jpeg to wad conversion

[mUogoro]

Hi to all,

I'm writing a simple tool that automatically generate a simple map file playable in Quake. The map consists on a single, large plane, textured with a surface retrieved from a google-maps map. The texture is a jpeg file, so, I suppose I have to convert it to a wad file, usable as the texture of the brush plane. Is there any command line tool that allows to directly convert an image file (png, jpeg, bmp etc) in a quake-loadable wad file? The tool might possible be a command line program (because I need to call it inside the program I'm developing), with sources available and multiplatform support (at least, windows and linux).

Thanks for your help,

Daniele

P.S.: excuse me for my poor english

[Efess]

So the idea is to generate a playable map similar in fashion to randomly generated dungeons in Diablo?

Sorry I don't have an answer to your question, but this sounds like a pretty neat idea.

[Baker]

I don't know everything that WINE supports, but I made this recently:

Inside3d Forums :: View topic - textures2quake: Takes high res textures --> Quake/Half-Li

There are Windows command line tools floating around like pcx2wad.exe and such, btw. You'd probably need to use Google to find them to achieve what it sounds like you want.

If you are any kind of C++ programmer, you could use FreeImage ( http://freeimage.sourceforge.net ) and take a look at the source in that tool I made above and probably make a Linux command utility with some effort.

[dfsp_spirit]

@EFESS: I doubt the idea is to get playable maps. I can't imagine how you could get playable maps out of google maps data. From that description they'd be a plane with an ugly texture that maps like 1 pixel to an area of 512x512 quake units.

If you could parse the 3d data that google maps holds for some cities like NYC as well and scale that appropriately, you could maybe get a decent map for some racing or flightsim mod.

[mUogoro]

@dfsp_spirit: yes, the idea is exactly what you have explained. I'm developing this simple tool for an univerisity course (Formal Language and Compilers), so the complexity must be in the parsing of the google maps files (kml files), not in the tool backend (that is, the .map generation). Hence, an ugly plane with just a texture might suffices. I'm able to retrieve the texture (or more than one texture if the map is bigger), but I don't know how to convert/use the jpeg retrieved.

@Baker: I need multiplatform support, and I've no time to code for an ipotetic jpeg to wad converter Maybe in the future, but not in this exams period ...

I'm also thinking about using darkplaces engine. Can I use directly jpeg texture in darkplace? Or Do I need to perform the .wad conversion?

[=peg=]

if you have a compiled version of the .map (a .bsp) then all you need to do is rename the googlemap.jpg to the name of the texture you want it to replace and put it in the \textures folder under id1
Then load an engine that supports external textures.. (DarkPlaces, Qrack, DirectQ to name a few)

If you need a simple map (.bsp), just tell me the dimensions of the googlemap image and i'll make you one..