        8@      @8
        @@      @@ .eYPTbe. 8b,eYb. 8b,eYb.eYTb.  ePTYb.
        @@  ae  @@ eP~  ~Y8 @@' ~Yb @@P'~Y@' ~Y8 (8(  ~9
        @@  @@  @@ @{    }@ @@    ~ @@   8@   @@  'Y@b,
        8@.,@@.,@8 7@,  ,aY @@      @@   @@   @@ 6,  )8)
        ~Y8P'~YBP' ~Y8bd8P~ 88      88   88   88 ~YbadP~
        ________________________________________________
         TEAM17          REINFORCEMENTS           TEAM17
        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

                Worms PC Level Creation Tutorial 
	            Baby Chaos Version (Vrs 1.2)
             ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
			  Friday 24th May 1996


Contents:      (C = Changed, N = New)

    1.0.....Introduction.
C   1.1..........Version Info and other Stuff.
N   1.2..........What's Changed
C   1.3..........What's Missing.
    1.4..........The Author.
    1.5..........Contact.
    1.6..........Acknowledgements.

    2.0.....Tools.
C   2.1..........Where to get 'em.

    3.0.....Converting your Level.
    3.1..........Basics.
    3.11..............Image Colours.
    3.12 .............Image Size (size does matter!).
    3.2..........Re-sizing your image.
    3.3..........Reducing Our Colours.
    3.31..............Dropping the Colour Depth.
    3.32..............L-View.
    3.32.1.................Dither Info.
    3.32.2.................L-View (Cont).
    3.33..............PSP.

    4.0.....Converting our palette.
    4.1..........GFXCON.
    4.2..........Touching up your level AFTER converting.
    4.21..............Problem 1.  The background is solid.
    4.22..............Problem 2.  See through holes.
  
    5.0.....loading your level into Worms.

    6.0.....Additional Editing (Setting Wind/Gravity/Background values).
    6.1..........".INF" Files.
    6.2..........Palette Problems with the ".INF" File.

    7.0.....Backgrounds.
    7.1..........The ".BK1" File.
    7.2..........The ".BK2" File.
 
C   8.0.....The Palette.
C   8.1..........what goes where.
    
C   9.0.....Water Colours.
C   9.1..........Where are they.

C   10.0....Advanced Topics.
C   10.1.........Make the Underneath of ".BK1" Transparent.
C   10.2.........Getting more than 80 colours into a Level.
N   10.3.........Get more than 16 colours into the .bk1 file
C   10.4.........Invisible platforms.
C   10.5.........Invisible Landscapes.

    11.0....End stuff.
C    11.1.........Copyright notices.

1.0  Introduction.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Working with both PC's and images can be tricky at times, making
Worms levels can be hell.  Turning an image into a Worms level is easy
and straight-forward, turning an image into a *really* good Worms level
is a different matter.

In writing this document I assume a couple of things.  Firstly, some people 
will be games players, keen to design their own levels, but who've never 
used ANY graphics packages before.  These are the people I have (hopefully) 
kept in mind while writing this. If you know all about PSP, L-View, 
Photoshop etc. and you understand what's going on in the CUSTOM.TXT (which 
comes with Worms: Reinforcements) but you're having the odd problem, then 
you're probably better off skipping to the later sections.

Secondly, I assume that you already have an image you wish to turn into a 
level.  This is not the place to be discussing scanning or image 
manipulation techniques.  There are many other sources that can cover this 
much better than I can. 


1.1  Version Info and other stuff.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is the first `tutorial' I've written, so it's bound to have a few (lots 
of) grammatical mistakes, spurious amounts of spelling mistakes and a couple 
of errors.  If you spot any, or you find this useful, or have any comment on 
how it could be improved, please drop me an E-mail to the contact address in 
section 1.5.

This is currently Version 1.2.  I was hoping to get nearly everything you 
could need into version 1.0 but I had (and still have) too much work too do 
atm. And since then I've worked out a few more things and started working on 
a couple of utilities. 

This document is a text only document. I hope that I can get this up as a 
HTML with Graphics somewhere soon as well, I'm sure you'll find out when 
this happens somehow :)

1.2  What's Changed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Since the last version (that no-one's read I'm sure) some things have 
changed...

Sections 8 & 9 have been added, but still need sorting out a bit.

The outline of what was going to go into section 10 (from the What's
Missing section) has now moved down to the section 10 area.

I've just worked out how to squeeze even more colours into the .bk1, this
is sort of explained in section 10.

I've decided NOT to include tutorial levels/pcx files as they'll take up
too much room and don't really help that much.  Any graphics that I think
need to be included (such as the difference between dithered and non-
dithered) will be put up on the Web page (as soon as I write it).

I've added FTP sites for downloading PSP311 and Lview3.1


1.3  What's Missing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Information about dropping the palette using GRAPHICS WORK SHOP (GWS), or 
ANY information about it.

The whole of Section 10.0, it still Needs to be sorted out.


1.4 The Author.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hi I'm Modesty.

Well, that's that then.

Oh yeah, I'm about to finish an Interactive Systems Design Degree (Next 
Friday).  And so far this tutorial has more words than my report :)

I'm not looking for a job yet, I want to take a year out to follow up 
research into 3D visual Database representation using Renderware and VB, 
teach myself C++.  Start and Finish a genetic art program (Alife all that 
Jazz).  Plus general Art/computer stuff.

If anyone *does* want any freelance gfx work done :) :) :) :)

1.5 Contact.
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Right...the best ways to get hold of me are...
E-Mail:  modesty@io.com
(In an ever changing world, this E-mail address will always remain the same 
(a place to call home *g*) it forwards mail to wherever I happen to be.  As 
io.com is in the States and I'm in the UK, chances are you'll get mail back 
from someplace you're not expecting...so expect it.)

Address & Telephone:
No point in giving an address or phone number as I'm moving house soon to 
God knows where. (I'll keep you updated to my movements in newer versions of 
this file)

You can also find me mooching around being nasty to `newbies' on The Hive 
BBS.  An `underconstruction' Web page can be found at:
HTTP://www.molgen.gla.ac.uk/hive
or
Telnet: www.molgen.gla.ac.uk
Login: bbs (lowercase)


1.6 Acknowledgements.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Aaron Stonewell for asking me to contribute to this file, and keeping it on 
his web page.  Team17 (If I fail my degree I know who to blame). Dedications 
to Richard P. Feynman, Martin Gardner & Rudy Rucker (If I pass my degree, I 
know who to blame).


2.0  Tools.
~~~~~~~~~~~

Here's you one-stop shopping list for all your Worm Level creating needs;
GFXCON.EXE  
(This is used to re-map the colours from your 80 colour image to the 
palette used by worms)

Paint Shop Pro Version 311
(Throughout this document I'm using PSP3.11, everything should work 
with any version of PSP3.xx. You NEED this file, even if you have 
something fancy like Photoshop, you NEED this!)

L-View Pro
(I'm using L-view Pro 1.B.  You don't actually NEED L-View, but it's 
handy to have, for examining the palette and adjusting colours)


2.1  Where to get 'em.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

GFXCON.EXE was packaged with Worms: Reinforcements.  Once you've got 
Reinforcements to work ;) have a look in worms/graphics/ (you'll also find a 
handy file called CUSTOM.TXT) or look in the UTILS/ directory on the CD.  
You can also download this file from a number of places...

Paint Shop Pro (from now-on called PSP).  This can be found all over the 
place, you'll need version 3.xx.  To find it on the internet do a search for 
PSP311.ZIP (for the latest version), here are a couple of places (one!) you 
can download it from...

ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/pub/0-Most-Packages/simtel-win3/graphics/psp311.zip


L-View Pro.  Again, all over the shop, try searching for lviewp1b.zip or 
go to...

ftp://micros.hensa.ac.uk/mirrors/simtelnet/win3/graphics/lviewp1b.zip
ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/pub/0-Most-Packages/simtel/
      win95/graphics/lviewp1c.zip


3.0  Converting your Level.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well, now you've got all your things ready, you have your tools, you have 
your image, lets try to get it in there.  The following sections should walk 
you through the process of taking your initial image and converting it to a 
`Worms Compatible' level.

Once you've completed converting your level, to play it you need to copy it 
into the 
worms/data/custom/gfx/
directory, once it's there you can now access your level.  Start a game, 
press space on the landscape selection screen, and type in the name of your 
file.  You don't need to add the .pcx at the end, for example, FOOBAR.PCX 
would be selected by typing foobar 

Hold onto your hat, here we go....


3.1  Basics.
~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm going to use a convention here, when I'm talking about selecting things 
from menus I use the format...
Edit|Find...           or 		Selection|Modify|Grow
This indicates that you should select the menu named by the first word, the 
second word tells you which item to select, you may find yourself on a sub-
menu, you just keep going... you'll get the hang of it.


3.11  Image Colours.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is what most of the fuss is all about.  Your image, no matter how nice 
it looks now, NEEDS to be reduced down to 80 colours.  Why?  'cause those 
nice people at TEAM17 say so, that's way.  The rest of the colours are used 
for other parts of the game (such as the sprites and the backgrounds).  This 
leaves you with the aforementioned 80 colours.  We'll discuses how to reduce 
the colour in section 3.3. 

Not only that, but once you have these 80 colours you then need to re-map 
your 80 colour palette to the 256 colour palette of worms.  Don't worry 
though, there's a program to do this for us.  All we need to do is make sure 
that we've got everything setup correctly and it should be a piece of cake.
Trust me I know what I'm doing, we'll get through it.

NB. You can get more than 80 colours into a level, but this is harder, 
details in section (10.2)

3.12 Image Size (size does matter!).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For your level to work, it must be 960x400 pixels in size.  Not a jot more 
or a pixel less.  What's more, Worms cuts off the top 32 Pixels!! So if you 
have anything ascetic up near the top you'd better think about moving it 
down.


3.2  Re-sizing your image.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So you've got an image, but it's the wrong size, what can you do?  Well, 
resize it of course.  We can use L-View or PSP to do this, so open up your 
image in either one (I assume you know how to open an image, if not use the 
help file) and...

L-VIEW:
Edit|Resize...
You'll get the Resize box up.  First off, right down at the bottom you'll 
find a `Preserve Aspect Ratio' check box, turn this OFF.  Now we can mess 
around with our image size.  Back up the top of the box we see a place to 
enter our images' desired size, so stick in 960 & 400.

Click ok, and we should have our 960x400 image, if you look at the title bar 
of L-View you should see the image size there, as well as the number of 
colours (we'll worry about those later).

Now save the image.

PSP:
Image|Resize...
Up pops PSPs resize box.  We don't want any of that rubbish on the left, we 
want our own custom size.  So select the custom size radio button.  Just 
below here you'll see a nasty `Maintain Aspect Ratio' check box, turn that 
damn thing OFF right now!!  You can now feel at ease and confidently enter 
960 & 400 into those 2 boxes, just under `Custom size'

Click ok, and voila!  If you look at the bottom of PSP you'll see a `Status 
Bar' in here we should have details of our images' new size.

Save it!! 

!!NOTE!! I always design my levels at 960x368, this way I CANT put 
anything in the top 32 pixels.  After I've dropped down to 80 colours, 
but BEFORE I use GFXCON to convert the palette I add the top band of 
32 pixels.  This is how to do it; Open your image in PSP...
Use left click the dropper to select the background colour
Image|Add Borders...
Turn Symmetric OFF
Enter 32 into the `top' box
Click OK
Ta Da!


3.3  Reducing Our Colours.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We're going to try our hand at reducing our image down to 80 colours, so 
get your image ready.

First off, load your image into L-View or PSP and have a look at it. Both 
programs will tell you at a glance a little about the image.  
It'll tell you the dimension and the colour depth.
L-VIEW: This info is in the Title bar (960x400x16.7million)
PSP: Look at the bottom status bar (960 x 400 x 16 million)
(Your image may have less than 16 million colours, don't panic)

If we're happy with the image, we'll need to drop it down to 
80 colours so it can be converted to a worms level. (As much as we'd 
like to have a true colour level in Worms, we just can't do it.  We 
can't even use the full 256 available, as those wormy people at 
team17 need the rest of the palette for other things, such as the 
water and so on, more details can be found about the palette later, 
don't worry).  The normal way to view the palette is to...
L-VIEW: Retouch|Palette entry... 
PSP: Colors|Edit Palette...

But we can't select them, they're greyed out. JARGON ALERT! (Our image is a 
TrueColour (24bit) image, and therefor doesn't have a palette, each 
pixel is represented by a RGB value.  We need to drop the image down 
to a "palette" image, before we can select these menu options.)


3.31 DROPPING THE COLOUR DEPTH.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is an important step, so I'm going to take a lot time over it.  
We want our image to look as good as possible.  So we want the best 
80 colours we can get.  We're going to look at L-VIEW first and then 
PSP and the different ways of doing this...it's up to you to decide 
which is best for colour reduction.  I use both, for one image PSP 
may be better, while L-VIEW is better for others.

!!NOTE!! Later on, we'll use the GFXCON program to convert our 80 
colour image to Worms 256 colour image.  Whatever colour takes up 
palette entry number 0 after it's been dropped down will become 
transparent.  This is normally black, if your image has a different 
colour as a background chances are it won't be entry number 0.  Don't 
worry about this, we'll sort it out later.


3.32 L-VIEW.
~~~~~~~~~~~~

We do...
Retouch|Color Depth...
And the Color Depth box pops up, we have a number of options. There's 
two radio buttons at the top, we want `Palette Image' (it's the only 
one we can have).  Then another 4 radio buttons confront us, we want 
the last one `custom number of colours' Click on this and the text 
box next to it `un-grays' we can now enter the number of colours we 
want, so off you go...stick 80 into this box.

The last hurdle we have to cope with is the `Enable Floyd-Steinburg 
Dithering'. What the Hell is this!!! Well (Even if you know, you may 
want to read this) one of my levels had about 90,000 colours in it, and we 
want to knock this down to 80, that's a big job.  There are a number 
of ways of doing this, L-VIEW offers us 2.  Both ways look at all the 
colours and work out which ones (or groups within a range) are used 
the most, it now makes its new palette with these colours.  Now 
here's where it differs...


3.32.1 ..oooOOOOooo.. DITHER INFO ..oooOOOOooo.. DITHER INFO ..oooOOOOooo..
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The first way looks at each pixel and works out which colour in the 
palette it matches the closest to, and replaces it with that colour.

The second way dithers the colours, so if you have an area of green, 
it'll try to show that by using a alternating pattern of blue pixels 
and yellow pixels (an extreme case, granted).

   ----------------------!!SUPER HINT!!--------------------------
  |   Most of the time people turn dithering on. This normally   | 
  |   looks fine in windows,  the pixels are so small that you   |
  |    can't really tell.  In fact, if it doesn't dither then    |
  |  the images sometimes looks `banded', BUT when you load the  |
  |     image into worms the pixels look REALLY BIG, and the     |
  |                 dithering looks REALLY BAD.                  |
   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Both of these methods have a problem, because the number of colours are
reduced, chances are really dark areas in or image have turned black.
This means, when it's finally loaded into Worms, those areas will be 
transparent.  We'll deal with this later.)
        
          ..oooOOOOooo.. END OF DITHER INFO ..oooOOOOooo..


3.32.2 L-VIEW (Cont).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So we select a mode (I turned Dithering off)...and click OK.

We wait, and then have a look at the mess it's made of out image.

We'll take a quick peek at the palette now, come on...here's how.
Retouch|Palette entry...

Right, first things first, that check box next to `Mask selection 
using:' turn that OFF, we'll get to that in a sec.  Now lets look at 
our palette...

Look we have our 80 colours tucked right up there at the top.  Now we 
look a little closer, notice the first 8 colours and the last 8 
colours?  They look suspiciously like windows system palette colours, 
and they ARE!! This is the first disadvantage of L-VIEW, it adds 16 
colours to your palette, that's one fifth of your 80 colours!!

Now the second big (HUGE) disadvantage.  Click once on the first 
colour (the black in the top left of the palette), don't double 
click, now that colour is selected. Turn that `Mask selection using:' 
on, and select the `White' radio button.  The whole screen turns 
white.  Try clicking on some of the other colours, you'll see those 
colours light up in your image.

Keep clicking on all the blacks you can find, until you see your 
whole image light up in monochrome.  Horrah! You've just found the 
second problem :)

When we use the GFXCON program later, to change our 80 colour image 
to a 256 Worms image, the colour with index 0 will become the 
transparent colour.  Click on entry 0.  How much of that colour do we 
have in our image?? Hummm....none. So none of it will be made 
transparent.  Now click on the actual background black, you see all 
that background, that'll stay black and NOT turn transparent.

You can't sort this problem out in L-VIEW (as far as I know, you need 
a replace command, to replace all of one palette entry with another, 
I can't find this in L-VIEW.  If any budding programmers want to 
write such a utility, us Wormers would find it very handy).  This 
problem CAN be sorted out using PSP311, so no need to worry about it 
at the moment (unless you don't have PSP311, quick run out and get 
it!)

We can stop messing with the Palette entry box now, so click on 
CANCEL. (You can click on OK if you like and have fun messing around 
with the colours).

Now save your master piece into the directory that has GFXCON.EXE in.
NB: (Always store your Master copy somewhere safe!!)

3.33 PSP.
~~~~~~~~~

You've got an image loaded, here goes...
Colors|Decrease Color Depth|X Colors... (8bit)

And up pops our Color Depth Box!  We want to reduce our image down to 
80 colours, so enter 80 in the box just under `Number of Colors'.  
Next choice, `Nearest Color' or `Error Diffusion' Hummm...well `Error 
Diffusion' is just another word for Dither.  I advise you read the 
DITHER INFO section up there in the L-VIEW section (3.32.1), all shall be 
explained there, if you haven't done so already do it NOW, go on!)

If you do use `Error Diffusion' you can turn color bleeding reduction 
on or off, the best thing to do is experiment to see what works best 
for each image (I normally turn this on, as it reduces the dither).

You can also choose not to include the windows colours.  This is an 
advantage over L-View, as it frees up 16 colours.  So you should 
get a better overall palette (Although PSP seems to produce very dull/dim 
palettes).  So unless there's a really weird reason for wanting windows 
colours, turn the bugger off.

!!NOTE!!  There's a small bug in PSP3.11 that creeps up sometimes.  
Now and then the `include Windows colors' check box, won't be checked 
when really it is.  To be sure, turn it on and then off again.

So, once we have everything set (I normally use `Nearest color') 
click on OK.

Now we have our 80 colour image, lets look at the palette.
Colors|Edit palette...

Now we see our the palette with the first 80 entries showing our 
colours and the last Err... (256-80) 176 colours are black.  Close 
the palette down and have a look at the `Select' tools floating 
palette.

In the top right hand corner you'll see a dropper, select this and 
click around on your image.  You'll see the `Foreground' colour box 
change to whatever colour you've selected.  Click on your background 
colour in the image (black in most cases), and then double-click on 
`foreground' colour in the floating palette.  Once more the Palette 
editing box will pop up, the selected colour will be outlined by a 
black box.

!!NOTE!! if you double click this colour, in the hope of changing the 
background colour, it wont work, the background palette entry will 
just move onto the next `free' black colour, weird huh?

Now save out the colour reduced image into whatever directory hold 
NB: (Always store your Master copy somewhere safe!!)


4.0 Converting our palette.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now the magic starts, we're going to turn our 80 colour image into a 
256 colour image that can be used in worms.  For this we're going to 
use the GFXCON.EXE program supplied by team17 (You can read their GFXCON.TXT 
text file, it's in the same directory as GFXCON.EXE), read on...


4.1  GFXCON.
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hold onto your stomach, you need to open up a DOS window (or even, eck, drop 
to DOS!).  Done that? Right now change to the directory that holds the 
GFXCON.EXE and your images.  There yet?

Ok...now the messy part, to convert the file you use.
GFXCON <inputfile.PCX> <outputfile.PCX>
The inputfile and output file can have the same name, but it's best 
to use a different name, just in case.  So for FOOBAR.PCX we would 
go;
GFXCON foobar.pcx foobar2.pcx

You should see something like this, if all goes well..
--------------
DOS/4GW Protected Mode Run-time  Version 1.95
Copyright (c) Rational Systems, Inc. 1990-1993

Worms Plus Colour Remapper V1.0 (C) Copyright P.Opdam February 1996

Writing File...
All O.K!
--------------

Don't get too excited just yet, you can put an image that is 
16million colours or the wrong size (or both) through GFXCON and most 
of the time, it'll still tell you that `All [is] O.K!' when it's not.

The only way to tell is to load your image back into L-VIEW or PSP 
and look at the palette.  If it looks like the type of palette you'd 
be happy to take home to meet the family, chances are it's worked.

The other thing you *Should* notice, is that your background has now 
gone a `nice' purple colour.  If it hasn't, but the palette looks ok,  
don't worry, we can sort it out.

Now you can copy your level to the correct directory and have a play with it 
(section 5.0 tells you how to do this)

4.2 Touching up your level AFTER converting.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The chances are there's something wrong with you level.  Two common 
problems; The background is black and all the worms are sitting at 
the top of the screen, or you have holes in your image where it's 
supposed to be black.

You solve both of these problems using PSP3 here's how.


4.21 Problem 1.  The background is solid.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Load your image into PSP.  Select the dropper tool (the one in the 
top right of the Select floating palette).  Right click on the 
background colour in your image.  This puts that colour into the 
second of the two colour squares on the floating palette.

Double click on the first (front, foreground) colour square.  This 
brings up the color palette.  Select the colour with the index value 
of 128, (hint: this is halfway down the left hand side, this is the 
transparent colour, if you want anywhere see through, paint with 
this). Once selected, click ok.

Your two colour squares should now show the purple and the background 
colour.  Pick the `Color Replacer' tool (it's the 7th one down, on 
the left side of the `paint' floating palette, it looks like a pencil 
with eraser rubbing out some green ink, over a chessboard !?!).

Now draw over your background.  This should be replacing your 
background with that nice purple colour without affecting anything 
else in your image.  Set the size right up and the Tolerance right 
down.

It's should only take a minute to cover the whole image.  Once done 
have a play and see if it's worked.


4.22 Problem 2.  See through holes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chances are all the dark parts of your imaged turned black when you reduced 
the colours.  Those black areas where then turned transparent by GFXCON.

The solution;

This works in the same way as above, but you do the reverse.  I.e. 
Right click on the purple transparent background colour.  Double 
click on the first square of the two colour square on the paint 
floating palette.  Select a black, or whatever colour you want to 
fill the gaps.

Once again select the `Color Replacer' tool (see 4.21.)  Now 
colour in those holes.  If you colour in some of the background that's 
*supposed* to be transparent don't worry.  Double click on the small 
`R' next to the two colour squares, this swaps them over.  Now paint 
the background back in.

!!SUPER TIP!!
If the area you want to colour in boarders onto the background, start 
from the inside of whatever you're supposed to be filling in and work 
out to near the `edge' if you're happy with what you've done, change 
to a different tool and then change back.  Undo, undoes whatever 
you've done with the current tool, changing tools and back `saves' 
what you've done.  If you filled it in perfectly and then *just* went 
over the edge, then you pressed undo, it would undo *all* your good 
work.


There you go, that's all you should need to get your basic levels into 
Worms. 


5.0 loading your level into Worms.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

copy the .PCX file into...
worms/data/custom/gfx/
Boot up worms, start a game, press space on the landscape screen and
enter the name of your level without the .PCX i.e. foobar

Now play your level.


6.0  Additional Editing (Setting Wind/Gravity/Background values).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The CUSTOM.TXT file that comes with Reinforcements seems to cover this well 
enough so I'll just copy that.


6.1 ".INF" Files.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you look at any of the supplied custom levels (in DATA/CUSTOM/GFX) then
you will notice that each PCX picture file has a relevant INF file along
with it. This file is a standard text file, you can read/edit it with
a standard text editor, such as EDIT from DOS or NOTEPAD from Windows.

The .INF file (which should have the same name as your PCX file) allows
you to;

1) Set the gravity              0 Min
                                1 Med
                                2 Max

2) Set the friction (slide)     0 Min
                                1 Med
                                2 Max

3) Set the wind strength        0 Off
                                1 Min
                                2 Med
                                3 Max

4) Which background to use      0       Default/Normal
                                1       Alien Style Mountains  
                                2       Hellish Backdrop     
                                3       Alps Style mountains
                                4       Alternative Alps style mountains
                                5       Distant City/Hills

5) Which water set to use       0       Default/Normal       
                                1       Martian Gloop
                                2       Lava/Fire

6) Set which CD track to play   0       Forest/Ambient
                                1       Snow/Ice
                                2       Hell/Evil
                                3       Mars/Alien
                                4       Desert/Arid/Rocks
                                5       City/Urban
                                6       Warzone
                                7       Spooky/Graveyard
                                8       Bizarre/Crazy/Weird/Dreamstate
                                9       Znork in Z minor! (Tense Muzak!)
                                10      Alps/Farmyard Ambience        

The numbers are separated by commas and anything below the line is ignored,
but do not let that stop you typing some text about how you did it, how to
get the best out of the level and stuff like that - check the example files
that are already on the CD.

If the .PCX file does not have a similar .INF file, then WORMS assumes
default values.

6.2  Palette Problems with the ".INF" File.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The GFXCON program assumes that you're going to use the default background 
(0) and when it re-maps your palette it includes the correct colours for 
this default background.  Unfortunately these are not the correct colours 
for the other backgrounds (1-5) (not to be confused with ".BK1" & ".BK2" 
files).  This is particularly noticeable on the city background (5) and less 
so on the Alps backgrounds (3-4).

The only way to get round this at the moment is to edit the palette by hand 
(see section 9.1).  Unfortunately I don't yet know what the RGB values are 
for these palette entries (HINT to ppl at Team17).

What would be nice is if GFXCON had a value you could set ie.
GFXCON [value] <in-file.pcx> <out-file.pcx>
where value was the number of the background.  GFXCON would then re-map with 
the correct colours.  (Another big HINT to the ppl at Team17).  

Unless anyone else wants to have a go at a re-mapper for the re-mapper?
(New Vrs1.2, I've just started out on a re-mapper program, soon as I get it 
finished I'll post it up someplace)
 

7.0.....Backgrounds.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Each level can have it's own background, this background is made up of two 
`planes' I'll call them the front and back plane.  The front plane is stored 
in the ".BK1" file and the back plane is stored in the ".BK2" file.

When Worms loads in a custom level, it automatically looks for backgrounds 
with the same filename as the level.  So CARS.PCX level has CARS.BK1 and 
CARS.BK2.  If it finds only ".BK1" it'll use that for the front and the back 
planes (normally messing up the colours for the back plain).  If there's 
only a ".BK2" file Worms uses the default backgrounds.

Both of these files are actually 320x200 .PCX files, they just have the 
different extension.  The front plane repeats 3 times when in `zoomed-out' 
mode and twice when `zoomed-in'.  The back plane repeats 2 1/2 times 
`zoomed-out" and just over 1 1/2 times `zoomed-in'.

If you want to use some ready made custom backgrounds for your level, just 
copy the levels you want and rename them to your new level.  For example I 
have a level called JUNKYARD.PCX and I want to use the CARS level 
background, in DOS I would type
COPY CARS.BK? JUNKYARD.BK?
and now I have those levels.


7.1..........The ".BK1" File.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As mentioned above the ".BK1" file is a 320x200 .PCX image.  There are a 
couple of things to keep in mind.  The background tiles, so the left side 
has to match up with the right side.  

The bottom line of pixels have to all be the same colour.  If you play worms 
and `zoom-out' (by pressing the M key) you see that the bottom half of the 
front plain is all the same colour.  This is the colour of the bottom line.  
You tend not to notice this due the clever way the graphics have been 
designed to `blend' into the base colour.

This is the tough one!  The image has to be 16 colours!!  One of these is 
the transparent colour (so you don't even get to see that one).  Interested 
to find out how to do this?  Read on.

Basically, load up the image into PSP, drop the number of colours to 16 and 
then save it out.  I assume (Although I've yet to check) that anything 
filling palette index 0 (ie. black) will become transparent.  But I'm not 
too sure about that, if it doesn't become transparent you may need to use 
the technique below.

If you download this file with modesty3.zip you should have the file 
BACK1.PCX.  I'm going to use this as an example. If you don't have this 
file, I suggest you download modesty3.zip now...
ftp://ftp2.team17.com/team17/t17/worms/custom/pc/modesty3.zip

Load up BACK1.PCX.  You'll see that we have Red balls on a bright 
green background.  I find it's always a good idea to make the colour you 
want to become the background stand out.

Now you'll want to decrease the colours down to 16, as explained in section 
3.3 You'll want to experiment with diffusion as we're using so few colours.  
Hopefully you've noticed that PSP will only let us drop down to 17 colours, 
from the X Colors... (Bit) sub-menu.  This shouldn't be too much of a 
problem though.

Reduce the BACK1.PCX file down to 17 colours with both `Error Diffusion' and 
`Reduce Color Bleeding' ON.

That wasn't so bad...lets go look at the palette.  We've got a problem, our 
background colour (green) is slap bang in the middle of the top row.  To be 
transparent it needs to be at index number 128!  Double click on index 128 
(hint, is just over halfway down on the left) and change it's colour to a 
light blue.

(NB. This is a mistake, I *thought* the transparent colour for the .bk1 
needed to co-inside with the levels transparent colour i.e. index 128.  Due 
to the way in which the .bk1 colours are mapped we should use index number
112.  What we end up doing by using index number 128 is indirectly using one 
of the .bk2 colours, but as this shows up transparent *anyway* it's not a 
problem.)
 

Pick the dropper tool (as described in section 4.21), right click on the 
green background.  The `back' one of the two colour squares should have just 
turned green.  Now double click on the `front' one, up pops the palette, 
select index 128 (the light blue one) and click on OK.

We're all set to go now.  Pick the `Colour Replacer' tool (Seventh down on 
the left of the `paint' floating palette). Pick a big brush size and start 
drawing all over the image, until all the green has been replaced.  That's 
our background sorted!

Go look at the palette again.  We have a rouge colour, sneaking off the top 
row, down one.  Chances are it's the light pink.  Click on this once and 
scribble down the RGB values at the bottom (something like R:241 G:196 
B:225).  Press cancel to get back the out image.  Using the dropper again, 
right click on the pink.  Double click on the `front' colour from the colour 
squares and select our old green background from the palette.

Done that?  Ok. Once more use the `colour replacer' to turn our pink into 
green. Make sure you get all of it.  Now we're ready for the last step.  
Once more bring up the palette, double click on out old green background 
colour.  Were faced with the Windows Colour Picker, over in the bottom right 
hand corner we have a place to enter our RGB we recorded from the pink.  
Make it so.  

Our Balls should now be back to what they were, we've got the correct 
background colour and we've moved the rouge colour up to the top row.

!!!DON'T SAVE IT YET!!!
Say we're going to use this as the ".BK1" file for our FOOBAR.PCX level, we 
want to save it as FOOBAR.BK1.  So we go to File|Save As... We make sure
that the the filetype is set to PCX and we change the name to FOOBAR.BK1.  
HOWEVER PSP will save this as a .PCX even though you said .BK1, which will
save over your level!  Instead save it as something like FBACK1.PCX, and 
then using DOS or Windows rename it to FOOBAR.BK1

7.2..........The ".BK2" File.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The ".BK2" file works in exactly the same way as the ".BK1" file, it needs 
to be 320x200.  However, you only need to drop this baby downto 48 colours 
and you don't need a transparent colour.

So when I say `exactly' I mean `a lost less hassle' and nothing like 
`exactly' at all.

Err...that's it really


8.0.....The Palette.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is where all the interesting things take place.  If you downloaded the 
modesty3.zip file you should have a WORMSPAL.PCX file, which is a screen 
grab of a worms palette with a couple of notes added.

If you don't have this, you should still be able to follow what's going on, 
by opening up PSP or Lview, loading a level and going to Edit Palette.


8.1..........what goes where.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Right, our palette has 256 entries, from index 0-255.  The first 16 are used 
for all our wormy sprites and the names that float above them.  If you edit 
these in the palette it'll make bugger all difference as Worms itself 
ignores these 16 colours in the palette and keeps the values in code.

16-31, the second row down.
These colours are set aside for the .bk1 background file.  When Worms loads 
in a background it overwrites these 16 colours with the *first* 16 colours 
from the .bk1's palette.  If no background is set, it uses the standard 
palette for it's Alps background (even if the .inf file says otherwise).

32-79 & 96-127, rows 3-5 & 7-8 (from the top down).
The 80 colours used by your level.

80-95, row 6.
16 colours used for the water, the default is darkblue to lightblue (In the
wormspal.pcx the water is set to red).

128, first one on row 9.
This colour is the transparent colour for you level.  Worms etc can pass 
through anything using this colour index.

129-175, the rest of row 9-11.
This is all set aside for the .bk2 background.  As for the .bk1 file, Worms
fills these slots with the first 47 colours from your .bk2 file.  Otherwise 
it'll fill them with the standard colours for the Alps background.


9.0.....Water Colours.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bored with the normal water colours?  Selected the fire water, but it's 
still blue??  Fear not, we can change them.

9.1..........Where are they.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you load up your image and then goto Palette Edit (In whatever package 
you're using) and look at the 6th row down (6th row up if you're using 
PhotoShop), it should be a nice range of blues.  These are your water 
colours.

All you need to do now is change each on by hand, oh joy.  There's not 
really an easy way of doing this unless you have Photoshop.

If you *Do* have Photoshop, go to Color Table, select the first water colour 
and select drag to the last water colour.  The Colour Selector box thingy 
will now pop up.  Select the first colour you want, and click ok.  The box 
will pop up for a second time, select the last colour you want, and then 
photoshop will fill in the in-between colours for you.


10.0....Advanced Topics.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In this section you'll get to learn lots of handy tricks, when I get round 
to writing them, which'll be in about 3 weeks....in the meantime I've 
roughly sketched out what's going to be in each section.


10.1.........Make the Underneath of ".BK1" Transparent.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This details what happens when you set the bottom line of pixels on ".BK1" 
to the transparent colour, discussed what effect you can get, and marvels at 
the weird vertical clipping you get with ".BK2" If you want to see this in 
action download MODESTY2.ZIP from Team17's FTP site (FTP2.TEAM17.COM) and 
play the PUB level. (Although you shouldn't notice the weird clipping as I 
did my best to hide it!)


10.2.........Getting more than 80 colours into a Level.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Getting more than 80 colours to a landscape.  This section will explain a 
couple of tricks.  When the palette gets re-mapped with GFXCON, it sets 
aside 16 colours for the water (default to blue).  If you remove (but save) 
all the blues from your level, and then reduce the colours to 80, you get a 
wider selection for the rest of the colours.  When you re-map it you now get 
16 shades of blue to play with, you can now put your blue (of course the 
colour of the water is editable) objects back in.  There are also 16 
Standard colours (which can't be edited) but you can remove pure red, 
yellow, white, green, and a couple more blues out of your image.  At a 
squeeze you could get 112 colours to a level.  At the mo I can only do this 
with PhotoShop properly but I hope to be able to work it out in PSP.

In brief, keep a copy of the original.  Then with a copy remove all colours 
that are used in water and the standard 16.  Drop this down to 80 colours.  
Run it through GFXCON to remap the image.  Edit the palette to put whatever 
water colours you decided upon in (if you wanted to use a different colour 
to blue, and removed these other colours).

Still editing the palette, remove the purples from used for the .bk1 and 
.bk2 files (rows 2,9,10 & 11) by setting them to black.  Then save the 
palette.

Go back to your original image, and load in the just saved palette, it'll 
remap you image to the standard 80 colours and the water colours and the 
first 16 :)  We set the other colours to black, other wise all you purples 
will try to use the .bk1 & .bk2 slots :(

Chances are you'll need to replace the background black with the transparent 
colour (index 128).  Then you'll be fine.


10.3.........Getting more than 16 colours into the ".BK1" file
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fun this one!!!

The first 16 colour you use for your .bk1 file get put into indexes 16-31.
So in the .bk1 palette index number 0 used your levels index value 16.  So 
if you put colour number 17 into your .bk1 file, the game will look at index 
value 32 from your level palette.

In other words if you look at your level palette, you can make your 
background run over it's 16 colour limit and flow into your levels palette.

This is tricky, better instruction in later versions.

Make a copy of your pre-16 colour background.  Drop the copy down to 16 
colours, save the palette in PAL format from PSP (This is a text based 
palette)

Load your level, and save it's 256 colour palette in PAL format.  Using a 
text editor remove the first 32 RGB lines.  And the values for the last 
three lines of purple colours (the ones use by .bk2) and the value just 
before it, the transparent colour (use PSP edit palette to help you work out 
the rgb values to remove)

What we've done is removed the standard 16 colour, the .bk1 colours and the 
.bk2 colours.

Now take the 16 colours from our .bk1 palette PAL file and add the to the 
start of levels PAL file.  Next add 4*16 lots of 0 0 0 to the end of the 
file, to make up for the ones we removed and take the number of indexes back 
up to 256.

If all has gone to plan, we should have our 16 colours for the background, 
all the colours for the level and the water colours taking up the first 7 
rows of our palette (all we've done is removed the first row, replaced the 
second row with our .bk1 colours and moved the levels colours up a row)

Next, load up your original image (full colour), load in the palette we've 
just made.  So we're reducing our image to the palette.  this lets our .bk1 
file take full advantage of the levels colours and the water colours.

***insert bit explaining why this works etc etc etc ;) ***


10.4.........Invisible platforms.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Once the palette has been converted through GFXCON, load up the image, 
select a colour from the purples set aside for the .bk2 palette and draw 
with it.

Any colour in your level made up from the .bk1 or .bk2 slots is transparent 
but still very solid.


10.5.........Invisible Landscapes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Same as above.

Have a look at the INVIS1.PCX level in modesty3.ZIP, for a whole new way to 
play the game.  Feel your way forwards with the ninja rope, guess if your 
rocket can get through...oh hours of fun I'm sure!

11.0....End stuff.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

EOF.


11.1.........Copyright notices.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Err..this is all copyright Modesty 1996.  Feel free to copy the whole or 
parts of this for whatever reasons.  If you do this, please state that it 
came from the Worms Level Tutorial by Modesty.

I take no responsibility for any harm that comes to Worms, Levels, programs, 
computer, brain from following any of these instructions.  Backup-backup-
backup :)
 
