1 NetHack 3.7 tile.doc $NHDT-Date: 1596498338 2020/08/03 23:45:38 $ $NHDT-Branch: NetHack-3.7 $:$NHDT-Revision: 1.8 $
3 Window ports can optionally make use of the tiles (pictures for NetHack
4 symbols) found in this directory. They are distributed in a text format
5 with routines to help in converting them to a system's preferred format
6 and using them there. The original tiles were provided by Warwick Allison.
8 The tile distribution format for monsters.txt, objects.txt, and other.txt
9 starts with a palette header like:
15 and then each tile has an entry like:
17 # tile 292 (comment identifying tile)
24 Each port can convert these .txt files to whatever format it wants the
25 game executable to use, probably providing only one merged output file.
26 See the tilemap.c discussion at the bottom for more hints on adding tiles.
29 Shared code provided for conversion utilities:
31 tile.h contains shared declarations.
33 tiletext.c defines the external variables from tile.h and supplies
34 the external routines for reading and writing the defined text format.
36 Each conversion utility is expected to use tiletext.c and provide code of
37 its own for reading and/or writing another format. The important global
38 variables implement a colormap shared between tiletext.c and the other
39 half of utilities. As an example of conversion utilities, we provide
40 txt2ppm (tiletext.c + ppmwrite.c) and gif2txt (tiletext.c + gifread.c).
41 (Sorry, we're not paying Unisys patent royalties for the right to provide
42 you with a gifwrite.c, which would necessarily use the LZW compression
43 algorithm they claim.)
45 The text I/O routines are:
47 boolean fopen_text_file(const char *filename, const char *type);
48 select file for subsequent tile I/O
50 returns FALSE if file not opened, otherwise reads/writes header
51 (including colormap) and sets up to decode/encode tiles
52 int fclose_text_file();
54 boolean read_text_tile(pixel[TILE_Y][TILE_X]);
55 returns FALSE if no next tile in current file
56 otherwise TRUE and insert the tile in the provided array
57 boolean write_text_tile(pixel[TILE_Y][TILE_X]);
60 There are some additional shared routines provided for writers:
62 void set_grayscale(boolean g);
63 do grayscale color substitutions when reading the tile text file
65 initialize the output colormap from the input one
66 must be called before opening output file as colormap is part of header
67 void merge_colormap();
68 merge the current input colormap into the output one
70 Due to the amount of state being kept, only one text or gif file can be
71 open at a time. If you are combining multiple files into one other-format
72 file with a single common colormap, you may need to open each source file
73 and merge their colormaps into a common colormap before processing any tiles.
75 Although there are expected to be only 16 colors in the distribution tiles,
76 conversion programs should be prepared to accept up to MAXCOLORMAPSIZE
77 colors and map them to a smaller number if their port requires it.
80 Expected sequence for editing tiles:
85 run txt2ppm foo.txt foo.ppm
86 convert ppm to gif, either via ppmtogif from pbmplus/netpbm or
87 stripping the first 15 bytes of foo.ppm (containing the
88 size of the image) and feeding the rest to any raw-24bit-
90 edit tiles with gif-editing program
91 run gif2txt foo.gif foo.txt
94 When converted to ppm, monsters.ppm, objects.ppm, and other.ppm are:
95 each a single ppm format (rgb triples with header)
96 20 tiles across, however many down (need "blank" tile to fill in
97 extras on last row -- currently alternating pixels in
98 first and second colors)
99 allows looking at tiles en masse for comparison or whatever
101 The gif reading routines accept further variations so long as the gif is
102 n*TILE_X pixels across.
104 The gif I/O routines are:
106 boolean fopen_gif_file(const char *filename, const char *type);
107 select file for subsequent tile I/O
109 returns FALSE if file not opened, otherwise reads gif header
110 (including colormap) and sets up to decode tiles
111 int fclose_gif_file();
112 tear down decode mechanism
114 boolean read_gif_tile(pixel[TILE_Y][TILE_X]);
115 returns FALSE if no next tile in current file (including when any
116 remaining tiles are "blank"),
117 otherwise TRUE and insert the tile in the provided array
120 Array provided by shared code for NetHack use, by compiling and running
121 tilemap.c to form tile.c:
123 glyph_map glyphmap[MAXGLYPH];
124 maps glyph number to tile number, ( and later to ttychar, symidx,
125 glyphflags) for display purposes, assuming (non-blank) tiles are
126 numbered sequentially through monsters/objects/other
128 tilemap.c (shudder) accounts for things disappearing due to compilation
129 options -- there should be a tile for everything appearing under any
130 supported option, but under some options some tiles won't be referenced.
131 Therefore, tilemap.c has the knowledge to provide the comments for gif2txt
132 and is compiled with GIF2TXT to link in there, along with the various
133 strings for things that are compiled in (monst.o etc.).
135 If you add monsters/objects/other things to NetHack and need to add tiles
136 to go with them, just add an entry in the right place in the appropriate
137 .txt file, and one to tilemap.c if the new item is conditionally compiled.
138 While the "comment identifying tile" in the .txt file must be correct,
139 the number of the tile need not be, and can just be a duplicate of the
140 tile on either side (or any other integer, for that matter). In an
141 official release, the tiles in a .txt file will be numbered consecutively
142 so that you may cross-reference with a graphics format, but the conversion
143 code does not care about the numbering. (In fact, running txt2ppm, ppmtogif,
144 and gif2txt gives you a consecutively numbered version of the .txt file.)