Resources
From Wiki001
 There is a Forum Section dedicated to Resources on the 001 website. Click here to view topics related to this page.
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Resources are the items, background, and basically any image that you see in the game. It can range from a weapon to a tree. Often, these are made by the maker of the game, or a partner. However, Map001 comes with default resources to make a fully functional game. One is definitely encouraged to alter or produce resources that will result in making a fairly unique game.
Internally, resources are marked with a unique number that is used to identify it from resource to resource. This allows one to remove resources at will, even if other objects refer to it. This also allows downloaded resources to interact with each other, if done well. Thus, reducing the amount of resources in the end. The best example of this, is the generic bullet effect, which is used by several weapons that come with Map001, but is also referenced by several weapons found on the resources section.
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Types of Resources
- Tile-Set
- Environment
- Door Resource
- Character Resource
- Vehicle Resource
- Turret/Camera Resource
- Effect
- Sound/Music
- Item/Magic Resource
- Font
Transparent Pixels
This is one of the most important things in making resources. You use the magic pink (255 red, 0 green, 255 blue; #ff00ff HTML color; "Magenta" is the actual name of the color) to fill in excess areas in which your resources do not color in order to make them disappear into oblivion (ie: make them transparent)! This magic color does not appear in resources, so be careful not to use it to color one of you resources.
You must be extremely careful with this when dealing with different file formats. For example, using JPEG will ~always~ result in the magic pink being distorted, or completely altered, making purple/pink edges around your graphics. Another example, GIF and PNG will sometimes turn the magic pink into a slightly off color due to the creation of a 256 color palette, making the magic pink completely visible and destroying the graphic. It is strongly recommended that you use BMP files, as most pieces of software will not alter the color in any way.
Effects have an alternate option of importing PNG files with transparency information, rather than just plain PNG files, which will give you much control over transparent pixels. Keep in mind, the above regular method of using magic pink is still available. However, if this alternate method is used, it will even allow you to make certain pixels semi-transparent, making for very interesting special effects. When under this importing option within the editor, the magic pink is not used for that particular graphic.
The following is a list of different ways of achieving the magic pink in different pieces of software, along with file-type specific details in case they're relevant.
Microsoft Paint
Microsoft Paint has the magic pink directly available at the bottom, as seen in the following picture. Saving as 16 Color Bitmap, 256 Color Bitmap, 24-bit Bitmap, GIF and PNG should yield good results. Saving as Monochrome Bitmap, JPEG or TIFF will often result in mangled colors, removing the functionality of transparent pixels.
Importing Resources
This used to be a tiresome operation of opening and looking for stuff and then importing, but now it all has become easy! All you need to do now is click on the Resources folder on the bottom left hand corner above where you can view your resources. The work area will turn gray and it will say, "Drag downloaded resources into to this area to import them". Hold down the mouse button on a resource, drag the mouse into the workspace, and release the mouse button. It is as simple as that. Note that graphics and sound files cannot be imported into the workspace.
Exporting Resources
Every resource type's section (at the bottom left, under Resources folder) has a diskette button near the list of resources for that specific type. This exports a resource that can be used with 001 without providing anything else, or can be uploaded to our site at resources section. Please note that resources are copyrighted by Team001 (Mike Weir and Pierre Cayer) if they came with 001. If you have downloaded the resources from a 3rd party site, or through the resources section, one should consult notices on that site, or by the author in question. In either case, explicit permission must be granted for use with anything else other than its use in Map001 and Engine001.
