**********************************************************************
*                                                                    *
*                    Track Preview Template v1.0                     *
*                    (c) 2000 CarrotTop Software                     *
*                      carrottop@altavista.net                       *
*                             12/13/2000                             *
*                                                                    *
**********************************************************************

CONTENTS:
  I.  ABOUT THE TEMPLATE
 II.  DISCLAIMER AND RIGHTS
III.  HOW TO USE

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  I.  ABOUT THE TEMPLATE

This template was created for the Ratbag Games titles Dirt Track Racing
and Dirt Track Racing - Sprint Cars.

This template can be used in conjunction with our other utility, TexDraw
or Randy Williams' TEX editing utility (from Online Racing.cc, URL below)
to modify the track preview picture.

The following files should be included in this archive:

TRACK PREVIEW.PSP        | The Paint Shop Pro image file template
README.TXT               | You're reading it
PREVIEWA_M_2.SEL         | Selection area for section 1 of the image
PREVIEWB_M_2.SEL         | Selection area for section 2 of the image

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 II.  DISCLAIMER AND RIGHTS

The Track Preview Template is a work-in-progress.  It is not warranted to
meet your needs, or those of anyone else for that matter.  I just thought
it was cool.  Using TPT may affect DTR's operation.  That could be a good
thing, if that's what you're trying to do.  ;)  CarrotTop Software cannot
be held responsible for damage to your computer hardware or software that
results from use of TPT.  It works on my machine, so I don't expect
anyone to have any REAL problems with it.  But you've been warned.
CarrotTop Software can also not be held responsible for undesired social
implications such as loss of sleep or hair, damage inflicted by social
partners who've been ignored too long while you play with "that darn
computer", or weight loss (or gain...) caused by spending too many meal
times sitting at the computer.

TPT requires Paint Shop Pro 5.0 or above.

TPT may be distributed via any means - e-mail, FTP, camel courier -
as long as this file remains with it.  It will be offered for download
primarily from Sim Racing Connection - URL below - and new versions will
be released there first as well.  If you want to post it on another web
site or put it on a CD, please contact me first.  Not that I'm likely
to say no, I just like to know what's going on.

Sim Racing Connection:  http://simracingconnection.virtualave.net
Online Racing.cc:  http://www.onlineracing.cc

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III.  HOW TO USE

This utility makes extensive use of "layers".  What are layers?  Imagine
that your picture is drawn on multiple "transparency" sheets, like those
used on an overhead projector.  You can draw various objects on different
sheets, and if you stack them up it looks like one picture.  But you can
remove sheets, move individual sheets around, etc., and it changes the
appearance of the picture without messing with the content of the other
sheets.  You can also change the order of layers.  If you have a red
square and a blue circle, you can change the order in which the layers
are drawn so that the red square hides part of the blue circle (the red
square is "on top"), or the blue circle hides part of the red square
(the blue circle is "on top").

In Paint Shop Pro, there's a special dialog for management of layers.
It's called the Layer Palette, and you can display it by either selecting
it from the Toolbars... dialog (View menu, Toolbars...) or by clicking
the "Toggle Layer Palette" button (the one with a red and blue square)
on the toolbar.

The Track Preview Template contains 9 layers.  Of these, you only need
to worry about 3, the "Background", "Map Dot" and "Text" layers.

First, in the Layer Palette, click on the button labeled "Background".
This selects the "Background" layer.  Find a good picture of your track
that you want to use, crop or resize it to 128 high x 256 wide, and
paste it into your background.

Next, select the "Selection" tool from the toolbar (the one that looks
like a rectangle made with dotted lines), and then click on the "Map
Dot" layer on the Layer Palette.  With the selection tool, click and
drag from the southwest corner of the white box (down around
California or Texas somewhere) all the way up to the northeast (up around
Maine).  Then, click once on the red dot in the center.  This will
change the selection to just include the dot and the yellow circles
around it.  Click and drag to move the dot to the location of your track.
Right-click to drop the selection when you get the dot where you want it.

Finally, select the "Text" layer from the Layer Palette.  With the
selection tool, select the text that's there now ("Put your track info
here...") and delete it (press the Delete key).  Now select the Text
tool from the toolbar (capital A) and choose a good primary color (Color
Palette).  Put in whatever text you want - have fun with it!  :D

Once you get the picture looking how you want, decide which border you
want, the yellow/orange one from DTR or the red one from DTRSC.  Hide
the one you don't want by clicking the red, green and blue button right
next to the layer label on the Layer Palette (if you hover your mouse
over the button, the tool tip should say "Layer Visibility Toggle").

Save your work early and often!  Make sure you save at this point, or
when we merge the layers below you'll be lucky to get them unmerged
again.

Okay, we're ready to get this picture into the TEX files.  You'll
want to use one of the TEX utilities to create a set of TGA files from
the preview*.tex files in the PREVIEW folder.  Do that now, then come
back here.

Select the "Background" layer and then go to the "Layers" menu and
choose "Merge > Merge Visible".  Go to the "Selections" menu and choose
"Load from Disk..."  Browse for the previewa_m_2.sel file (included with
this zip) and open it.  Hit Ctrl-C to copy the selected area to the 
clipboard.  Open the previewa_m_2.tga file and hit Ctrl-E to paste the
selected area over top of what's already there.  Now, go to the
"Selections" menu, choose "Load from Disk..." and open the
previewb_m_2.sel file.  Again, hit Ctrl-C to copy this area to the
clipboard. Open the previewb_m_2.tga file and hit Ctrl-E to paste the new
image over what's already there.  Save the files.  Then, resize each of
them by 50% (so that they're 64x64) and save over the preview*_m_3.tga
files.  Finally, resize by 50% again (so they're 32x32) and save over the
preview*_m_4.tga files.  When saving, make sure to click on the "Options"
button in the Save As.. dialog and verify that the settings are 16-bit
uncompressed.  A shortcut for the "Save As..." function is F12.

Okay, you're done.  Use the TEX utility to import the TGA files back into
TEX files so the game can use them.

If you saved when I told you to above, you can close your preview PSP
file and answer "No" when it asks if you want to save your changes.  We
didn't change the actual content of the image since the last save, so
you want it to keep the saved version that includes the layer
information.  If you forgot to save (!!!) press Ctrl-Z ("Undo") several
times, until all the layers come back.
