Incoming community tools from PaD Software.

IcySon55 · Commander **Joined**: 19 Nov 2003 **Location**: Overworld

Hey everyone, Icy here.

It's time to break out the news posting skills. I've been working with PaD lately on a set of new modding tools for the community. So far we have two tools planned and one of them is very close to release.

First off, the Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge fonT Editor (a.k.a. FNT Editor) which allows you to change the in-game font in RA2:YR by editing the game.fnt file found in local.mix. Using the tool you can draw custom fonts or even import TrueType fonts you have installed on your computer.

This is the current build of the program. It's not yet completed.

I've imported the Dungeon Keeper 2 font in the above screenshot to demonstrate what you can do with this awesome program.

The second program is a feature rich palette editor for all C&C games that use the .pal format. This editor will allow you to swap and sort colors easily. You can swap single colors, or longer sequences up to 255 colours. (Swapping all 256 is erroneous.) You can sort by Hue, Luminance, and Value to easily organize colors and create a clean looking palette. This program is obviously geared towards Total Conversion authors that have to create completely new palettes and might like to organize them nicely, but I'm sure regular modders will find a use for it since you can edit colors one by one to add needed shades to existing palettes.

Here's a GUI demonstration version of the program. It has yet to actually do anything since we're concentrating on the FNT Editor for the moment.

Creation of new palettes will be easy with this editor as you'll be able to generate gradients based on the two colors you select and the number of colors selected in the palette. The dual view system makes the program highly versatile.

These tools will be hosted at PaDs new homepage: http://padsoft.sytes.net

I'll post up front page news when the FNT Editor is released. Stay tuned.

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Team Black · Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2007 5:05 am Post subject:

Excellent! Making these features more accessable will allow a ton of more variety for modders, can't wait for the release Cool

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ViPr · Gauss Rifle Trooper **Joined**: 30 Dec 2004

aren't you supposed to let software generate the palettes automatically from the sprites?

IcySon55 · Commander **Joined**: 19 Nov 2003 **Location**: Overworld

I do use PSPX to generate the initial palette. The problem then becomes editing the palette so that the blue background is set as index 0. Programs that create the palette don't give you any options on how to palette will be ordered. They certainly don't give you the option to set some static colors before creating the rest of the palette.

This tool is an extension to palette creation to allow easier organization of the colors once the palette has been created.

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TX1138 · Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2007 6:29 am Post subject:

Wow!

I can't wait to use that font editor!

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ORCACommander · Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2007 12:20 pm Post subject:

excellent. how about with the pal editor being able to generate a palette from a pic?

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IcySon55 · Commander **Joined**: 19 Nov 2003 **Location**: Overworld

That is a possibility. Suggestions for features are welcome.

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DonutArnold · General **Joined**: 18 Jan 2005 **Location**: Finland

Are colour fonts allowed in FNT Editor?

pd · Laser Commando **Joined**: 19 Jun 2005 **Location**: Gone

You should know that in RA2/YR, the font gets colored in game.
The characters are stored as 1bpp images, so no, no colors, just "black" (i.e. color) and "white" (i.e. blank).

The tool should be ready in no time, let me estimate a release tomorrow.

As for the PAL editor, I give no guarantee yet for a soon release since I am in serious time pressure (going to begin my military service next Monday).