The construction of art files is quite difficult and time consuming.  The
detailed art for the Macintosh B17 took over 80 hours of labor and research.
This document will list the basic concepts of what is required to produce
Atari Art.  The first item you need is Degas Elite (or some other program
which can produce Degas .PC2 files) and the second is a command line
shell to execute the MAKEDAT utility.

1) Colors:
   The color pallet is set by the Dashboard (DASH) colors, the color
   maps in the other drawings are IGNORED.  If you change the color
   values in the dashboard all the colors on the screen will change.
   In the plane drawings the color BLUE (color 0) is transparent.  Any
   pixel that is blue will not mask the terrain below the plane.

2) Size:
   The image size of the hand generated art must be at least as
   large as the computer generated version.  The program will check
   to make sure that the image is not too small.

3) MAKEDAT
   The MAKEDAT utility combines all the art files and creates an index
   block for quick access by Air Warrior.  The command format is:
   makedat artfile_name View_name1 View_file1 View_name2 View_file2 ...
   See the P51 example below for an actual use.

4) File Names:
   Air Warrior will look in the current folder to locate an art file
   for the plane selected.  If one is found it will attempt to use
   the art in it.  If a particular view is not in the file Air Warrior
   will use the default program generated one.

   Medium Resolution Art Files
   WWII Planes:
     p51M.dat	  - P-51D Mustang
     zeroM.dat	  - Mitsubishi A6M3 (Zero)
     me262M.dat	  - Messerschmitt 262A-1a Sturmvogel (aka Schwalbe)
     spitM.dat    - Spitfire Mk IX
     me109M.dat	  - Messerschmitt 109K-4
     fw190M.dat	  - Focke-Wulf 190D-9
     huricanM.dat - Hawker Hurricane Mk II
     b17M.dat	  - Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress
     b25M.dat	  - B-25H "Mitchell" Bomber
     a26M.dat	  - A-26B Invader
   WWI Planes:
     dr1M.dat	  - Fokker Dr.1 Triplane
     camelM.dat   - Sopwith Camel
     spadM.dat    - Spad S.XIII
     drviiM.dat	  - Fokker  D.VII

5) View Names:
   Each view has a four character identifier that must be specified to
   the makedat program.  Case IS significant.
   Name	  Keypad Sequence		Meaning
   FORW	-     - then )    - Forward
   BACK	-     - then 5	  - Backward
   RGHT	-     - then 9	  - Right
   LEFT	-     - then 7	  - Left
   BLNR	-     - then 6	  - Backward Leaning to the Right
   BLNL	-     - then 4	  - Backward Leaning to the Left

   UUWD	-     * then )    - Upward and Forward
   UBCK	-     * then 5	  - Upward and Backward
   URGT	-     * then 9	  - Upward to the Right
   ULFT	-     * then 7	  - Upward to the Left
   UPWD	-     * then 8	  - Straight Up		
   UBLR	-     * then 6	  - Upward to the rear leaning to the Right
   UBLL	-     * then 4	  - Upward to the read leaning to the Left

   DDWN	-     + then )    - Downward and Forward
   DBCK	-     + then 5	  - Downward and Backward
   DRGT	-     + then 9	  - Downward to the Right
   DLFT	-     + then 7	  - Downward to the Left
   DOWN	-     + then 8	  - Straight Down (i.e. your feet)
   DBLR	-     + then 6	  - Downward to the rear leaning to the Right
   DBLL	-     + then 4	  - Downward to the rear leaning to the Left

   DASH	- Dashboard
   BOMB	- Bombsight

6) Suggested Procedure:
   Far be it from me to tell an artist how to work BUT here is a good
   way to get started.
   a) Research the plane you wih to draw and determine which views
      you want to render.
   b) Get into Air Warrior and use the camera to take pictures
      of the desired views.
   c) Get into Degas and edit the pictures to remove all the non-plane
      related poop.  Write these views out as .PC2 files.  Use these
      files as size and placement guides in drawing your art.  You may
      want to leave the gunsight in the view or design a custom one
      in the front view.  The user will have to turn off the computer
      generated sight to fully enjoy the custom one.  Most current art
      files have done this.
   d) Use the MAKEDAT program to build the art datafile and see how
      it looks.

7) A P51 example:
   Included in this .ARC file are some sample P51 views which I captured
   with the camera as an example.  I placed a green square on each view
   so that you can tell that it is artwork instead of program generated.
   To build the art file enter the following (as a single line!)

   makedat p51M.dat FORW forw.pc2 LEFT left.pc2 RGHT rght.pc2 BACK back.pc2
 BLNL blnl.pc2 BLNR blnr.pc2 DASH dash.pc2

   Take the resulting p51M.dat and place it in your Air Warrior folder.
   You will most likely want to to set your view cache to something
   other than 0.
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