Images button to grab the images from within the area you selected. Using the scrollbar you can scroll through the selection of images before clicking the Animate button to view the animation. Support for over 20 Image Formats including Truevision Targa - The original Texture Edit program only supported bitmap images requiring a third party program to convert Texture Tile Sets to the Truevision Targa Format used by the Tomb Raider: Level Editor. In version 2.0 the program supports direct reading and writing of the Truevision Targa Format so there is no need for a third party program. The program also supports: Bitmap Files (*.bmp), Device Independent Bitmap Files (*.dib), Enhanced Metafiles (*.emf), Graphics Interchange Format (*.gif), ICB Files (*.icb), Icon Files (*.ico), JPEG File Interchange Format (*.jpg;*.jpeg), Portalable Bitmap Files (*.pbm), Photo CD Files (*.pcd), Portable Gray Map Files (*.pgm), Portable Network Graphics (*.png), Photoshop Files (*.psd), PaintShop Pro Files (*.psp), RLE Files (*.rle), SGI Files (*.sgi), Tagged Image File Format (*.tif;*.tiff), VDA Files (*.vda), VST Files (*.vst), WBMP Files (*.wbmp), Windows Metafiles (*.wmf), and Zsoft Paintbrush (*.pcx). Take note that Texture Edit will only save in the Truevision Targa Format. Other Changes - New Sizeable Double Size Window. Those 64x64 pixel square tiles can be difficult to view and even more difficult to check for alignment errors. Now with the inclusion of the Sizeable Double Size Window you can see if Source Image Tiles overlap and correct using the Precise Selection. Drag the Sizeable Window to any size you want to see a tile in more detail if you wish. - The Precise Selection arrow buttons of previous versions has been replaced with the right mouse button. On the Source Image press and hold the right mouse button. Drag the red box round the image for a precise line up. - The original program featured two flip buttons that allowed you to flip a Selected Tile vertically or horizontally before placing it on the Target Image. Now available from the Flip/Rotate button you can also rotate Selected tiles. - Resize the Source Image by a few pixels to make a image fit just right by clicking on the Resize button from the Source Image Toolbar. - Multiple Source Image Canvases allow you have more than one Source Image open at a time. The original program only allowed the loading of one image at a time. Version 2.00 allows up to five separate Source Image to be open at any one time. - Undo Toolbar buttons allows you quickly Undo the last action you performed on the Source or Target Image. Whether it you resized a Source Image or added a new tile over a previous one you can go back to before you made your mistake. - Miscellaneous improvements to documentation ----------------------------------------------- Program Requirements ----------------------------------------------- Texture Edit version 2.0 is written in Visual Basic 6 and therefore requires the Visual Basic Runtime files available from Microsoft.com. The required files you need have been included in the installation version of the program. NOTE: If you are running Windows Me, the Visual Basic Runtimes do not need to be installed as they are already included with Windows Me. Also if you have a later version of any of these files it is recommended that you keep the ones you already have. ----------------------------------------------- Preparing your hard drive ----------------------------------------------- To ensure that the installation of Texture Edit is trouble free, you should check to see that your hard drive and file system are both in good working order and are tuned for optimum performance. Windows 95/98/Me comes with two utility programs that find and fix errors and optimize your hard drives perfromance. The first of these programs is called ScanDisk. ScanDisk will check you hard drive for problems and is capable of fixing any that it finds. You can run ScanDisk by first clicking on the START button from the Windows 95/98/Me Taskbar, followed by Programs, then Accessories, then System Tools, and finally ScanDisk. Once ScanDisk has finished running, you should next optimise your hard drives performance by running a program called Disk Defragmenter. You can run Disk Defragmenter by clicking on the START button from the Windows 95/98/Me Taskbar, followed by Programs, then Accessories, then System Tools, and finally Disk Defragmenter. For further information on these two utilities you should consult you Windows 95/98/Me documentation. If you have an older version of Texture Edit -------------------------------------------- Although there are no known compatibility issues between version 2.00 of Texture Edit and older versions of the software it is recommended, as a precaution, that you first remove fully any previous versions of the program before installation. ----------------------------------------------- Known Issues ----------------------------------------------- Due to the height of the "City", "Title", and "Karnack" texture maps when loaded into the editor you will have alignment problems. This is not an error caused by my editor but by the programming language I use. As I can't correct the error myself I suggest you increase the height of the image(s) in question. This will help because texture maps with a height of between 35 - 40 tiles will cause the problem described above. All other bugs listed in previous versions have been corrected. To report any bugs you encounter through the use of Text Edit then please visit the web site address listed below. ----------------------------------------------- Additional Help: ----------------------------------------------- For more information on Texture Edit, please visit: http://www.3dactionplanet.com/tombraider ----------------------------------------------- I hope you enjoy Texture Edit 2.01 John F Jones 14/05/2001 -----------------------------------------------
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