Custom Texture Tutorial

Robot Arena 2 facilitates creating custom textures for your robots, and this tutorial provides guidance on how you can do just that.

Note: For this tutorial, we won't cover some of the basic concepts like how to create a chassis. If you don't know how to use the workshop to build a chassis , you might want to read the first tutorial on basic construction before reading this one.

Creating Custom Decals

To add a custom decal texture to the game, follow the instructions below.

- For a simple square decal, create the custom texture in your favorite image editor (ie. Adobe Photoshop, Corel Draw, etc.)
  - Adjust the image size so that it is 64 pixels by 64 pixels square
  - Save the file as a 24-bit bitmap (bmp) file on your hard drive.
  - Make sure there are NO spaces in the name. (ie. star.bmp, yellow_star.bmp)
  - Copy the file to this folder in your Robot Arena 2 installation directory: Infogrames\Robot Arena 2\Texture Library\decals\
- To create a decal with an alpha channel, create the custom texture and corresponding alpha channel in your favorite image editor (ie. Adobe Photoshop, Corel Draw, etc.)
  - Adjust the image size so that it is 64 pixels by 64 pixels square
  - Save the file as a 32-bit targa (tga) file on your hard drive
  - Make sure there are NO spaces in the name (ie. star.bmp, yellow_star.bmp)
  - Copy the file to this folder in your Robot Arena 2 installation directory: Infogrames\Robot Arena 2\Texture Library\decals\

Creating Custom Robot Textures

To create a custom texture for your robot and import it into the game, follow the instructions below:

- Create the chassis of your robot. Without the chassis it will be impossible to do the next step.
- Once the chassis is created you can proceed to the Paint Shop section of the Robot Workshop.
- In the lower left hand corner there are two buttons that are used for exporting and importing custom textures.
- Click on the Export Paint Template. You will then be given two choices:
  - By default the exporter will simply export a texture showing the texture areas used for the current chassis design. Enter a name and the file will be saved in the Infogrames\Robot Arena 2\Custom Textures\ folder.
  - The other option is to create the base texture within Robot Arena 2 using all of the Paint Shop tools, and then exporting this texture for additional enhancements. In the exporter dialogue box there is an option to "Export the current chassis texture instead of a template". By checking this option it will export out the texture as a bmp and put it in the following folder: Infogrames\Robot Arena 2\Custom Textures\ folder.
- Now that you have either a template or a chassis texture exported. Create or modify the texture in your favorite image editing software.
- Note: You can NOT alter the size of the texture to be bigger or smaller. Doing so will create an invalid texture and cause problems for the game.
- Once you are happy with the texture, save the image. If you moved the image to another folder for editing purposes then copy the final bmp to this folder: Infogrames\Robot Arena 2\Custom Textures\
- Now that you have the texture created, we can now import the texture back into the game using the Import Custom Paint button. Select the custom bitmap and click ok. Your chassis will now have the custom texture applied to it.

Creating a Texture Fill Texture

To create an addition texture fill texture for the Paint Shop, follow the instructions below:

- Create the texture using your favorite image editing software. (ie. Adobe Photoshop, Corel Draw, etc.)
- Adjust the size of the texture to be 256 pixels x 256 pixels.
- Save the file as a 24-bit bitmap (bmp) file.
  - NOTE: You can NOT use spaces in the file name.
- Copy the texture into this folder: Infogrames\Robot Arena 2\Texture Library\
- Now when you go into the Paint Shop, your texture will be listed along with all of the other texture fill textures.

Creating Surface Layer Textures

To create additional surface layer textures for the Paint Shop, follow the directions below:

- Using your favorite image editing software (ie. Adobe Photoshop, Corel Draw, etc.) create a new texture with the size of 256 x 256 pixels.
- Create the texture and the corresponding alpha channel layer.
- Save the file as a 32-bit Targa (tga) file.
- Copy the file to this folder: Infogrames\Robot Arena 2\Texture Library\
- Now the new surface layer texture will be in the Paint Shop the next time you run Robot Arena 2.

Creating Custom Edge Line Textures

To create a custom edge line texture, follow the directions below. This process is a little more advanced and you will need to follow these directions closely.

- Using your favorite image editing software, create a new texture with any of the sizes listed. The larger the texture the more detail you can add:
  - 16 x 16 pixels
  - 32 x 32 pixels
  - 64 x 64 pixels
- Once you have selected a size, create you edge texture and the corresponding alpha texture layer.
- Save the file as a 32-bit Targa (tga) file.
- Copy this file to the following location: Infogrames\Robot Arena 2\Texture Library\edges\
- From here you have to do some text editing to setup the edge line texture to be used in the game
- Create a new text file in the same folder you just copied the texture to: Infogrames\Robot Arena 2\Texture Library\edges\ And make sure that you give the text file the same name as the texture file!
- Open the text file and add the following lines(This is an example File.. your settings will differ from those below):
  - Filename: name_of_file.tga
  - Preview: name_of_preview.bmp
  - Length ratio (world pixels per file pixel): .04
  - Width (world pixels): 8
- Below is a definition of each line in the text file and what the settings mean. This will allow you to adjust these setting according to your texture:
  - Filename: This is the name of the .tga file to use for the texture itself. Please use the included .tga files as a guide in creating your own edge line textures. These are found in the Texture Library\edges directory under the root install of the game.
  - Preview: The filename of the preview bitmap to use. Please use the included preview bitmaps as a guide in creating your own previews. These are found in the Texture Library\edges directory under the root install of the game.
  - Length ratio: This value determines how often the edge line texture will tile across the bot texture. The number of tiles is determined by the following formula:
    - Number of Tiles = Length Ratio * Pixels on Bot texture.
    - This value can range from 0 (which means no tiling) to less than 1 (Note: 1 would mean infinite tiling so don't use that value). You should tweak this value until the visual outcome is what you desire.
  - Width: This value specifies the width of the edge line and can range from 1 (a hardly noticeable edge line) to 256 (an edge line that is huge). A good value to use is 24. Again, tweak this value until you are satisfied with the result of your edge line.
  - NOTE: Name the text file similarly to the other text files in the directory, as this name is used in the game interface.

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