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      .-'^'-.-'^'-.-'^'-.-'^'-.
     (  Hl TagConverter v0.14  )
      '-._.-'-._.-'-._.-'-._.-'

====================================
            * ReadMe *
====================================

  Hl TagConverter
  Version 0.14

  Copyright (c) 2002-2003, Marc Richarme
  All rights reserved.

  You may distribute this software
  freely, provided you distribute
  the original, unmodified package.

  My web page:
    http://devix.cjb.net

  My e-mail:
    devix@devix.cjb.net

  NB: The "mfc42.dll" library is required
      to run this program.
      If you get error messages regarding
      this, you can download it at:
      http://devix.cjb.net/progs/mfc42.zip
      and unzip it to your system folder.

====================================
          * Description *
====================================

  Hl TagConverter was created because the other programs I found
  out there to create Half-Life tags either didn't work or were
  more or less buggy / complicated to get to work properly.

  With Hl TagConverter you don't need any special knowledge of
  graphics, palettes and stuff to be able to create nice working
  transparent tags: Paint-Brush is enough if you don't have
  anything else.

  Some neat features:

    * Support for bmp, jpg, gif, png and tiff formats (thanks to paintlib).

    * Automatic sizing (if you wish) to the maximal allowed size that
      doesn't deform the original image.

    * The resizing algorithm makes sure not to blend any areas of the
      image with blue (the transparent color) so that the borders of the
      image get sharp - this prevents the creation of blue halos around
      transparent images after resizing.

    * Automatic conversion to 8 bpp (256 colors).

    * Automatic reordering of the palette indexes so that pure blue
      becomes the last entry (required for working transparency).

    * Feature that can make any color in the image transparent (if you
      forgot this while creating it).

    * Transparent areas of gif-files will automatically be converted to blue.

    * Transparent preview of tag (if you enable the "Transparent View" checkbox).

    * Doesn't use the qlumpy utility as most (all?) other tag creation programs.
      (I'm not saying qlumpy is bad... but build-in support is better :)

====================================
      * Quick Instructions *
====================================

 1.  Press the "Open" button and choose the image file you want to use
     as tag. (The image should appear in the main window once loaded)

 2.  Press the "Adjust" button and then the "Apply changes and convert
     to 256 colors" button.

 3.  Click on the "Save" button and choose your destination file.
     (check point 6 of the detailed instructions if you dont know
     where you should save it)

 4.  Tada, there you go... one nice potentially transparent tag in no time =)

====================================
     * Detailed Instructions *
====================================

 1.  Press the "Open" button and choose the image file you want to use
     as tag. (The image should appear in the main window once loaded)

 2.  The "Save" button should be grayed at this point, because the image
     is not in the proper format & size to be used as a tag

     Press the "Adjust" button to bring up the dialog used to convert
     the image to the proper format.

 3.  Select the tag size you want in the adjust dialog. By default this
     is set to the maximal allowed size that wont deform the image, so
     you normally wouldn't want to touch this, however if you wish to
     set your custom size, you must obey the following rules:
       - The width and the height of the image must both be a positive number
         divisible by 16. (e.g. 16, 32, 48, 64, 80, ...)
       - The surface of the image (the width multiplied by the height)
         must be strictly less than 12288.

 4.  If you want to make one or more colors of your image transparent, you
     can use the the tool provided for this purpose by clicking the
     "This tool will allow you to make a specific color transparent"-button,
     and then clicking on a color in the image. All areas of the image with
     the color you select will become blue (transparent)!!

     Note: If you change the size of the tag after using this tool, all color-
           changes will be discarded!

 5.  When you're done, click the "Apply changes and convert to 256 colors".
     (Or click "Cancel" to revert to the image you had before clicking "Adjust")

 6.  Now you should be able to press the "Save" button. You will then be
     prompted for the file to save the tag to.

     The tag should be saved in the directory of the half-life mod you want
     to use it in, and should be named "pldecal.wad", for example if you
     installed Half-Life in "C:\SIERRA\Half-Life" and you wanted to use the
     tag in Counter-Strike, you would save it to
     "C:\SIERRA\Half-Life\cstrike\pldecal.wad".

     If you want to use the tag with Hl-Tweaker (not yet released at the time
     of this writing, check http://devix.cjb.net for updates) you should save
     it in the tags folder of wherever you installed Hl-Tweaker.
     The file can be named what you want, but it must have the ".wad" extention.
     (e.g. "C:\Program Files\HlTweaker\tags\mytag.wad")

 7.  That should do it :)

====================================
            * Credits *
====================================

 - The *paintlib* graphic library (http://www.paintlib.de), that was used
   (and abused) extensively in this project.

 - The "Wally dudes" (http://www.telefragged.com/wally) for distributing
   the WAD3 source, which helped me fully understand the structure of
   Half-Life WAD3 files.

====================================
        * Version History *
====================================
 * v0.14	(25-01-2003)
	- added new save functionality:
		You can now simply choose a mod, and the WAD file will
		automatically be saved to the proper destination (only works if HL
		is properly installed). You can also choose to export the reshaped
		image to an image file, and of course you still have the possibility
		to simply save the generated wad file to what ever destination you
		want as in the previous versions.
 * v0.13
        - fixed minor paintlib bug(?) in palette generation when converting to 256 colors
        - added some more exception handling
        - some more minor fixes/improvements I don't remember
 * v0.12	(08-06-2002)
	- fix in resizing algorithm
        - fixed memory leak
        - improved the behaviour of the adjust dialog
        - removed progress reporting while loading image (too slow)
 * v0.11	(27-05-2002)
	- bug fix: (jeez, a few hours after first release)
		during each tag creation C:\test.bmp got written with the tag content.
 * v0.1		(27-05-2002)
	- initial release

====================================
EOF