Open Texture

As all effects of HyperTyle are based on textures the feature to open a texture is quite important. The Open Texture button at the top of the tab sheet displays a file dialog for opening a texture file.

Supplied Textures

Several textures are already delivered with HyperTyle. They are installed in the Texture sub folder inside the HyperTyle folder. When clicking on the Open Texture button the folder of the currently used texture is displayed in the file dialog by default. This is usually the Textures sub folder inside the HyperTyle folder. You can open any other texture you like from the Open Texture file dialog. A selection of the included textures can be seen on the Included Textures page.

Supported Image Files

HyperTyle supports various image formats for opening textures: BMP, JPG, PSD, PNG, PCX, PCD, TGA, TIF, WMF, EMF, AMF and WBMP. All images are automatically converted to 24bit, only JPG 8-bit, PNG Gray, PSD Grayscale and WBMP files are opened as 8-bit grayscaled images.

Windows-BMP files with 2, 16, 256 and 16 million colors in compressed and uncompressed state are supported, but only OS2-BMP files in uncompresed state with 256 and 16 million colors can be opened. Although they are plain BMP files, PSP 6 Texture and PSP 6 Pattern files are mentioned in addition to BMP files in the Open Texture file dialog. While the texture and pattern files from PSP 7 already have a BMP file extension, the ones from PSP 6 use the file exctensions .TEX and .PAT.

All types of PSD files with 8-bit per channel are accepted, except LAB and Multichannel ones. Support for PSD files with 16-bit per channel is only available for RGB and Grayscaled mode. So you use the PSD texture files which are delivered with Photoshop in HyperTyle. PCD (Photo CD) files are automatically opened at a resolution of 384 x 256 pixel. WMF, EMF and AMF files are opened a white background by default. If there's no size information they are opened at a size of 256 x 256 pixels.

Previewing Textures in the File Dialog

Under Windows ME, 2000 and XP you are able to see previews of the textures in the Open Texture file dialog. All you need to do is to use the View menu at the top and to select "Thumbnails". By doing so you know how the texture you are about to open looks like. It spares you opening different textures before you find the right one.

Using Textures from other Sources

If you want to use textures from another source, e.g. your image application, other plugins or a texture CD, you just have to use the Open Texture button in HyperTyle. If you want to use a background texture from a web site, you have to right click it, select "Save Picture As..." or "Save Background As..." from the context menu. It is recommended to create a new folder inside the Texture sub folder of the HyperTyle folder and save these new textures there.

Texture Thumbnail

The presently used texture is displayed as a thumbnail at the top of the Texture tab sheet. At the right side of the thumbnail you can find the path of the texture file (sometimes truncated) and some information about width, height and color depth of the texture image.