How to modify GameFonts.tga for FREE

[NotSoGood]

I'm trying to edit gamefont for the first time and I have followed the tutorial. But after I have edited it in paint and saved it as the tutorial says (it saves it as norm.bmp) and I try to refresh from edit, nothing happens (ofcourse 'cos I haven't edited the original, just created a new). So what I'm missing here?

EDIT: Never mind this. Somehow it now works.

 

[Kailric]

I need to resize the the Gamefont to add more symbols. Not sure how to do this exactly. I have paint of course and I also am familiar with Gimp. I used Paint to stretch the image but that will not work as the game wont load with the new Gamefont tga.

Anyway help?

 

[The_J]

Without .dll modifications, you just can't stretch them, the sizes are fixed.

What do you want to do?

 

[Kailric]

Without .dll modifications, you just can't stretch them, the sizes are fixed.

What do you want to do?

Well I figured it out I believe just using Paint. First I copied "All" then I resized it longer so I can add more symbols. Which of course made the current symbols larger. I then selected all of those stretched symbols then hit delete. I then pasted in the copied font symbols thus making them just as small as they was to start with. Now the fonts are all the normal size but my canvas is larger so I can add more font symbols.

Which I did and all seems to be working ok atm.

 

[The_J]

I'm not sure if i understand, what you've done.
Could you maybe attach your changed .tgas here? I want to have a look at them.

 

[dbkblk]

While trying to import special characters i've found an easier way with DxtBMP and Gimp:
- Open DxtBMP and the input tga file
- Send the main image to paint
- Save it as a bmp
- Send the alpha to paint
- Save it as a bmp
- Open the main bmp with gimp
- Open the alpha bmp as layer
- Play with opacity on layers to check the alignment
- When you done with modification, make one of the layer invisible and click on the other
- Select all the image
- Paste as a new image
- Make the same thing with the other layer
- For the alpha layer, convert it to greyscale (Image > mode > greyscale)
- Save both images as bmp
- Open DxtBMP again (but not your tga)
- In the main pane, use "Load extended 16bit image" to load your modified main bmp
- Import the greyscale alpha bmp with "Import alpha chanel"
- Save the result as tga and you're done !

This is longer to write but much faster in the workflow !
Thank you for the initial instructions !

 

[civ4-advciv-oracle-bug]

To anyone still reading this i strongly recommend rather using the much much much easier and hassle-free in comparison (and still free xd)

Game Font Editor (V0.6) for Civ 4 by asaf (https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/game-font-editor-v0-6-for-civ-4.17276/)

Wish i had known about it when i was editing tga the first time xd, hopefully helps.

I used this very nice tool for my mod AdvCiv-SAS (Simple Advanced Strategy) that heavily enhances and modernizes UI to 16:9, increases user QoL with new features and information (Sevopedia Handicap Chart, Game Speed Chart, Search Bar, Keybaord UP/DOWN navigation, Advisors upscaled, beautified and enhanced, etc), see: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-remastered.699818/post-16905424

 

[Leoreth]

Game Font Editor is a really useful tool, and I also want to point out that it can be used to copy font symbols from the clipboard, for example from different mods. It even allows copying from large resolution to small resolution font maps while doing the resizing automatically. This wasn't immediately obvious to me but can be really useful.

The only thing that it does not support (to my knowledge) is extending the game font files to create additional slots. In that case the approach from dbkdlk still needs to be followed. However it is sufficient to add more "white boxes", Game Font Editor will detect them and you can paste icons into them as usual.

Care needs to be taken when extending game font files in this way. There is some magic going on in the backend when mapping the file to actually existing font symbols that can get disrupted by adding slots. This can usually be worked around by filling more unused slots in preceding rows with icons instead of keeping them blank. I usually have to do this by trial and error, if someone can shed some light on the rules behind this it would be helpful.