general-tools-editart   3-19-2025    5F / 676K    © RTCM Corvin

This page houses tools generally related to Editart to help the potential art editor.

Some of these tools will work with other BUILD Engine Games.

Note: A few tools in the downloads: duke3d-tools-build have some support for .art related manipulation.

Also look in other game specific editart tools sections for more downloads.

ART FILE HANDLING

 
Filename and author Size (kb) Description
ART FILE HANDLING
Art Tile Merger v1.3 (w/src)
-=CHE@TER=-		 18.4 This tool allows you to patch game tile file TILES###.ART with the new images; A program that allows you to replace images in TILES###. ART files for games based on the Build engine. This is done through the use of a specially created . ART file (diff) to the game files, which allows, for example, to distribute your add-on or modification to the game only in the form of new files instead of dragging the whole TILES###. ART file, with all images, including standard ones (This also reduces the size of such add-ons to the game). All the details of the use are described in the documentation file "artmerge.txt".

Note: This new .EXE file is a dual-executable: if you run it under DOS or DOSBox then DOS version will be executed and if you run it under Windows then Windows version will work. You can see what file part actually working by text "[DOS16]" or "[Win32]" after program version.

Also a very convenient way to have to specify group file and all tile files will be looked inside it and extracted if needed. So this feature was added and now you don't need any separate tool to extract .ART files; If the game uses .GRP group files (Duke Nukem 3D, Exhumed/PowerSlave, Shadow Warrior, etc.) now you can modify files inside them too. And if the .ART files are in the games main folder (Blood, Witchaven 1, etc.) you can just use it there.

artmerge update.art - will look for TILES###.ART in current folder
artmerge update.art DUKE3D.GRP - will look inside DUKE3D.GRP instead

Also I add additional check so now all files which don't require to be updated but in range of source .ART numbers will be never extracted or modified.

Works For:
Actually this tool not only for Blood but for any Build game.

 

 
ReBUILD Win ART Tools (w/src)
Mathieu Oliver and Timothy Hale		   Windows Command Line ART tools - 2 tools and their documentation to convert ART files into a series of TGA pictures, and the opposite.

Tga2Art and Art2Tga
ART-Tools-HOWTO.txt
ART-Tools-HOWTO.htm

Note: See blood-tools-artedit for WinGUI versions of these tools.

 

 
bastART 1.1 (VB src)
Marijn Kentie 		61 BastART is an art asset editor for Build Engine games, such as Duke Nukem 3D. I wrote it as an exercise in binary file I/O and bitmapping. BastART is a .ART file editor for Windows. It includes core EditART tile editing functionality, and some enhanced and new functions. You may need Visual Basic 6 Runtime files installed in order for this program to work properly, it works on Windows 7 64 bit last checked.

Features

  • Open and convert both Windows and Build palette files.
  • Easy to use tile browser; Thumbnail browser.
  • Set and preview tile animation properties.
  • Set and preview tile alignment offsets.
  • Import and (batch) exporting tiles; BMP files.
  • Insert, delete and (batch) clear tiles, or change their canvas size/resizing tiles.
  • Create new ART files from scratch.
  • Zooming in on tiles; View tiles at different scales (1x, 2x, 4x 8x).
  • Fast tile rendering. (at least for a VB app)

Usage

You need a palette file for the ART file you want to load. Palettes can be in Windows .PAL format, or Build .DAT format. After loading a palette (it's colors will appear in a bar), you're able to load an art file, or create a new one. When creating a new one, an empty 256-tile file is created. When you have loaded a palette, you're also able to save that palette again. This allows for converting between palette formats.

To quickly select the tile you want to view, you can access the Browser from the "View" menu. In this menu you can also enable the alignment crosshair, or change the rendering scale of the tiles. When you have selected the correct tile, you can use the functions from the "Tile" menu on it:

Import BMP
Export BMP
Batch Export		 These functions convert between .ART tiles and Windows bitmaps. Batch export is handy if you want to, for example, export all the frames for a monster sprite.
 
Insert after current
Insert before current
Delete
Resize
Clear
Batch clear

Standard ART file editing functions. Clear tiles to keep .ART files small.


 
Preview animation
Animation speed		 Tile animating functions.

 
Properties Opens the file properties window, in which you can set the tile's animation type, the number of frames in the animation, and the tile alignment offsets.

 Compatibility

The program has been tested with the following games' art files:

  • Duke Nukem 3D - OK.
  • Powerslave/Exhumed (demo) - OK.
  • William Shatner's Tekwar (shareware) - OK.
  • Shadow Warrior - OK.
  • Blood (shareware) - ART file too big (4096 tiles).

Of course, it's 100% compatible with EditART as well.

 

 
Build ART Files Editor (BAFed) v1.160 (src inc)
M210		 453 Program written on Java; requires Java installed on your computer. Combines BASTart and DukeRes programs, with other palettes supported and comfortable GUI like Dukeres.

1. 32bit image will automatically converted to choosen palette.
2. You can import a several ART files to one file at once
3. You can import a folder with 8bit *.bmp or 32bit *.png images at once and also export images from opened ART file with saving description.ini file with all information about tiles in ART for subsequent import after edit ini file. (as you can make it throught tga2art and art2tga)
4. supported Build palettes (dat), photoshop palettes (act) and Microsoft palettes (pal)
5. You can resize choosen tile at opened ART
6. For make animation you can choose last tile of animation with Ctrl + LMB, animation will be from choosed tile to last tile.
7. I made movable preview picture of choosen tile....you can see at all parts of the picture at 700% scale.
-added tile viewer

Update...v1.13

1. Added fast conversion palette of choosed tile.
For conversion tile to other palette, you need click to "Convert tile palette" and then choose other palette: duke3d palette, blood palette, sw palette, custom palette (see 2) or load external palette. For batch conversion you can use batch export to png, change palette and import exported png files
2. I added custom palette menu after loaded external palette, therefore you can swithing between duke3d, blood or sw palette and your own loaded palette faster.
3. Added a navigation on TileViewer with arrows

 

 
EDITART Two v2.1 (src inc)
Malone3D		 104 This version is capable of creating up to 15,360 tiles (60 .ART files)
and was designed for DOS EDuke version 2.1, but it works with all ports.

The source code is modified and compiled with OpenWatcom from Ken Silverman's src.
Note: To run this editart it needs the DOS4GW.EXE extender placed in the same folder. Includes a modified names.h file.