Welcome to Carmagedit, the most full-featured (OK, well, I guess it's the ONLY) editor for Carmagedit on the Mac.
First things first. This is the beta version, which means it's very likely to have some bugs. I do my best to check these things out before unleashing the program on an unsuspecting public, but I'm not much of a beta tester, and hey, I'm not getting paid for this. The bottom line: please use Carmagedit with caution. Please edit only copies of your precious Carmageddon files, not the real McCoy; if something goes wrong I'LL want you to have a backup even more than you do.
Having said that, I will make efforts to keep Carmagedit up to date. Email any bugs you find to mbatten@sprintmail.com.
What Carmagedit Does
Carmagedit allows you to edit many of the data files that Carmageddon (both demo version and full retail version) uses. There are three file types that Carmagedit understands, identified by their DOS-like (yecch) suffixes: .PIX, .FLI, and .TXT. Any such file can be opened by using the Open… command on the File menu. Carmagedit is smart enough to figure out which file you've opened (OK, so long as you don't change the suffix of the file name) and open the appropriate set of tools.
PIX files: As you might expect, these files contain images used in the game. Most have a single image (e.g., 2XCOMBO.PIX), but a number collect several frames of animation in one file (e.g., ANN.PIX). You can edit these graphics with Carmagedit's (rudimentary) tools, or you can export the files in PICT format to your favorite graphics program, and then Import them back into Carmagedit for saving in Carmageddon's oddball format.
FLI files: These are similar to PIX files, but they're nearly always multi-frame, generally used as movies in the opening menu sequences.
TXT files: Hey, guess what? These are text files. They're encrypted, however, so you can't open them directly with a word processor. Use Carmagedit instead. These files are (to my mind) the most interesting, because they let you fiddle around with physics, object characteristics, etc. The files are pretty well commented so you can see what there is to change. Poke around and experiment! (On a copy, remember).
So how do I use it?
Carmagedit should be pretty straightforward in operation (he said, hopefully). Open a file using the Open… command on the File menu. If it's a text file, well, you edit it as you would any text file.
Images are a little more complicated. With these you'll get a main window, in which editing is done. To the left of the main window is a thumbnail version, which always displays the current frame you're editing at its normal size. This is also where animations play (see below).
You'll also see a Tools window. The upper left portion of this window has several common editing tools; the funny-looking ones flip the image horizontally and vertically, in case you can't make those out. The buttons underneath should be fairly self-explanatory. The one with the big dots magnifies, and the smaller-dots button zooms out. The dial with "CD-player" controls allows you to play back and manipulate multi-frame PIX and FLI files, and again these icons ought to ring a bell. They have no function, of course, if there's only one frame. The buttons under the circular dial control animation playback speed, with 15 being the no-holds-barred and 1 being the snail's pace.
On the right of the Tools window is a palette of colors to choose from in editing; click on the color you want. Carmageddon uses two fixed palettes, which you can't change, one for the menu screens and one for use in the game. You can switch between these by clicking the button above the palette. If an image seems to have completely distorted colors when you open it, click the button and see if it was intended for use with the other palette. By default, Carmagedit uses the Game palette for PIX files and the Menu palette for FLI files, and this is usually a pretty good guess.
In multi-frame files you'll also have a third floating window, which displays the frames in the current file. To edit one of those images, click on it, and it will be transferred to the main editing window.
System Requirements
Any system that can play Carmageddon should be able to use Carmagedit. The program will look a heck of a lot better on a monitor that can display Thousands or Millions of colors, because if it only has 256 it has to use the 256 that Carmageddon uses, and that makes the rest of the desktop look fairly insane.
A Note About Memory
Carmagedit is not a memory hog, but some of the files that Carmageddon uses contain a lot of data. For example, the file CADDYFAT.FLI has dozens of frames of animation, and Carmagedit needs a good big chunk of memory to swallow something that big. Carmagedit is supposed to catch out-of-memory situations and let you know, or at least exit gracefully, but if you find you're having trouble opening a file try giving Carmagedit a little more memory to work with. Also, if you've opened and closed a number of files, quit Carmagedit and restart. The program may not be the perfect housekeeper when it comes to freeing up memory it no longer uses.
What Carmagedit Can't Do
At present, Carmagedit can't edit .DAT files, which are the actual 3D models. I really wanted to include that, but the program apparently uses a proprietary format created by BRender, a commercial program published by Argonaut (www.argonaut.com), and I don't think they want to part with that information. Sorry. (If someone could convince them to let me in on the secret, well, maybe we'd have something). I think the actual layouts of each city, that is the map, are in these DAT files, so unfortunately you can't use Carmagedit to create your own worlds.
Carmagedit is free, so feel free to distribute the program (with this Read Me, please). I hope it extends the life of the game.
Thanks
Thanks to Scofflaw, scofflaw@snet.net, who created the PC version of Carmagedit and was very generous with source code and related info that got me through these wicked file formats. (Visit his web site, at www.megahits.com/jeffa/carmagedit, for the latest on all things Carmagedit, PC and Mac).
Thanks also to Aspyr and companies like it, who continue to publish games for the Mac in these somewhat dark times for the best computers in the world. And thanks to Mac gamers, who deserve a lot more than they get.
