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VPL Editor: version 1.0: Release date: November 2016

Open VPL Editor
(opens in new tab/window)
HTML5 compliant browser required!

About the voxel.vpl file

What is the voxel.vpl file all about?
Simply put "Specular Highlight"

  What is Specular Highlight?
It is an object's bright spot from a light source.

FileStructure{
    RemapPlayerColorStart; //4 bytes
    RemapPlayerColorEnd; //4 bytes
    NumberOfSections; //4 bytes
    Unknown; //4 bytes
    Pallet=Int[256][3]; //756 bytes
    Sections=Int[32][256]; //8192 bytes
}

How do you know its specular highlight?
By editing sections 15-31 of allied colors
Replacing gtnk.vxl with a sphere
(see image to the right)

As seen, the red spot stays on the south-west
side no matter what faceing the unit is in.

Why should I care? It seems as allot of people complain the voxels in RA2/YR being to bright, this VPL data is the cause.
So, how does the vpl data work/look? Image below shows sections 0-31 (horizontal) of allied colors 80-95 (vertical).
As you can see the section data almost looks like a texture with a 'hot spot' that simulates specular highlight.
The data itself is a array of integer values that acts as a look up table for color index re-direct.

About the VPL Editor Version 1.0

3d veiw information:
Simple rendering through three.js
Only renders frame upon request

3d view renders:
Easy to view cylinder
All 256 colors from pallet
All 32 sections from VPL file

Selection and Selection Controls:

Color Pallet: This is the color pallet that the Ra2/TS game engine use's.
Colors Selected: These are the colors the user can select to edit their respective VPL data. (radio must be selected to assign)
Gradient Colors: Colors that are used/selected for VPL data to simulate specular highlight. (radio must be selected to assign)
Controls: This section allows the user to organize, control, or calculate vpl data.

Show selected VPL data:

Once colors have been assigned into the "Colors Selected" section the user can click the "Show selected VPL" button
and the existing vpl data will be added to the "Gradient Colors" section and the vpl sections area in the bottom left corner.

Calculate Gradient:

Once colors have been assigned into the "Colors Selected" and "Gradient Colors" sections the user can click the
"Set Gradient Colors" button to re-calculate the specular highlight for all 32 section of the selected colors.
The curve for the specular highlight is calculated with a cubic bézier curve formula.

Curve Effect Controls: (left image)

Show Curve On/Off - this button allows for the curve to be shown
Specular Highlight slider - changed the strenght of specular level
Veritical Shift slider - shifts the curve down to darken
Noise Level sliders - adds noise to the curve that is generated
Brightness Level slider - modifies the brightness of all selected vpl data

Curve Generator Controls: (image below)

Curve Starting Point slider - modifies the starting point to the curve
Curve End Point slider - modifies the end point to the curve
Curve Control Point sliders - modifies the points that generate the curve

Saveing Changes:
"Save Changes To VPL Data" button must be pressed for
changes to be saved.

Editing Brushes: toggle on/off with their respective buttons
Lighten/Darken Brush - single cell modifier
- Brush Strength slider - changes the brush intensity
Replace Color Brush - single cell modifier
- Color select drop down - select a color from the pallet

Recommendation/Observation:

The 32 VPL sections are not evenly distributed across a voxel
The image above shows half the allied colors VPL data changed to red
The image to the left shows the ingame results
As you can tell the red color is not covering half the voxel
So, 50% of the vpl data only effects 25% of the voxel

Save/Load:

Load Custom VPL File button:
- Select custom VPL file, then click the "Load File" button
Load Custom Color Pallet File button:
- Select custom Pallet file, then click the "Load File" button
Reset VPL To Factory Data button:
- Reset VPL data to original game data
Reset Color To Factory Data button:
- Reset VPL data to original game data
Generate VPL file button:
- Click the button to create modified data file (a download link will appear)

Debris Maker version 1.0, Created: November 2016, Updated: Not Yet

Open Debris Maker

(opens in new tab/window)

HTML5 compliant browser required!

About Debris Maker version 1.0

This tool may be the cutest tool ever made. The idea of this
tool is to create a sprite debris for exploding buildings or units.

As with all tools, it is still in development. I have released
it as I feel it is complete enough for others to use.

Along with this release, I have released a sample pack of test objects I used while developing. Click To Download
To use the samples, download and unzip, then load the object text files to have a look.

Current Features

Add Cube - While in this mode you can build a scene with the select color from on the pallet.

Delete Cube - In this mode the user can select a cube to be deleted.

Paint Cube - This mode will allow the use to paint a cube with a selected color.

Nudge All Cube's: Left, Right, Forword, Back - Moves the built object in the selected direction.

New Scene - This button will clear the scene.

Save Scene - This button will generate a link to download a text file to reuse scene later.

Select file to load - This will allow the user to load a previously saved scene.

Click for Preview - Create a animated preview of the debris.

Rotate on: X Axis, Y Axis, Z Axis - Rotates on selected axis during animation.

Scale - Allows the user to modify the scale of the object.

Generate download link - Creates a link to download the debris shp file.

Recommendations

Center object in scene - To get best results, nudge the object to the center.

Build big - If an object is small it may look pixelated when rendered/ingame.

Shadeing - Its best to add custom shading on the build object to keep it looking flat.

Rotation - Improvements/Additions to rotations in animation.

Future Updates

Bigger Scene - Right now it only allows for 10x20x20.

MeshPhongMaterial - Will make render look better when feature is added.

Pixel identification - Currently using binary search for RBG index values, will switch to HSL.