Cream of the Crop 25/Cream of the Crop 25.iso/doom/newwad14.zip/NEWWAD.TXT

Text File | 1997-01-13 | 7KB | 168 lines

NewWad 1.4

(originally pcx2wad 0.98 by Daniel Gilliland);
Modified by Christopher Wise

NewWad is a program to add textures in pcx, bmp or lbm formats to the WAD2
files that are used by qbsp. NewWad performs averaging to anit-alias the
smaller sized textures.


Usage:
The command line syntax is:
newwad <scriptfile> <wadfile>

<scriptfile> is the full name of the script that newwad reads.
<wadfile> is the full name of the wad file to which the textures are to be
added. If you specify a wad file name that already exists the textures will
be added to the file. Your script file should contain only the new entries if
you are adding to the file.

WARNING: MAKE SURE TO BACK UP YOUR WAD FILES AS THIS PROGRAM HAS NOT BEEN
EXTENSIVELY TESTED AND COMES WITH NO GUARANTEE.

If the program exits with an error during the script reading process the
original wad file should be untouched. However if there is an error during
the writing procedure the wad file willbe corrupted, so keep a backup copy of
your wad file.


Scriptfiles:
A script file is just a list of the inupt filenames and the corresponding
texture name that will be included in the wad file. The texture name can be
up to 16 characters long and can include the '*' and '+' characters for
animated textures. There should be one entry per line. Comments are prefixed
by // and can appear after an entry or on a separate line. NewWad supports
pcx/bmp/lbm formats but only with 256 colour images and dimensions that are
a multiple of 16.

For example:
----script.txt-----
tech06_2.pcx    TECH06_2
stairs.lbm      STAIRS
// this is a comment
crate0~1.bmp    CRATE
lava1.pcx       *LAVA1  // this is also a comment
-------------------

Running "newwad script.txt wadfile.wad" would do the following:

If a file called wadfile.wad does not exist then a file called 'wadfile.wad'
would be created, and it would contain 4 mip textures: TECH06_2, STAIRS,
CRATE and *LAVA1. Use these names in .map files to specify which texture you
want each face to have.  Also files called palette.lmp and colormap.lmp would
be written to disk. If you are using the quake palette you can ignore/delete
these files.

If a file called wadfile.wad exists then the 4 mip textures would be added to
the file. Palette.lmp and colormap.lmp would NOT be created.


Limitations:
You can't add a picture that is bigger than 1024x512. Since the largest
textures in registered Quake are 320x192 pixels I think that this limit is
more than large enough.

The imput image MUST have dimensions that are a multiple of 16 pixels.

The program exits if an error is encountered. A valid wad file is only
created if no errors are encountered so you must fix the error in the script
file or source images and rerun the program.


Notes on Palettes:

The quake palette consists of 256 indexed colours, numbered from 0 to 255.
Colour 255 is used as a transparency colour. Palette entries 224 to 254 are
used as fullbright colours, that is these colours stay the same intensity
regardless of the surrounding light level in the game. In quake they are used
in lights, red sigils etcetera. Color 0 is the transparency colour for sky
textures. Sky textures are a 256x128 bitmap, the left 128x128 portion is the
partially transparent part of the sky (fast-moving, lower clouds), and the
right 128x128 portion is the higher, slow-moving, solid cloud texture.
Palette index 0 is used for transparency.

The sub images only use the first 224 colours unless there is a direct match
to a fullbright colour  or the transparent colour (palette entry 255).

NewWad now uses the palette from each file that is read. Thus it is possible
to create a wad2 file with textures based on another palette for a total
conversion. However, it is still the user's responsibility to ensure that
the palettes of all the input files are all the same.

If you are making a total conversion you should put them in the gfx sub-
directory of your game directory. (e.g. make a directory under the Quake
directory called "mygame". Then make a sub-directory called gfx in which you
put the .lmp files. Your levels should go in the quake\mygame\maps directory.
Start quake with the command line quake -game mygame and the modified palette
will be included.  If you are going to change the palette you will need to change the palette
mapping of each of the .lmp, .spr and .mdl files.

To convert the .lmp, .spr and .mdl files I suggest you use swchpal by
Andy Bay.(Look for SWCHPAL.ZIP on ftp.cdrom.com or mirrors)

Put all the lump files (except for colormap.lmp and palette.lmp) in a
directory with swchpal.exe. Copy the original palette.lmp as oldpal.pal and
the new palette.lmp as newpal.pal.

Make a batch file eg: switch.bat that contains the lines:
-------switch.bat----------------
for %%f in (*.lmp) do swchpal %%f
for %%f in (*.mdl) do swchpal %%f
for %%f in (*.spr) do swchpal %%f
---------------------------------
(note the double % signs are supposed to be used)

All the .lmp files in gfx.wad can be converted at once by the command
swchpal gfx.wad


WadView and BspView:
The utilities WadView and BspView are included. You can browse an existing
wadfile or bsp file and extract the textures to pcx files.
The command line usage is simple:
wadview <wadfile>
or
bspview <bspfile>

<wadfile> and <bspfile> are the full names of the .wad file or .bsp file that
you want to view.

WadView will use the pallete lump if there is one in the wad file or the
Quake palette otherwise. BspView always uses the Quake palette. The size of
the image is reduced by a factor of two for large textures; there is now a
size indicator in the top left corner of the screen.

Note: WadView and BspView don't run under windows 95 but NewWad still does.


History:
0.99 I was going to write a complete utility but then I saw this program and
it's source and thought 'why reinvent the wheel?'. Given that Daniel
Gilliland wrote that he did not intend to update the program I decided to do
it myself. I had already written the decimation routine so I just slotted it
into the source and recompiled.

1.0 I have added the ability to update an existing .wad file as well as
create a new .wad file. I have also added a rudimentry check on an existing
.wad file to see if it has a directory entry (i.e. is not corrupted) before
attempting to add textures to it.

1.2 Added palette handling to NewWad and the creation of palette.lmp and
colourmap.lmp files. Added WadView and BspView utilities to the distribution.
The ammount of output text has been greatly reduced.

1.3 The method of downsampling was changed to simple averaging.
This is computationally quicker so the program runs much faster and still
produces good results.  This also removes a problem of visual artefacts at
the edge of sub-images that occured with the previous versions.
The maximum image size was increased to 1024x512 pixels.
WadView and BspView now display the sub-images as well as the main image.


Email:
Contact me (Christopher Wise) at [e-mail]
Feel free to ask questions. I would like feedback if the program doesn't work
properly. I will try to fix any bugs, time permitting and may add new features.
I hope that this program is of use to level creators.