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Wiley-World.of.Warcraft.Programming.A.Guide.and.Reference.for.Creating.WoW.Addons

Wiley-World.of.Warcraft.Programming.A.Guide.and.Reference.for.Creating.WoW.Addons

Wiley-World.of.Warcraft.Programming.A.Guide.and.Reference.for.Creating.WoW.Addons

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134 Part II ■ <strong>Programming</strong> in <strong>World</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Warcraft</strong>For example, a file that is 32 x 64 is acceptable, whereas a file that is 512 x 400is not (because the height is not a power <strong>of</strong> two). In addition, the file can, <strong>and</strong>should, contain an alpha channel, something that is particular to the specificgraphics editing s<strong>of</strong>tware you are using.More in<strong>for</strong>mation on creating <strong>and</strong> editing custom graphics <strong>for</strong> addons isavailable in Chapter 20.Following is a look at the two primary graphics <strong>for</strong>mats used in <strong>WoW</strong>: BLP2<strong>and</strong> TGA.BLP2 FormatIf you have extracted the Blizzard Interface Art using the User InterfaceCustomization Tool (as shown in Chapter 7), you may have noticed that all thefiles that were created have a .blp extension. That file <strong>for</strong>mat was created byBlizzard, <strong>and</strong> has been used in both <strong>Warcraft</strong> III <strong>and</strong> <strong>World</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Warcraft</strong>. Eventhough Blizzard provides a way to extract the files, there is still no <strong>of</strong>ficial toolthat can convert these files. The companion website <strong>for</strong> the book provides away to convert these graphics to the PNG <strong>for</strong>mat, which is easier to view <strong>and</strong>edit; see Chapter 7 <strong>for</strong> more in<strong>for</strong>mation.The only time this book deals with .blp files is if any original game art isaltered, in which case the texture is provided in the .tga <strong>for</strong>mat instead.TGA FormatWikipedia defines a .tga file as a Truevision Advanced Raster GraphicsAdapter (TARGA) file. This is a simple graphics file <strong>for</strong>mat that can be used tostore color images, including transparency in<strong>for</strong>mation. TGA files never uselossless compression, which means the image is not degraded as a result <strong>of</strong>saving the image, as happens with JPG files. Most modern graphics editors cansave to this file <strong>for</strong>mat natively, <strong>and</strong> Chapter 20 provides an extensive tutorialon creating files to be used in the game.Localizing Your <strong>Addons</strong>Localization as it relates to addon development is the process <strong>of</strong> convertingthe text <strong>and</strong> icons used in the application to a <strong>for</strong>mat that is meaningful <strong>for</strong>users from other regions <strong>of</strong> the world, who may speak different languages.<strong>WoW</strong> boasts more than 10 million subscribers, many <strong>of</strong> them coming fromregions in Europe <strong>and</strong> Asia. You may see the word ‘‘localization’’ abbreviatedto L10n, which st<strong>and</strong>s <strong>for</strong> ‘‘L’’ followed by 10 other letters, followed by an‘‘n.’’ Similarly, you may see I18n as an abbreviation <strong>for</strong> ‘‘Internationalization.’’However you call it, localization makes your addons more accessible.

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