A bit frustrated

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

About 3 hours ago I finished the framework for a new mod. I tried it out wihout sprites as often Dom III can just assign approximately appropriate sprites to new critters, and I just wanted to see where I was at that point.

I got the 'critter has too high sprite# error" so I knew I needed to actually put in sprites. I fired up the Gimp and got to work.

I made a bunch of first pass tga files and tried them out. Dom III crashed with a "bad tga file" error. I checked and sure enough I had saved them with compression on, so I resaved them.

Same error. So I resaved them to new file names and then deleted the old compressed files and renamed all the new files to the correct filenames.

Same error. So I checked filenames referenced in the dm file and sure enough had one filename misspelled wrong "batelmage.tga" instead of "battlemage.tga". I fixed it.

Same error. So, I got rid of all references to all tga files except one.

Same error. I checked the file. targa--check. uncompressed--check. 24 or 32 bit? I have not a clue. I have no idea how to check that. Sigh.

I decide to change the one file over to SGI rgb format. I do it, make sure it is uncompressed.

Same error. Well, the manual says 'must be targa or sgi, 24/32 bit color, and uncompressed or RLE.' Maybe it means that in sgi it must use RLE. So I resave it.

Same error. Even though it is not a tga file any longer. What the heck?

I try a few other things. No joy. Very frustrating. I have wasted my day--In No Small Part because the error codes are so dang vague and unhelpful.

How about Helpful Codes like:
bad tga file--batelmage.tga
bad tga file--battlemage.tga should not be comprssed
bad tga file--battlemage.tga is 16 bit, must be 24 or 32
bad tga file--batelmage.tga does not exist
bad tga file--directory battlemages does not exist
bad sgi file--battlemage.rgb is whateveraslongasitisinformative.

Sigh. Ok, any body have any helpful hints? I will attach a sample file to take a look at.