exporting graphics to .bmp

Read through most of the posts in the modding section here and came across several threads but they didn't give enough detail for me, i can be really dense at times . What program or programs do i use to export the map graphics such as objects and buildings to .bmp or ,jpg so i can edit them in my graphics editor. i have a bunch of buildings and objects from the game already but i know there many missing ones from the packs that I have.

1) So what program can I use to export the graphics to .bmp
a) What files are the buildings located in.

2) What program do I then use to reconvert them back into art files.


Thankss in advance LM

 

Welcome to the forum, Lore_seeker!

The two programs you're looking for is ART2BMP and BMP2ART.


You'll find the walls for the buildings in the Arcanum2.dat/art/wall folder and the roofs in the Arcanum2.dat/art/roof folder.

Good luck!

 

What do you mean by this?

You are trying to totally change a whole set of buildings/walls/roofs? Each building set uses a few different walls, which some building sets choose randomly, so you might have to edit all of them. For example,

Even for walls, there's arcanum2.dat/art/wall/structure.mes that tells you which walls are all packed together for one type of structure. there should be roof data in arcanum2/art/roof as well. Keep in mind that you have to unpack arcanum2.dat and then get the files you want, and if you want to use these files to modify the game, put them in arcanum/data/wall or arcanum/data/roof, for example, unless you want to permenantly change your arcanum2.dat

As far as I know, no one has changed structures before, but I could be wrong...

 

I already have all the wall, roof and floor tiles exported. What i was getting at is there are graphics like the iron clan entrance , tulla tower and many others that aren't randomly generated from separate tiles. I have the tulla towers and others but there are (non) random buildings that I don't have that I'm pretty sure are located somewhere in the files . What i really want are more of the tiles or static images of the elven tree city. I have the entrance graphics and some of the little mini buildings that are scattered around the tree city like the dark elf huts but not the good elf ones. I don't have the floor tiles for the tree city and such which are probably not random. Probably other buildings i don't have that exist in the files. For instance I have the whole bates manor bmp but I'm sure there are others buildings that look similar to the bates manor but are also not randomly generated. As I said I'm not looking for individual tiles but whole graphics. The person who gave me the ones I have, got them from a friend who he can no longer get a hold of, hence I had no idea what program/programs he used to rip them and export them to bmp file

Thanks for info I will get those programs and see if they will do what I want them to

LS

 

Those files are under art/facade...same place they're at in WorldEd.
I'm just getting started on this modding thing as well, and I was wondering where do you get bmp2art? Also, is there a different art2bmp than what's in the download section? That one doesn't deal with facades very well...at least not the Caladon castle...turns it into tiles.

 

unfortunately, there is no way to put multiple .bmp files into one .art file, at least not with the software that is currently available to us. art2bmp and bmp2art were made by users, so we don't have what troika used. Getting the individual tiles in each facade is the best you're going to get. If you just want a .bmp of a facade, you might just play the game and use print screen or something, then photoshop the pieces together.

 

Thanks. My one still unanswered question then is where did you get your bmp2art converter? I would like to be able to make some custom art for the game, but that particular converter is missing from Terra-Arcanum's downloads. If it's not still available anywhere, could somebody who has it get it up somewhere where we can download it? It would be greatly appreciated by those of us just starting out.

 

I don't see it anywhere either.

Here ya go:

http://rapidshare.com/files/111503873/bmp2art.exe

Admin: Could you add this to the download section? Thanks.

 

To perhaps lessen some of the confusion as to what I was looking for heres a link to the types of graphics I was looking for. I used to mod for d2 but have grown bored of it .


http://phrozenkeep.planetdiablo.gamespy.com/forum/album_page.php?pic_id=2945

The image is not a screen shot nor was it assembled from individual tiles.If the aforementioned programs cant rip images like that then they are of no use to me. I would really like to know what program they guy used to rip it if it wasn't one of the above mentioned ones :/ Thanks for all the input though .

P.S i have a whole series of images like that , if the above programs can't rip images like that and no one else has any like those I could make availlable all the ones I do have of buildings

L.S

 

I'm 90% sure that's photoshopped or edited. My guess is a sector of black tiles, then the building built using facades, then blocking tiles turned off. If it can't all fit on the screen, it's multiple print screens and pasted to an image. Then, it's cropped.

images that big aren't useful on their own; they have to be cut up into pieces and assembled in the game, as .art images can only be so big (in terms of dimensions, not size, I think). That's half of the reason that facades exist (the other half being to make our lives difficult / to automatically assign tile type, and make a certain noise when you walk on them)

Check your link, though - the title on my browser window says "The Phrozen Keep" but the title above the image says "manorhouse" and it's an image of the bates mansion. From what you were saying, I don't think this is the image you're indicating...

 

I'm fairly certain that the image was ripped somehow though i also could be wrong. AS to the link seems fine to me though I typed manorhouse i meant to type bates manor but whatever. As to the images I have being useful. Of course their size is to big. Having the whole image together and modifying ito suit you and then cutting it up to reinsert into the game is far easier then first taking a screen shot of what you want piecing everything together or trying to modify each individual tile and hope things line up

Having the completed building available to modify as you see fit would just save time by removing the need for the first two or three steps. thats the reason asked. There may be someone who would be interested in them if not it was a suggestion. Coming from someone who has edited hundreds and hundreds of images for d2 maps anything that saves time is a good thing. Especially with d2 where there are many many more steps to making a map and its a lot more time consuming then it is for arcanum owing to d2's deisgn and complete lack of any type of world editors and such

LS

 

Check this out:
http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/arcanum/resources/facades.zip

Even though facades are stored in the .art files as a hundred or more small tiles, WorldEd assembles them into a larger piece, then you assemble those larger pieces.

 

It seems unlikely that there would be a program that would rip the facades out into a bmp like that...as they already span multiple art files. Putting it into worlded over a black background and screenshotting seems to be the easiest way to get that sort of image. That's actually exactly what I did with Dernholm's castle, so that I could create a similar styled castle that wasn't run down. It only took like 3 screenshots to get the whole thing, and then I cropped the image down to be just the castle.