How do I edit art/sprites/textures in WDC?

This guide will introduce you to the basic tools available to change sprites and textures, and the other art in the game (HUD images, menu images) for your project using WDC.

This guide assumes you have installed and have already set up a project with WDC. If not, get started by clicking here.

Start WDC and open your project, if you haven't already. At the top of the window, you will see a row of fifteen square buttons.

You will want to select either the Walls button to edit walls and doors, the Sprites button to edit objects and enemies, or the Pictures button if you want to edit HUD and menu images.

You should see a screen similar to the one below!

This is the Walls tab, but the Sprites and Pictures tabs function essentially the same. From now on, we will be referring to the sprites and art from all three tabs as “art” for readability.

This is the preview for the currently selected art in your project files. This is essentially the “before” shot of your changes, if any.

This space will be filled with a preview for the art you've chosen to overwrite the original with, if any. The “after” shot.

The scrollbar is used to move through the different art in your project files. What art it searches will depend on which tab you're on (Walls, Sprites or Pictures).

This is where you will point WDC to replacement art. There is an address bar that will tell you where the replacement file is located and what it is called, and four buttons.

• Insert File - If you have replacement art ready for your game, you can click this button to point WDC to it and have it replace the current art.
• Edit Image - If replacement art is currently active, this button will launch a new window with paint tools to edit it with.
  If you don't have a replacement, WDC will save a copy of the original art to .bmp format, then open the editor to change that saved file. This file will also become the replacement.
• Open the replacement file's folder - As it says on the packaging, really. This button will open the folder in a new window.
• Use original data - This will delete the current replacement art, and go back to using the original. If the art was added with one of the “Add Chunk” buttons, it will delete the entry entirely.

Here, there are three buttons. The first is a dedicated Export button for saving the current sprite to a new file.

The second and third buttons are for adding new art rather than replacing old art. Doing this requires changes to the engine in order to make use of these options properly.

• Add Chunk - This will add a new sprite entry before the currently selected sprite.
• Add Chunk to End - This button will be clickable when viewing the very last sprite in a tab. Doing so will add a new sprite entry at the very end of the file. This is usually the best option as to avoid disrupting the rest of the core game.

If you click the Edit Image button on the Replacement Bar, you will bring up the Edit image: Sprite window (Or Picture window, if editing the VGAGraph). If you do not have a replacement file saved yet, WDC will first prompt you to save a copy of the original sprite first, then bring up the window.

This section is where you can draw on your sprite to alter it.

These are the colours on offer to edit your sprite with. Clicking a colour with either left or right click will make it the active colour for that button.

These are the tools that you need to be able to draw on the canvas.

1. Selected Colours - While not actually a tool, this space will show you the colours you have selected to draw with both right and left click.
2. Pencil Tool - This will let you draw on the sprite one pixel at a time.
3. Flood Fill Tool - This tool will change all adjacent tiles of the same colour to the currently selected colour.
4. Select Tool - The select tool lets you highlight a rectangle on the sprite that you can cut/copy/paste. Useful if you want to duplicate or move a section of the image.
5. Solid Rectangle - This lets you draw a rectangle that will fill the entire designated space with the selected colour.
6. Outline Rectangle - This will draw the selected colour on the outer most pixels inside the rectangle.
7. Tile Picker - If you have this tool selected and left or right click on a pixel on the canvas, it will change your selected colour to match the value of the clicked pixel.

This section of the editor contains a few extra settings and pieces of information for editing.

1. Position - If you hover over the canvas, this will display the coordinates of the pixel.
2. Compressed - This will show the compressed file size of the sprite, factoring in any changes made.
3. Zoom - This will zoom in and out of the canvas, allowing for more detailed editing and previewing.
4. Brush - This decides how thick the Pencil Tool is, and how many pixels it changes at once.

Click OK once you've made all the changes you need, and the replacement art preview should now show your changed art.

When you're done replacing or editing sprites, click File→Compile All or File→Compile→VSWAP (File→Compile→VgaGraph if you're editing the Pictures tab) to publish the changes to your project.

Note: If you replace art in the Pictures tab, you will need to make sure they are the same size as the original, unless you make changes to the game engine itself, otherwise there can be unexpected issues.