bastART Readme

bastART 1.1 by Marijn Kentie (kentieman@tiscalimail.nl).

1. Overview

BastART is a .ART file editor for Windows. It includes core EditART tile editing functionality, and some enhanced and new functions. It has been tested with a number of games; see the Compatibility section for more information. Please note that bastART does not, and will not, include graphics editing functions.

I made bastART to familiarize myself with binary file I/O, and working with/reverse-engineering other people's file types. Every file operation, including .pal and .bmp file reading/writing, is hand-written. The program is based off Ken Silverman's "Artform.txt" file that came with the original Duke Nukem 3D. That game's source code and the EditART source weren't used. Visual Basic 6 source code is included, feel free to add features/port it, whatever, as long as you give me proper credit. I know the ART loading/saving is slow, but as far as I know there's nothing I can do about that (except from porting the code to C++).

2. Features

Open and convert both Windows and Build palette files.
Easy to use tile browser.
Set and preview tile animation properties.
Set and preview tile alignment offsets.
Import and (batch) export BMP files.
Insert, delete and (batch) clear tiles, or change their canvas size.
Create new ART files from scratch.
View tiles at different scales (1x, 2x, 4x 8x).
Fast tile rendering.

3. Usage

You need a palette file for the ART file you want to load. Palettes can be in Windows .PAL format, or Build .DAT format. After loading a palette (it's colors will appear in a bar), you're able to load an art file, or create a new one. When creating a new one, an empty 256-tile file is created. When you have loaded a palette, you're also able to save that palette again. This allows for converting between palette formats.

To quickly select the tile you want to view, you can access the Browser from the "View" menu. In this menu you can also enable the alignment crosshair, or change the rendering scale of the tiles. When you have selected the correct tile, you can use the functions from the "Tile" menu on it:

Import BMP Export BMP Batch Export	These functions convert between .ART tiles and Windows bitmaps. Batch export is handy if you want to, for example, export all the frames for a monster sprite.
Insert after current Insert before current Delete Resize Clear Batch clear	Standard ART file editing functions. Clear tiles to keep .ART files small.
Preview animation Animation speed	Tile animating functions.
Properties	Opens the file properties window, in which you can set the tile's animation type, the number of frames in the animation, and the tile alignment offsets.

4. Compatibility

The program has been tested with the following games' art files:

Duke Nukem 3D - OK.
Powerslave/Exhumed (demo) - OK.
William Shatner's Tekwar (shareware) - OK.
Shadow Warrior - OK.
Blood (shareware) - ART file too big (4096 tiles).

Of course, it's 100% compatible with EditART as well.

5. Revision history.

1.1
-Fixed tile offset system.
-Animation previewing speed now correct.
-Animation previewing now works with all animation types.
-Animation related functions now unavailable if a tile isn't animated.
-Fixed bugs which would corrupt newly created ART files.
-Fixed a bug which would crash the program when deleting a tile.
-The frames in an animation can exceed the tile's size, but these frames are not previewed.
-Fixed tiles not showing in browser when they caused the tile count to not be devidable by 8.
-Made new files start with 256 empty tiles, which both saves users work, and improves compatibility.
-Added an About Box to the program.
-Rewrote the documentation.
-Added "Click a tile to open it." text to browser.

1.0
-First release.
-Tile offset system doesn't work correctly (both value ranges and rendering).
-Animation previewing speed incorrect.