[1-4] Level Editing Basics
---------------------------
[5] Adding Foreground
and Background Art
[5.a] Foreground and Background Basics
[5.b] fRaBs Fore/Back Art Tile Listing
[5.c] Standards For Adding Art to fRaBs
-------------------------------------------
[6] Adding Objects
and Enemies
[6.a] Scenery Objects
[6.b] Objects Activated by Switches
[6.c] Creating Enemies
[6.d] List of Functions Referenced By Objects
[6.e] Testing, Hints and Ideas
----------------------------------------------
[7] Creating Unique Artwork and
Objects
[7.a] Creating Unique Artwork and Objects
------------------------------------------
[8-10] Making Special Types
of Levels
[5]
Adding New Foreground
and Background Art to Abuse and fRaBs
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[5.a] Adding Foreground and Background Art
------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you want to add your
own art and objects to Abuse, chances are
the game has become a labor of love for you. Even with some of
the editor's
little inadequacies, you still are having a blast making level
after level.
It's time for you to branch out and try creating your own artwork,
so your
levels become truly original.
To understand how the
artwork system in Abuse works, you need to
first make yourself familiar with Satan Paint. Named for it's incredible
ease of use and rock-solid stability (cough, cough), you can make
nearly
anything you want for Abuse in it. With fRaBs, you can find SPAINT.EXE
in
the /art directory. One of these days I'll write up an entire tutorial
on
this pain-in-the-ass program, but for now I'm just going to stick
with it's
functionality in relation to foreground and background.
Anyways, to start out,
try loading a file in /art/fore or /art/back
and see what they look like. Each one of these files has a litany
of tiles
that you see in a normal game of Abuse, and perhaps a few that
you don't
recognize. Press 'i' to see a mosiac of all the tiles in the file,
and to
navigate between the different tiles, press 'n'. Each tile has
a 'name' and
a 'type' which vary depending on the file you're looking at. For
example,
if you're browsing one of the files from art/fore, then chances
are your
tile will have a numerical name from 0-1100 and it will be a 'Fore
Tile'
type. All foreground tiles are 30*15, and all background tiles
are 60*30.
There are three big things
you need to do to get your artwork in
fRaBs. Firstly, you need to import the art into Satan Paint so
it is
corrected for the fRaBs palette. Second, each tile needs to be
numbered
correctly so that the Abuse engine picks it up right. Third, you
need to
write some LISP that calls up your artwork and puts it with the
rest of
Abuse's artwork.
Satan Paint can import
most file formats easily... just don't use
too many colors in your original bits of art and you'll be ok.
There is a
palette.bmp file in /art that should help you tune your art to
the fRaBs
color palette. Every time you import a file using the 'Import Detectable
Images' command, it will follow the file you are looking at in
Satan Paint.
After you import each file individually, you save the composite
of all the
files you have imported into a .spe file. Use the File 'SaveAs'
command
just to be safe.
Once you do that, you
need to give your tiles numbers. The
following note is very important if you want to work with your
art in
fRaBs without causing conflicts.
NUMBER YOUR TILES ACCORDING TO THE TILE LISTING IN THE FOLLOWING SECTION.
There are a couple of ways to renumber your tiles. In the Image
menu, you
will find a 'Name' option. You can use it to renumber the current
tile to
whatever you like. There is also a 'renumber' option in the Commands
menu
which is probably quicker, but it's a bit confusing.
Not only do you have
to renumber your tiles, but you also have to
reformat your tiles as either 'Back Tile' or 'Fore Tile'... if
you simply
import art into Satan Paint, it will be of type 'Image' and the
methods
that Abuse uses to load foreground and background tiles will not
work
unless you format your tiles correctly. This is fairly easy...
press '/'
to bring up the Satan Paint command line and type 'with all type
fore tile'
and your tiles will all be formatted to be 'Fore Tiles'. I believe
you can
change the 'all' to the number/name of a image in your SPE file.
After you
renumber and reformat, make sure you save your file.
Now it's time to add
your tiles to Abuse. The easy way to do this
is to make a text file and copy the lines from addon/newart/newart.lsp
into
it. All newart.lsp has in it is a simple 'load_tiles' function,
and it looks
for specific files. Just change one of the filenames in quotes
to the file
where your tiles are located, and save the text file you have made
into a
subdirectory of /addon. Finally, open up abuse.lsp, copy a 'load("")'
line
and add the path to your new LISP file. You can load LISP files
in any little
text editor. I've found that Windows Wordpad is a good utility
for working
with LISP files.
Run Abuse, and look around
in the foreground/background menus for
your new art. If you number your tiles according to the guidelines
below,
then your artwork should be near the end of the foreground/background
menu.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[5.b] fRaBs Fore/Back Art Tile Listing
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the listing of
all the tiles in fRaBs, foreground and
background. DO NOT NUMBER YOUR TILES IN BETWEEN THESE ONES or OVER
THESE
ONES or Abuse will start up with some funky error messages and
the levels
won't look right. Mark these words well, for it is a knell that
summons thee
to heaven or to hell...
REGULAR ABUSE FOREGROUND TILES
/art/fore/foregrnd.spe 0
/art/fore/techno.spe
1-99
/art/fore/techno2.spe 100-167
/art/fore/techno3.spe 200-236
/art/fore/techno4.spe 300-460
/art/fore/cave.spe
500-634
/register/alien.spe
700-774
/register/trees.spe
800-931
/art/endgame.spe
950-1014
/register/trees2.spe
1100-1134
NEW FOREGROUND TILES
/addon/leon/lnewft.spe 660-671
/addon/leon/lnewft2.spe 672
/addon/leon/stones.spe 676-694
/addon/newart/mtile2.spe 1150-1154
/addon/newart/frabs_1.spe 1200-1239
/addon/newart/frabs_2.spe 1250-1285
/addon/newart/final.spe 1300-1336
/addon/aliens/fortiles.spe 2000-2077
/addon/claudio/pal81f.spe 2200-2217
/addon/claudio/pal82f.spe 2250-2283
REGULAR ABUSE BACKGROUND TILES
/art/back/backgrnd.spe 0
/art/back/intro.spe
5-37
/art/back/city.spe
40-70
/art/back/cave.spe
84-103
/art/back/tech.spe
110-139
/register/alienb.spe
150-179
/register/green2.spe
200-268
/register/galien.spe
300-320
NEW BACKGROUND TILES
/addon/aliens/bactiles.spe 340-374
/addon/claudio/pal2.spe 380-387
/addon/claudio/pal5.spe 430-444
/addon/newart/space.spe 450-468
/addon/claudio/pal90.spe 475-494
/addon/claudio/pal21.spe 500-529
/addon/newart/blcave.spe 560-574
/addon/newart/frbsblue.spe 580-611
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[5.c] Standards For Adding Art to fRaBs
------------------------------------------------------------------------
As mentioned before,
you need to number your tiles so that they do
not conflict with the existing ones. If you want your artwork in
the main
version of fRaBs, check the latest updates
log to make sure that I haven't
added any more new art. Then, number your tiles correctly and you
only need
to send me the SPE file
of the artwork. I will add a line to /addon/newart/
newart.lsp and place your SPE file in that directory.
And that's all it takes
to make your own artwork, test it out, and
get it added to the main fRaBs distribution. It's a lot easier
than it
sounds... :)
[6]
Adding Objects
and Enemies
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[6.a] Scenery Objects
------------------------------------------------------------------------
**Coming Soon... sections 6 and 7 will take a while to write**
Justin Cassidy
messiah15@dog.com