WoS Viewer, by Dan Samuel

Copyright 1998-2002 (c) synthetic-reality.com
All Rights Reserved.

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This is a helper program for Well of Souls World and Skin Developers.  Basically it just displays a hero or monster skin file and lets you quickly snap between the individual frames.  Mostly it helps you get your pixel alignment correct, but can also be used to 'onion-skin' an animation (manually, like a flip-book, I mean).


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TO INSTALL:

Unzip this into the folder of your choice.  You should end up with at least these two files in that folder:

    wosViewer.exe   	The program which you run
    souls.pal		The 'standard' WoS palette, which must be used for all skins


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TO RUN:

Run the program "wosViewer.exe" (you might find it convenient to make a shortcut to it)

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TO LOAD A SKIN FILE:

Use the BROWSE button to find the source of the file.  It might be in C:\WoS\Skins if it is a hero skin, or c:\WoS\Monsters if it is an evergreen monster skin.

Skin files are just bitmap (.BMP) files and can be edited with any paint program.  WosViewer is NOT a paint program.  It will NOT modify the file (except as mentioned below).

You can also type file names directly into the combo box and then press the LOAD button to load them.

Only one skin is loaded at a time, but all the skins you 'touch' in a work session are remembered in the combo box for easy retrieval.

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TO VIEW A PARTICULAR FRAME OF A SKIN FILE

Skin files are 'filmstrips' with several frames in them.  A thumbnail of the entire file is shown along the top left of the window.  Click in an individual frame to make it appear in the main view area on the right.

If your file has more than 5 frames, the odd looking buttons along the bottom left let you set a starting frame number and then look at the frames in its general area more easily.

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TO COMPRESS A BITMAP FILE

If you used a paint program to create a skin file from scratch (instead of using one of the example empty frame files), your image might not be using the correct palette, or may not be compressed at all and, as a result, be fairly huge in size (file size).

WoSViewer may be able to help you out. Load the skin in question, then press the COMPRESS button and read what it has to say about it.  If it says you should compress the file, then press YES and let it do its thing.  With luck, the file will be constrained to use the proper palette AND be saved in the appropriate run-length-encoded format.

Your original file WILL BE OVERWRITTEN, so be sure to make a backup first, just in case!  Also, the colors might change when it gets switched to the official palette.  So it is still recommended that you draw your skin 'correctly' in the first place, to give yourself the most control over its appearance.