Theme Guide, FAQ, & Index

[bugabinga]

both backdrop.jpg and background.png are present in the graphics folder of the newest wagic release.
but i just noticed ,that the svn doesn't have background.png anymore.

That is a pity ,because due to it's alpha channel it would allow for more expressive custom themes.
Also I need to correct myself in the previous post.
The file background.png actually does NOT get rendered onto screen in the latest release of wagic, my bad.
I mixed it up with the 0.8 release probably, because i clearly remember that file being part of the design at some point in time...

[Psyringe]

Jeck: I think themes now require a preview.png to be recognized by the engine, a theme without a preview.png will not appear in the selection. If so, then it would be good mentioning it in the guide.

[Saiki]

any specifics on how the files need to be formated? they keep crashing on my PC when I make a theme

[abrasax]

any specifics on how the files need to be formated? they keep crashing on my PC when I make a theme

Well the format must be the same as the one from the original graphic folder.... not sure were you problem is... since i made a lot of theme, I would suspect the font file to be the cause of crash... if you tryed to change the font you need to be carefull to have the png and the corresponding dat... they always go by pair and are linked to each other (it mean if you take the f3.png from the mtgo theme and just copy it into the original graphic folder without copying the f3.dat from the same theme, then the game will probably crash...)

You can try to delete some suspicious file to narrow down where the problem is coming from (e.g delete both f3.png and f3.dat and see if it work)

maybe the best would be to upload your wip-theme so that we can have a look...

Grü

[Saiki]

is there any way to create a .dat to use with a different font?

[wololo]

The first post gives you a link to a piece of software that allows you to change the font. That includes the .dat

[WhyNot]

Awsome post, ive always wanted to make a custom theme, ill definitelly give it a try when im done with my current projects.

[poofacetherisen]

Alright, but what about the fonts?

Yep, absolutely! Any bitmap font editor can probably be made to work, but the one at http://www.lmnopc.com/bitmapfontbuilder/ is what we use. This is where, unfortunately, you'll need to do a little graphics editing. Font textures should be PNG format with transparent background. Then, the image is divided into 256 cells... 16 rows and 16 columns; each cell represents a single character. For simon, these cells should be 11 pixels high, meaning your texture should be 176 pixels high. The other two fonts want characters 16 pixels high, meaning your texture should be 256 pixels high. Just look at the original font textures as reference.

What about changing the font's properties. I want to make a smaller and thinner (compared to a vanilla Wagic) font as the main font, is there some sort of .dat file for allocating spacing or something similar?

[wololo]

I don't remember the details for the width, but I know that the height of each font is currently hardcoded...

[poofacetherisen]

I don't remember the details for the width, but I know that the height of each font is currently hardcoded...

Do you know the width then (as in where it is)? How do I find it so that I can edit it? Do I need C++ or SM knowledge to edit that though? Cause I thought it would be as simple as opening a file in a hex editor and changing a value.