APXconv v1.1

February 22, 2004

Anders Eriksson
ae@dhs.nu



Description.

 APXconv converts APEX block files (.apx) into a normal
 image formats for viewing in other programs (and APEX
 itself).
 
 It converts 256-colour APEX-blocks (both planar and chunky)
 into standard IFF images, and HiColour APEX-blocks into
 24-bit TARGA.
 

For what is this useful?

 1.
 
 Have you ever made a picture in APEX and only saved it
 as a block file? I have, and arrrrrgh! APEX can't load
 the colour-palette from the block file! Terrible.
 Loads of hours have been spent re-doing stuff becuase
 I've forgotten to double-save the images in gif format.
 
 With this program, the APEX blocks can be transferred into
 readable IFF-files (directly loadable into APEX) and then
 you have your palette back as it was!
 
 
 2.
 
 Have you ever made a picture smaller than the screen size,
 say a 256x256 texture, and then tried to save it? Right!
 APEX only saves the damn screen, not the block in TARGA
 and GIF (the very latest APEX versions released can save
 blocks as gif too (still not TARGA), but it seems very few
 bought APEX when this feature had been added).
 
 So with this tool, you can save an APEX-block in any
 resolution and easily convert it to an IFF or TARGA
 image for displaying in other programs than APEX itself.


Useage.

 Just drop an APEX-block file (.apx) onto the .ttp and
 it will give you a new file named output.iff (for 256-
 colour pics) or output.tga (for HiColour pics).
 
 The output picture has always 256-colours and 24-bit
 palette if IFF and 24-bit TrueColour for the TARGA-
 file. The TARGA 16bit mode only supports 5-bit green
 so it's better to stick to 24bit files.


That's all, hopefully this program can be of use to
someone except myself (it will save me som grain
in the future for sure!).

eof