JAM Editor Help File
MAIN MENU;
- TOOLBAR
- JAM TREE

BASIC JAM EDITING;
- NEW JAMS
- INSERT TEXTURES
- INSERT CANVAS
- PALETTE EFFECTS
- INSERTING TEXTURE    ANIMATIONS
- SIZING & POSITIONING
- EDITING LOCAL
   PALETTES
- JAM FLAGS

GRAND PRIX 3 JAMS;
- USING THE GP3 PALETTE
- EDITING HI-RES JAMS
- HI-RES ADVANTAGES
- EDITING LOW-RES
   JAMS
- GRAND PRIX 3'S JAM    DIFFERENCES
- DRAWBACKS

GRAND PRIX 2 JAMS;
- USING THE GP2    PALETTE
- DRAWBACKS
 

- Main Menu
Upon running JAM Editor, Windows will load up the following screen:-

As you can see the toolbar, treeview and the edit functions are inactive as no image has been loaded. So first lets get to know the Jam Editor enviroment.


- ToolBar

As you can see, there are a number of buttons on the toolbar that you will need to get yourself familiarised with. First let's go through the buttons one by one and tell you their functions:-

- Load, open and save buttons (you should be familiar with this, shouldn't you!? ;)

- Cut, copy and paste. 3 New functions to JAMEditor, allowing you to copy and paste textures from JAM to                            JAM.

        - Add new texture and delete new texture. Quite self explanitary ;)

        - Insert bitmap as texture and export texture as bitmap.

- Zoom In, Zoom Out and zoom to normal zoom factor.

- Basically, this is the internal palette control that is used by GP2 and low res GP3
JAMs. More Info later. Basically the buttons consist of: Previous Palette, plain colour palette, palette 1, palette2, palette3, palette4 and next palette.

- JAM Tree
The JAM Tree is basically the heart of JAM Editor, with most of the edit functions allowing you to edit JAMs being found here. On opening a JAM File, a lot of data will be displayed in this Tree View (the Microsoft class name for the control. This control is used in windows explorer). To view this data, you need to double click on the jam name and then repeat this function on different pieces of data as you would in Windows Explorer.
The JAM Tree before loading a JAM.

The JAM Tree once a JAM is loaded.

On expanding certain objects, you can edit them or view the data. A lot is known about the JAM format and almost every aspect that JAM Editor has loaded about the JAM can be edited. For example: you can edit the size of a texture, as shown here:


- Basic JAM Editing;

- Creating a new JAM File

JAM Editor allows you to make a totally new JAM file. To do this, create a new JAM by clicking on the new button and then start editing! :) You cannot start by adding a canvas as there is no texture information added at the moment. You can only make a new JAM file by adding textures of ready-made bitmaps in the size you wanted. JAM Editor allows you to make new JAMs from the textures you've created in your favourite paint programme (Paint Shop Pro, Adobe Photoshop etc), not to make new graphics as such. To add a new texture, you need to do the following:
First, let's create the new texture. I'm just going to do a little example here, but this is basically how I would do it. Create a new image, say 256x64 (advert size basically). Now do all of your editing for the image.
Once you've done all of your editing and image making, you need to change the colour mode so it is valid for Grand Prix 2 or 3. If you were doing a Grand Prix 2 image, you will need to reduce the amount of colours by loading the GP2 palette found in the JAM Editor directory.

You're now able to save your image as a bitmap and now import it into your new JAM file. For a Grand Prix 3 texture, you will need to use the GP3 Palette. Next you will need to import this texture, so load up JAM Editor again and import that new texture!


Make sure that you don't have any of the driving conditions selected other than perfectly clear. If you do have this on, adding the texture will take some time, and create an effect that you don't won't, yet.


Now depending on what texture you have added, you might need to edit the texture. With my texture which I've used as an example, I don't need to add any attributes/flags. However, if you've made a texture such as some people standing up or a catch fence (which contain transparency) you'll need to edit the texture. Click yes if this is the case or you're not sure what you need to do, and no if you don't need to edit any flags.


And there you have it, your first texture!


If you want to edit an original JAM file, or a JAM that is already made, you will need to edit the canvas and not original textures. To do this, export the canvas by clicking on Image (on the top menu) and then click on Export Canvas. JAM Editor will take you to save this canvas with a name of your choice. Once you've edited the Canvas, you will need to save the image as a bitmap (bmp) and also make sure that you've also loaded the correct palette (as said in the adding texture tutorial). Go back to your JAM and click again on the Image menu and then import canvas. Locate and load the canvas and you're done :)

- Palette Effects
JAM Editor allows you to edit the palettes in JAMs for GP2 and GP3. The original use of these 4 palettes was to have internal mipmapping - a technique now delt with the 3D Hardware and not the texture, resulting in a much smoother result. The internal mipmapping created a blurring effect as you got further away from a certain texture. As you got closer, the blurring got less until you were faced up with a sharper image. This technique is only used in the software JAMs (i.e. All of the GP2 JAMS and the software JAMS of GP3's). There are a number of ways to edit these palettes. First you can use JAM Editor's own palette filters. Or you can do something completely different and make 4 different textures and import them all as an animation. First, let's take a look at the JAM Editor filters.

First select a texture, right-click on it and select Driving Conditions.


Now JAM Editor will load up a dialog with all the driving condition filters. Interactive Image! Try it out! :)


Basically, these palettes will have an effect on the texture(s) or your choice. The way the palettes work is by changing the colour values in each palette creating the desired effect. A lot of experiment needs to be done, palette editing via this method is slow, and can take a while.

Palette animation is a good way to make your own effects as you have a lot more freedom to do what you want, provided you have a good graphics programme. In order to make an animation, create a new texture and then make this texture with 4 changes you wish to have. Once made, import an animation and watch it roll. Again, this can be very slow to complete so experiment. It's advicable not to use these methods on slow systems (by this, I don't think trying to do an animation would be good on a system of a P200 or lower, and not a good idea on systems with less than 32MB RAM).


GRAND PRIX 3 JAMS
- Editing Hi-Res JAMS

At the moment, editing the hi-res JAMS from GP3 is unavailable in JAM Editor, due to decryption differences with GP3 JAMs (the high-res ones) being a 16-bit colour format, not a 256 paletted format. However, even though the feature isn't implimented, it will be in the future so I thought it would be fit to add information on editing Hi-Res JAMS.

The High Resolution JAM file is basically a GP2 JAM file but in 16 bit colour. Missing is the internal mipmapping as it is not needed, and also is the drawback on colour limitations. The palettes are missing for an obvious reason, how can somebody make 65536 different palettes? The size of the high resloution JAMS are now more in-keeping of the sizes used by 3D hardware, and there are limitations. For starters, ideally, to have compatibility, individual texture sizes really shouldn't go higher than 256x256 pixels as the majority of hardware out there, has a texture size limit of 256256 (thanks to 3DFX's high selling rate of their chips which don't go higher than 256x256). However, the numbers will start to decrease and so will the urge to make higher resolution graphics. Really, you shouldn't go any higher tha 512x512 in textures, as this is more than sufficiant for a high detailed texture. However, most second generation cards will go upto 2048x2048 pixels in texture sizes. I would personally stay clear of this. The main problem with making such high sized images, is that the texture memory will quickly run out and cause a very low frame rate. This is something that a developer must have in mind. In GP3, this comes in the form of the processor occupancy. Any higher than 120% and with the game stuttering, you'd better start thinking of making adjustments.

When creating a new GP3 'Hi-Res Jam' you need to consider what you're making. If you're making something that has a lot of detail that you want to have, 256x256 (or depending what size you want) is a good benchmark. If you need more room to add more detail, step up to 512x512 but no higher. If you are making something that isn't a tetxure with a lot of detail (e.g. a repeating plain coloured texture), you don't want to make it 512x512 with the pattern there as you could make the texture smaller and allowing for memory to be used on other more worth-while textures. The best thing is to aim for the lowest texture size you can, but not to the point where you can't distinquish what it is.