Welcome to the GRF Wizard Online Manual. In order to make your work with graphics easier, make sure to read carefully this reference guide. This manual is divided in chapters to easily find what you are looking for.

      1. Introduction to the Transport Tycoon Deluxe graphics

      2. Introduction to the GRF Codec

      3. Introduction to the GRF Wizard

      4. Using the GRF Wizard

      5. Modifying the TTD graphics

      6. Distributing your modified graphics

      7. About the GRF Wizard

      8. About the GRF Codec

      9. Requirements to run the GRF Wizard

1. Introduction to the Transport Tycoon Deluxe graphics

The Transport Tycoon and Transport Tycoon Deluxe graphics are stored in 5 GRF files which are located at the main TTD game directory. In the TTD for Windows version, these files are:

- TRG1R.GRF

- TRGCR.GRF

- TRGHR.GRF

- TRGIR.GRF

- TRGTR.GRF

In the DOS version of TTD, the files are the same, but without the 'R' at then end. However some colors may vary from the Windows to the DOS version of TTD because they use a different color palette. A brief description of the contents of each file is showed when using the GRF Wizard when selecting the files to work with.

A GRF file is a collection of "sprites", meaning rectangular graphics objects that are drawn to the screen. Examples are the vehicle graphics, the landscape tiles, and pretty much everything that you see on the screen.

The GRF file is simply one sprite following after another until the end of the file with no meta-information. The list of sprites is terminated by a zero-size sprite, and followed by what looks to be a four-byte checksum at the very end of the file. TTD never even looks at the checksum though.

Notice that with TTDPatch, other GRF files from the NEWGRF folder can be used as well, examples are the road vehicles or new train sets, some of this graphics are brand new additions that are only possible thanks to the TTDPatch, and others are modifications applied to the main GRF files each time the game starts, without actually modifying the main GRFs, but instead they somehow overwrite in memory the contents of the main files.

A full technical description of the GRF file format is available at he following page which is part of the GRF Codec official website:

http://www.ttdpatch.net/grfcodec/grf.html

2. Introduction to the GRF Codec

The GRFCODEC is a suite of programs to decode and encode Transport Tycoon Deluxe's GRF files. Copyright (C) 2000-2003 by Josef Drexler.

The following three programs are part of GRFCODEC:

- GRFCodec: Convert a GRF into an editable PCX file and vice versa.

- GRFDiff: Compare two GRF files for differences, and write only the differences to a GRD file / Generate an EXE file to install new graphics.

- GRFMerge: Take a GRD file and merge it back into the GRF file.

How do they work? Since they are command-line based programs, if you run any of it without any parameters (eg, double-clicking it), an MS-DOS window will appear shortly and close itself immediately. The proper way to make this programs encode or decode the GRF files is to write a series of parameters in a command line prompt.

Thanks to the GRF Wizard, you don't need to waste time and nerves with the command line prompt. Therefore, creating new graphics or modifying existant ones is easier and faster than ever.

If you want to know exactly how do the GRFCODEC files work, refer to its documentation page at:

http://www.ttdpatch.net/grfcodec/grfcodec.html

3. Introduction to the GRF Wizard

The GRF Wizard s designed to save you A LOT of time and anger when working with the GRF codec and the TTD graphic files.

During a few steps, the GRF Wizard will gather all the required information to automatically execute the correct GRFCODEC program with the right parameters to do the task you assigned.

What you can do with the GRF Wizard and the GRFCODEC is mainly:

- Decode one or more GRF files into editable PCX image files. This will also create a NFO file for each GRF, which contains the all sprites size, position and location information.

- Encode one or more PCX and NFO files back into one ore more GRF files.

- Generate a self-installer executable file that will install the new graphics in your desired TTD folder.

4. Using the GRF Wizard

Using the GRF Wizard once you know what is it used for is rather simple. Besides, at any step you can press the Help button to get instant information about the options for that step.

For either task of the program, only 4 main steps are required:

Step 1: Select what to do.

The possible things to do with the Wizard have been described at least twice in the above chapters.

Step 2: Select the GRFCODEC and TTDPatch locations

You must specify the location of both the codec files and the TTD installation folders. Notice that any version of the TTDPatch is required in order to proceed, this is simply to detect if the Wizard will deal with the Windows or DOS version of TTD. Notice that this information will be stored on the win.ini file, so you only have to set it up once.

Step 3: File selection

Here you must select what files to encode or decode.

When decoding, the main game files will be available if they are found in the TTD folder. You can also add up to 2 additional files from any folder to decode them.

When encoding, they will be available only if they are already decoded, and if the decoded NFO file(s) are located under a SPRITES subfolder under the main TTD folder. However you can add one GRF file from any folder as long as you also specify the location of its PCX and NFO files manually using the buttons for that purpose.

When generating an EXE, you can select one or more GRF files, either the main TTD files or an external one. To generate EXE based on a GRF, an original copy of the GRF must exists in the same folder of the GRF but with the 'BAK' extension. This means, to encode 'trg1r.grf', the file 'trg1r.bak' must be present along it. The same applies when using external GRF files.

Step 4: Advanced options

When decoding files, you should chnage the color palette only if the file you are decoding correspond to the Toyland lanscape style, or if you are decoding the original Transport Tycoon graphics. The Windows or DOS palette will be selected automatically based on the TTDPatch version detected. You can also change the output folder for the decoded PCX and NFO files, but when decoding the main game GRFs, it is not recommended to change the default folder, in order to speed up re-encoding later.

Here you can also split the output PCX image files, in order to ease the processing of the PCX images. Splitting images is specially recommended for the main GRF file, and even more important if you have an old/slow machine. Last but no least, you can specify the minimum distance between each sprite, this is useful if you plan to resize some sprite later, but may increase the number of output files or create a larger file if no splitting is activated.

When encoding, here yopu have the option to change the color palette from Windows version to TTD version and vice versa. Useful if you have both DOS and Windows versions of TTD and plan to distibute your graphics.

When generating a self-installer EXE with the modified graphics, you may specify what sprites will be used to create the EXE for each GRF file selected previously. This must be done in ascending order. If you don't specify the sprites range, the GRFCODEC will compare the original BAK fle with the modified GRF and it will add all sprites with differences into the EXE. It is recommended to specify the sprites range to avoid adding unwanted sprites into the generated EXE file. Also, you have the option to additionally create and undo file, to restore the original graphics from the BAK file into the GRF file. You must specify the entire path and name of the generated EXE, and add the '.exe' extension at the end in order to proceed here. If activated, the undo EXE will be the same name of your desired EXE but with terminated with '_undo.exe'.

5. Modifying the TTD graphics

All you need to modify the decoded PCX image files is a good graphics editor like Corel Photo-Paint or PaintShop Pro. I personally recommend Corel, despite I think it is not available as shareware version, while PaintShop is.

Also, you need some skills with graphics, consider perspectives, shadows, colors and scales correctly, etc.

There is a good guide for beginners in this at the following location:

http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?t=4445

6. Distributing your modified graphics

If you create some nice graphics that want to distribute, you can create and EXE with those graphics as explained above, and submit it at the www.tt-forums.net Graphics forum, or to the following website:

http://flame.tiefighter.org/~dinges/

To install the new graphics from an EXE, simply copy it to the TTD folder and execute it, and it will instantly modify the GRF file(s) with the new graphics that are stored in the EXE.

7. About the GRF Wizard

The GRF Wizard is Copyright © 2003 by Andrés Zsögön. This program is freeware and it is distributed with absolutely no warranty.

For updates, visit the GRF Wizard home page at:

http://www.divxland.org/ttd/ttdsolutions.htm

8. About the GRF Codec

The GRFCODEC is another creation from the TTDPatch main developer, Josef Drexler. If you still don't know, it consists in A suite of programs to modify Transport Tycoon Deluxe's GRF files. Copyright © 2000-2003 by Josef Drexler.

To get the latest codec visit its website at:

http://www.ttdpatch.net/grfcodec/

9. Requirements to run the GRF Wizard

The Wizard should run without problems in any Windows version because of its lack of additonal components. It only requires the Microsoft Visual Basic 6 Runime Libraries which you can download freely at:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/release.asp?ReleaseID=28337&area=search&ordinal=1

Notice that Windows XP already includes these DLL libraries.