List of Utilities, Tutorials and Custom Tilesets

[swietymiki]

Nov 11, 2018 6:11:03 GMT -8 Tomalla said:

Talking about backward compatibility, if you add some tiles after id 329 and create levels which would use them, they will totally require the new REZ archive severely limiting the target audience. The only changes in the REZ file that make sense then is updating the basic duplicated tiles to add in some variety without changing their semantics.

For now I guess it only would be the addition of missing cornerpieces to Miniature Masterz. Each future level that would use these new tiles (or any updated older map) could have a warning next to the download button, leading to the 1.02 REZ file download page. Also these warnings would need to be added if any of these maps were to be sent over the Gruntz Mailing List. There is no way someone could get in possession of such a map and not see the message that an update is required for it to work.

[GooRoo]

Nov 11, 2018 5:52:46 GMT -8 swietymiki said:

To guarantee full backward compatibility of the new REZ file, all new images should have numbers corresponding to invalid tiles of the normal tileset. Replacing any existing tiles (doubled or not) will break the graphics of some levels. There are two options: either have the new images fill holes between existing tiles if there aren't too many of them, or put all after id 330 (the game should handle up to 999 different tiles).

Quite frankly, I doubt that there are very many people who have designed Custom Levelz who have made a point of using every duplicated tile in a set, other than myself. Most maps consist of many repetitions of tile #001, without any representation of tiles 2 through 8, for instance. Every tile I made as replacements for the (higher numbered!) tiles have the same direction of orientation to the ones being replaced, just created by flipping horizontally or vertically another tile.

I plan to test the appearance in my own CLz, which I know will use the replaced tiles, to verify to myself that they do not 'break' the appearance of the area in which they appear ... just give the area some variety.

Just for yucks, it would be nice if someone who regularly uses both tile number in a duplicated image would reply to this thread to volunteer to be a BETA tester.

[GooRoo]

Nov 11, 2018 6:11:03 GMT -8 Tomalla said:

Talking about backward compatibility, if you add some tiles after id 329 and create levels which would use them, they will totally require the new REZ archive severely limiting the target audience. The only changes in the REZ file that make sense then is updating the basic duplicated tiles to add in some variety without changing their semantics.

I would prefer not to use any tile currently listed as Invalid in the GLEM anywhere. I would do so once, as a test, to see if the Gruntz game engine would barf when the puzzle was opened ... or later on, during game play when a Grunt first encountered it. And I would do that in one of the earlier 4 graphics sets, where the tile number does not exist, but is valid in the higher graphics sets. There are plenty of those!

P.S. I know that there are people skilled in graphics who could create new tiles as replacements for the many ground tiles (CLEAR tiles) that exist as tiles 2 through 8 (duplicates of 1) and 10 through 16 (duplicates of 9). Since I have no means of determining which color RGB values would be valid, even if I had any graphic talent, what I might create would likely clash (or worse yet, crash) the Gruntz map. So we need a venue for talented people to submit replacement tile offerings.

[swietymiki]

Nov 11, 2018 11:29:03 GMT -8 GooRoo said:

I would prefer not to use any tile currently listed as Invalid in the GLEM anywhere. I would do so once, as a test, to see if the Gruntz game engine would barf when the puzzle was opened ... or later on, during game play when a Grunt first encountered it. And I would do that in one of the earlier 4 graphics sets, where the tile number does not exist, but is valid in the higher graphics sets. There are plenty of those!

P.S. I know that there are people skilled in graphics who could create new tiles as replacements for the many ground tiles (CLEAR tiles) that exist as tiles 2 through 8 (duplicates of 1) and 10 through 16 (duplicates of 9). Since I have no means of determining which color RGB values would be valid, even if I had any graphic talent, what I might create would likely clash (or worse yet, crash) the Gruntz map. So we need a venue for talented people to submit replacement tile offerings.

Zu's Custom Tileset uses more than 330 tiles and it works perfectly fine. The tiles are invalid simply because they do not have any graphics provided by default, not because they are hardcoded. That wouldn't make sense from a programming point of view. If any images were provided for the missing IDs, the game would start to recognize them.

There is no reason to limit ourselves if we have ideas to make use of this empty space that Gruntz developers left us.

[GooRoo]

First stumbling block: PCX2PID could not decode the files created by JPG2PCX program. Should I search for another JPEG to PCX file converter,or am I simply doing something wrong?

[Zu]

Have you tried turning JPGs into PNGs and then using one of the programs specified in the tutorial to turn them into PCX?

[GooRoo]

Nov 11, 2018 17:30:58 GMT -8 Zu said:

Have you tried turning JPGs into PNGs and then using one of the programs specified in the tutorial to turn them into PCX?

Irfanview has no problem with the PCX format out of JPG2PCX, so why is PCX2PID unhappy with them? So now I have to locate a PNG2PCX program, in order to try that out? Or does GIMP (which I have, but have not opened yet) do PNG to PCX?

[Zu]

Both IrfanView and GIMP are capable of turning PNGs into PCX. The tutorial explains the process in detail for both programs.

[GooRoo]

Nov 12, 2018 1:23:43 GMT -8 Zu said:

Both IrfanView and GIMP are capable of turning PNGs into PCX. The tutorial explains the process in detail for both programs.

Irfanview worked just fine to convert the PNGs to PCXs ... but the problem that PCX2PID barfed on is that the PCX images are not in 256 color format. So now what needs to be done is somehow convert the pallet from whatever it is (probably higher number) into 256 color in order to work.

[Zu]

The tutorial explains how to set the 256 palette in either of the two programs. All the steps involved are laid out at the bottom of the document.

[GooRoo]

Nov 13, 2018 1:07:03 GMT -8 Zu said:

The tutorial explains how to set the 256 palette in either of the two programs. All the steps involved are laid out at the bottom of the document.

I now have 8 acceptable PID images for the "Miniature Masterz" graphics set. Next is to create the "Gruntz In Space" replacements. Then to prepare the folder structure for REZPatcher. Copy the current files, adding 1.01 to their names for back-up purposes. Then do the thing to create the new files with tile replacements. "SneakerNet" the updated files to the XP computer for testing. I don't dare do all that tonight ... already fatigued, and I want to be sharp for the effort.

[haoz]

Hello! I'm new. I tried installing Gruntz using the "Gruntz Installer (64-bit Compatible)" and it works fine except when I go to menus, such as the save menu, I can't figure out how to get the mouse to work in it. I can't click anything, despite the menu showing up. I'm using Windows 10 x64 and reinstalled it a couple of times to no avail. Thanks for your help!

[swietymiki]

Sept 16, 2022 10:55:08 GMT -8 haoz said:

Hello! I'm new. I tried installing Gruntz using the "Gruntz Installer (64-bit Compatible)" and it works fine except when I go to menus, such as the save menu, I can't figure out how to get the mouse to work in it. I can't click anything, despite the menu showing up. I'm using Windows 10 x64 and reinstalled it a couple of times to no avail. Thanks for your help!

It sounds like the game needs some configuration changes to work properly on your PC. Try running the dgVoodoo Control Panel program (dgVoodooCpl.exe) from the Gruntz folder and change the "Appearance" setting from "Full Screen" to "Windowed" in the General tab. Then, in the DirectX tab, set the "Videocard" setting to "ATI Radeon 8500".