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
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- 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. 
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.
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