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This section contains a few customising hints and tricks that don't fit in anywhere else. For instance, if you alter some sprite files to change the colour of a spell effect, you may also have to alter the 'Aparticle.M8' or 'Particle.M32' files (in \pics\misc\). The following are the image files (the letters are my addition), with explanations of what each part does:
| APARTICLE.M8 | |||
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A: *Coloured sparks (spell explosions/trails & shrines)
B: Thunderblast explosions/trails & health shrine C: Magic portal / Armor shrine D: Reflection, ghost & powerup shrine E: Lightning shield / whirlwind / ice staff & reflection shrine F: Armor shrine G: Gold armor shrine H: Fire sparks (fire staff, ssithra arrows, explosions) I: Staff shrine J: Fires, firewall casting, phoenix trails * Coloured Sparks: | blue = lightning shield / whirlwind / sphere hands
| red = storm bow splashes / hellstaff, fireball explosions yellow = gold armour shrine green = tomed storm bow splashes / iron doom bounces |
| PARTICLE.M32 | |
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A: Assassin teleport smoke
B: Bursting bubbles/drips C: Water splash / fountain D: Fire & rubble smoke, software boots of speed E: Waterfall/fountain base F: Bug juice G: Spreader fumes H: Blood droplets |
These are just the ones I have identified so far. If anyone knows what the other sections do, email me and I'll include the information here. The 'Particle.M32' file controls effects that require degrees of transparency (blood splashes, Spreader gas bombs, Assassin teleport fumes...). In order to create your own M32 files you'll have to have the HereticEd tools (specifically Qdata.exe), and a program capable of saving TGA images with an alpha channel (which sets the varying transparency). See the section at the bottom of this page for a quick M32 tutorial.
When you throw a fireball, the small red dot in the upper right corner of 'Aparticle.M8' determines the sparks that fly. If you were to change the colour of the fireball spell, you would also have to change this part of the image (or a green fireball would throw up red sparks). If you change the colour of the thunderblast spell, you would also have to modify the purple dot to a matching colour. This can seriously screw up some spell or weapon effects. If you changed the fireball to green, and modified 'Aparticle.M8' so the red spark was green instead, then other spells or weapons that throw up red sparks will also be changed. Red hellstaff projectiles will have green sparks, as will the splash effect of the storm bow when the red rain hits a solid surface. You either have to change all red-sparking weapons and spells to green as well, or simply not include certain weapons in your maps.
Changing the 'Aparticle.M8' file will also effect the colour that shrines will glow. For instance, if you change the yellow dot to a green one, then the gold armor shrine will glow green instead of yellow.
In one of my add-on games (see Shadow Slayer)
I changed the Thunderblast spell into a Solar Flare
spell (see right) by
altering three sprite files (Spark_ind.SP2, Halo_ind.SP2, Indigostreak.SP2)
and changing the purple spark in 'Aparticle.M8' to an orange one. I also
changed the skin for the spell pick-up model, and the icon that appears when that
spell is selected. This had no effect on other spells, as the Thunderblast
spell is the only one with purple effects. However, palace guard elves and
the Celestial Watcher would also throw tomed Solar Flare spells. The health
shrine glowed with a slight orange light as well (but was still mostly
a bluish-silver).
If you change the colour of spell effects and give them a new name, then you may want to change the icon that appears when that spell or weapon is selected. Icons are in the \pics\icons\ directory, and are just small (32x32) M8 files. Simply convert them to images, modify them, and place them in the following directory:
Icon files all begin with the letter 'i_' (for the thunderblast spell, the file name is 'i_array.M8'). In this case I changed the purple array of the Thunderblast icon into an orange one to match the altered spell effects. You would also have to alter the spell names in 'Gamemsg.txt' (in my case, from "The THUNDER BLAST Spell" to "The SOLAR FLARE Spell"). You must also change the "You don't possess the..." messages.
The M32 image format is also known as a SoF Texture, after the game Soldier of Fortune. It allows you to use full-colour images with varying degrees of transparency as model skins or games effects. There are virtually no good stand-alone M32 editors out there, and those that exist won't create M32s that work properly in Heretic II.
If you have the HereticEd tools (download them here), then you can convert TGA images to M32s relatively easily. First of all you need a graphics program capable of saving 32-bit Targa (TGA) images with an alpha channel, so the image has four channels in all (red, green, blue, alpha). Adobe PhotoShop will do this, as will the free Project Dogwaffle. Simply create an image, create an alpha channel (see your graphics program's 'Help' topics), and save it as a 32-bit TGA file.
If you got that far, the next part is dead easy. In the same directory as Qdata.exe is located, create two simple text files. The first is a BAT file that will allow you to run Qdata wihout having to open up an MS-DOS window. Using a text editor, save the following as 'M32convert.bat':
CLICK HERE to download a few example files.
The four numbers at the end of the line allow you to create smaller M32 images from a subset of a larger image. The first two numbers are the starting coordinates for the cropped image, and the last two numbers are the size of the area to be cropped. If you had a 128x128 image and wanted to use the middle part of it to create a 64x64 M32, you would use the numbers 32 32 64 64. This would crop out a 64x64 area starting from a point 32 pixels down and 32 pixels across from the upper-left corner of the original image, effectively snipping out the central portion of your original image. Most of the time you will probably create the TGA image at the same size as the M32, so the first two numbers will usually be 0 0 and the last two the dimensions of the file (width and height). The only reason I mention this here is that Dogwaffle won't allow image sizes of 16 pixels, so I was unable to create the 16x128 pixel image I wanted. I figured out that I could simply create a 32x128 image, use Dogwaffle to create the alpha channel, then let Qdata crop out the section I wanted.