Art In Pinkerton
(mis)adventures of Martin in Writing, Podcasting, and more
Alphabet Soup in Tamriel
Letters from long ago
After the recent work on the user interface, I decided to take a hack at changing the fonts. Arena fonts are stored as DAT files (the file extension that a lot of the text tables use). There are 9 separate font files and the game using them each in the game in different places (I.E. the character stat numbers are different than the travel menu summary). However, some of the text in the game isn’t from a font at all but part of a texture or image already premade (e.g. in the spell book, only the spell specifics is actually a font and not part of the image).
Click the font away
Thanks to Hallfiry’s Arena Modding Suite, I had the tools necessary. Hallfiry’s suite includes a separate program for editing fonts, called the Arena Font Editor. While the program isn’t the most elegant design, it does allow for editing of fonts in a fairly simple manner. The font editor allows for simple pixel checking and unchecking. Blocks checked will show and blocks unchecked wont. The size of each font letter can be set separately and while that size can be changed with the slider in the upper right corner of the editor, it should be noted that the game itself may not look good if the font size is too big.
Hacking away
At first I didn’t understand how to use the editor. It turns out that in order to edit a font, the DAT file needs to be dragged and dropped onto the Font Editor. Additionally, there was no clear explanation on what the slider did. I eventually learned that it allowed resizing of each individual character in the font file (e.g. changing it from 5×5 to 6×6). I had already completed half of the font files when I discovered it’s purpose. The slide proves handy so that you can control the spacing between letters. In other words, you can have it one extra space wide so that the letters don’t touch. I did notice that not all letters were properly aligned to the left side of the box.
Testbed
I have somehow broke one of the fonts (my guess is that it’s out of range of what the engine can handle or maybe it just got corrupted). I have been using the same copy of Arena for a testbed since I started this project back before there were any tools or this website. There are errant files and folders all over the place in the Arena directory (too include early BSA upackers, WinArena, and other crud). With this latest erratic behavior, I have decided to spend the grueling 5 minutes to download and install a clean copy. This way my efforts will match the end-user’s experience more accurately. Then it’ll be time for the second run through on the fonts to tweak the letters (and fix the broken font file).
– Martin
Art In Pinkerton 