2.9 KiB
Glyph Generation Tools
These tools work alongside the injection tool to expand the original Tomb Raider character set by adding new characters and accents.
Overview
The game displays text using bitmaps, which are organized as sprites within the alphabet object found in .phd and .tr2 level files. Additionally, the game executable has hardcoded information regarding the locations, sizes, and indices of these glyphs.
Expanding the character set involves a complex process requiring the use of multiple tools.
Summary:
mapping.txt + glyphs.png →
generate_defs →
intermediary files for the injection tool →
TRXInjectionTool →
font.bin injected into the game.
mapping.txt and glyphs.png
The master files are located at data/tr*/glyphs/*.{png,txt}. The PNG files
are sprite sheets containing each character, while the text files provide
metadata for each glyph or icon's location, as well as optional transforms such
as shifts or bounding box resizes, using a domain specific language.
Some characters are composed using special combining sprites. For instance,
instead of creating an accented version of the character a for each
variation, we use a single a sprite and separate sprites for all possible
accents. This method allows accents to be combined with various base characters
without redundancy. Every individual variation still needs to be defined in
mapping.txt.
All characters are encoded in UTF-8, meaning each character can consist of
multiple bytes. Icons and buttons follow the same approach and are represented
by ASCII sequences like \{button x}. The game processes these similarly to
other glyphs.
generate_defs
This tool processes mapping.txt and the associated source images to create
intermediary files needed by the injection tool, as well as update internal
definition files that end up embedded into the executable at the compilation
phase. It requires an argument for the game version since different games have
unique font styles and specifications. The result is a packed texture atlas
(which the injection tool later repacks) and a JSON file detailing each sprite
texture's location. These files must be placed in their relevant directories
within the injection tool resources. Afterward, the injection tool can be ran
to generate the final output file, font.bin, which should be eventually
placed in the injections directory for the game's use.
test_alignment.html
This testing tool showcases how mapping.txt segments the sprite sheets,
allowing the developers to verify and correct any alignment issues.
generate_compositions
This is a simple development tool that outputs all valid accented characters to the standard output, and it is not a direct part of the main pipeline.
test_language
Another development tool, this tests language coverage for the languages
intended to be supported. It operates based on mapping.txt, but is not
directly involved in the main pipeline.