------------------------------------------ GENERATING YOUR OWN CUSTOM GRAPHICS LEVELS ------------------------------------------ Generating your own custom worm levels has been made easy and fun. You have the choice of quickly getting your level into the game, or spending a little more time and customising it further through other methods - all of which are explained here. This document is in four parts; (A) BASIC (Getting your custom level in there) (B) ADDITIONAL EDITING (Setting Wind/Gravity/Background values) (C) EDITING COLOUR RANGES (For Water/Backgrounds) (D) ADDING YOUR OWN BACKGROUNDS A Basic Steps; -------------- 1. Digitise/Source/Draw your artwork, ensuring that the main graphics screen is EXACTLY 960x400 in resolution. 2. You must ensure that your picture only uses 80 colours and these must be the first 80 colours in the palette. (Colours 0-79, or 00H to 4FH). There are many image processors available that will remap the colours for you, such as GRAPHICS WORKSHOP (C) Alchemy Mindlabs and shareware versions are available from all good PD/Shareware resources. Consult your image processor documentation with respect to "COLOUR REDUCTION" - try different versions with dithering on and off to get the best results. 3. You must ensure that all areas of your picture that are to be transparent in the game are filled with colour 0. This is the only area that Worms can move and fire. Anything else is treated as solid. Also, try and leave a 32 pixel gap at the top of your image as any worms placed here will be obscured by the KO bar. This area of the image will automatically be cropped by WORMS anyway! 4. Save/Convert your image to ".PCX" format. Again, there are many image processors and utilities available to help you do this. 5. Use the GFXCON conversion program on the file. This utility auto remaps the palette for use in the game. (See about changing the water colour later in the doc). 6. Place the file (making sure it has a ".PCX" suffix) in the WORMS/DATA/CUSTOM/GFX directory and load up the game. 7. On the landscape generation screen, press space and type the name of the file (no need to type ".PCX") and that file should load and play. Providing you have followed the instructions, you should not have any problems. 8. You can list all the custom graphics levels present on the disk by going to the WORM OPTIONS, LOAD/SAVE OPTIONS and selecting LIST CUSTOM FILES. You can toggle between sample sets and custom levels. Note: ----- The above procedure is the easiest way to get your image into the game, but there is quite a lot more you can do to change the way your level looks and reacts - and even sounds... B Additional Editing; --------------------- ".INF" Files ------------ If you look at any of the supplied custom levels (in DATA/CUSTOM/GFX) then you will notice that each PCX picture file has a relevent INF file along with it. This file is a standard text file, you can read/edit it with a standard text editor, such as EDIT from DOS or NOTEPAD from Windows. The .INF file (which should have the same name as your PCX file) allows you to; For example the Team17.pcx would have a Team17.inf file. 1) Set the gravity 0 Min 1 Med 2 Max 2) Set the friction (slide) 0 Min 1 Med 2 Max 3) Set the wind strength 0 Off 1 Min 2 Med 3 Max 4) Which background to use 0 Default/Normal 1 Hellish Spiky Mountains 2 Alien Style Mountains 3 Alps Style mountains 4 Alternative Alps style mountains 5 Distant City/Hills 5) Which water set to use 0 Default/Normal 1 Martian Gloop 2 Lava/Fire 6) Set which CD track to play 0 Forest/Ambient 1 Snow/Ice 2 Hell/Evil 3 Mars/Alien 4 Desert/Arid/Rocks 5 City/Urban 6 Warzone 7 Spooky/Graveyard 8 Bizarre/Crazy/Weird/Dreamstate 9 Farmyard/Alps 10 Znork in Z minor!/Tense Muzak! The numbers on the top line of the file are seperated by commas and anything below the line is ignored. Do not let that stop you typing some text about how you did it, how to get the best out of the level and stuff like that - check the example files that are already on the CD. If the .PCX file does not have a similar .INF file, then WORMS assumes default values. C Editing Colour Ranges; ------------------------ You can change the colour ranges of the water and the backgrounds by editing the .PCX file AFTER you have used the GFXCON program. Note: If you edit it before, the GFXCON program inserts default colours on re-writing the file! Water: 16 Colours, in the palette these are ranges 80-95 (50H-5FH). A spread of 1 colour is usually best. Background layer 1 (front layer): 16 Colours, in the palette these are ranges 16-31 (10H-1FH). You will have to check depending on the chosen background graphic, to see what is best as some gfx have cities in them etc. Background layer 2 (back layer); 47 Colours, in the palette these are ranges 129-175 (81H-AFH). Remember that the top half of mountain graphics is usually the sky. You can also copy one of the .BK1 and .BK2 sets (which are background layers) and rename them to the name of your .PCX file. These will then be loaded instead without the need to edit the .PCX file colour ranges. D Adding Background Graphics; ----------------------------- A facility for adding your own backgrounds has been added. You must draw them in the following sizes and colour-resolutions only; Background layer 1; 320x200 16 colours (Colour 0 is transparent) Background layer 2; 320x200 48 colours (Colour 0 is transparent) Note: The bottom line of pixels MUST be all the same colour! The colours must be in the first 16/48 respectively and the program will automatically map the colours into the appropriate palette range in the game. When done, name the files .BK1 and .BK2 - the same as your .PCX file and .INF files. If .BK1 and .BK2 exist, they will auto-load, replacing the setting in the .INF file for background graphics and the colour range you set for the background layers in your .PCX file. And that`s about it... Phew! If you produce any stunning levels, do not be afraid to send them to us! Prizes await the best ones and we`ll put good ones on our site for all to download!