FONText - bitmap font creation
Community Forums/Showcase/FONText - bitmap font creation
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| FONText - bitmap font creation tool for 2D and 3D games. Get freeware version here. (written in BlitzPlus) |
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| nice one beaker! :} |
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| What a nice program. Shows the power of B+ as well. I see you've taken a good look at Bitmap Font Builder. |
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| I wasn't sure if Blitz Plus was a cool idea or not. Now I see that it is very cool because apps like this! Fontext rocks! Can't wait to see more. Hopefully more of these time saving apps will be made now that windows GUI commands are in the hands of more Blitz coders. Great work! :) |
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| Very cool and dead useful app - nice one Beaker :) |
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| I'm just finishing off v0.6 of FONText: Get your freeware version here. |
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| Man that rocks harder than hard. I will be needing something just like this for my 3D projects - for custom gui's and single surface text engines. I think fontext is probably the best tool of it's class for making bitmap fonts fast. It makes short work of an otherwise very tricky job! lovely |
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| Beaker is basing FONText on Bitmap Font Builder, available here for free: http://www.lmnopc.com Until FONText is here, this is THE program to generate bitmap fonts. Adding color and outlines is something I do in Photoshop ATM, but FONText is looking to better every time. |
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| I made a little font creation util a short whle back it; s inthe code archives in the 3D section I think. It's not nearly as nice as this one... it doesn't have gradients, it doesn't havea window interface... you just change some code variables. But it was better than that one at LMNOPC, cause their program would not allow you to even set the characters which you want printed. I hope that this program allows you to do that, and lets you split the font across multiple textures if the characters you want wont fit into a single one. |
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| You can choose any characters you like, very flexible. I like the splitting across textures idea. |
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| I made a little font creation util a short whle back it; s inthe code archives in the 3D section I think. Yup, it is a nice one, and free! Although first time I used it it screwed the font (I use it to make fonts for your HUD/text system) because it had different string than your HUD/text system. Also it outputted wrongly named fonts, but these were easy to correct. |
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| A new version (v0.6) of the freeware FONText is now available on the website. Some bugs fixed and a nicer UI. See what you think. |
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| "Yup, it is a nice one, and free! Although first time I used it it screwed the font (I use it to make fonts for your HUD/text system) because it had different string than your HUD/text system." I couldn't figure out what you meant for a second there. :-) Yeah it outputted diffrent characters than the default character set for the HUD system, but that's just cause I updated the character set for the HUD system once I made this font thingy so that it could print almost every visible character windows can print in most fonts. (I left out a few of the stupid ones like the 1/2 1/3 sysmbols.) |
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| Are you guys hi-jacking my thread? |
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| No, we're *bump*ing it! :) |
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| Great, but the 'Trim (for 2D)' seems dodgy (only works with white or grayscale)? And you have to re-enable 'Autosize' when the font is changed. Plus, the left indent/alignment button, shows a center indent/alignment icon (which is a bit weird). Fredborg |
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| Thanks for that Fredborg. I think I fixed all of those issues in v0.7 (fingers crossed). Which should be up sometime in the next few days. |
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| Version 0.7b is up on the site: FONText website There is also a demo of the full version now. Thanks to all those who have provided feedback and encouragement. |
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| Hi, Neato as ever. I spotted a new (or perhaps old) bug :) I downloaded the demo version, so I don't know if the same is true for the free version. Well, here goes: When you select Outline Style Full, and select a semi big outline size (dependant on the font) there are holes around some of the smaller characters, such as: . ! ' etc. Same thing happens with some of the other outline styles, but I guess that's intentional. The glow outline style is incredibly slow, especially when you enter size 78 by accident :) I think it is faster to do an image blur, than drawing all the letters over and over again. I've got a gaussian blur function if you need it... A few suggestions: I think the 'inverse' (outline color) button is located at a slightly strange place, as you expect it to produce the inverse of the selected outline color, and not of the font color. It might be cool if the outline was affected by the gradient (if it is applied to the font, and inverse is selected). Or maybe the ability to make a different gradient for the outline would be nicer... All the same, great job, seems like you've ironed out previous quirks :) Fredborg |
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| I get a 404 error when I hit your url. |
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| Maybe try again, soon. |
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| Is anyone out there using the Freeware version? If so, how are you getting on with it? |
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| very useful app - makes me wish i needed some fonts doing =] |
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| Version 0.8 of the demo is now up on the site. It includes lots of bug fixes, improvements and a groovy blur option. |
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Here's an example of the text I'm making for my game without any modification needed (fontext lets you choose what you want): |
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| FONText v0.9 is going to be out soon. New features include: Simple to use playback code Full alpha support for lovely edges (in 3D) Stretch fonts across multiple textures/images More outline styles (scratchy, cloudy) More outline effects (scanlines) Text gradients Outline blurring |
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| I bought FONText today and must say I am absolutely over the moon with it. An abundance of very well executed and fast features, and quite frankly produces drop dead gorgeous looking fonts - Highly recomended - Don't leave home without it! |
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| I just purchased FONText today and I wholeheartedly agree with Ravey. This is going to save me hours of time with my game and so the $15 has saved me a similar ammount many times over. If you havn't tried it yet, do! |
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| Here is some demo output from FONText v0.9 using the playback code provided: Download demo. |
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| Wow, very cool! I'll have to try the demo, it seems as if it's a 'must have' tool! :) You're making my credit card heat up for B+ :) |
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| *bump* |
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| Wow, very cool! I'll have to try the demo, it seems as if it's a 'must have' tool! :) It's a "must have" tool for me, that's for sure. |
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| Can't the block size be customized rather than having to use 32x32, 64x64 etc? Seems like a bit of waste of video memory if there have to be a lot of vacant space if the font you wanna use just about doesn't fit in 32x32 so you have to use 64x64 instead? |
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| Yes, that is something I may change in the future. I'm presuming you are thinking about fonts for 2D games? |
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| Great stuff, yep, for 2D. I was planning to use it to save time but need to be able to set the block size in 1-pixel steps. Would be nice with a function that auto sizes the block to fit a certain font size actually, as an addition to the current "fit font into block size". |
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| Just added custom user gradient-image importing. |
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| I'm using FONText for one of my projects. Found a few minor problems/bugs along the way but Beaker is fixing them as fast as I can find 'em. There's currently no major issues that I know about. It's dead easy to use. Bits of the sample code can be ripped and slotted into your own code, and it's all working within minutes. The results look far better than using normal TTFs, but it's no more complicated than using the Text command.  |
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| Looking forward to V0.9 (the smooth alpha edges feature in particular). Any idea when it may be ready? |
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| It's been out for a while. |
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| Yeah, a 2D library would be very handy! |
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| MasterBeaker: Doh! I must've missed that release. I just looked up this thread and all I could see was a 'V0.9 coming soon' post. Ordering now... |
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| And by the way, your website still says V0.8 too :) |
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| Added a new FONText output demo: This one demonstrates spanning fonts across multiple textures and using the CreateCharQuad() command to make an ABC particle system. The code to do this is included with the full version of FONText. Grab the demo here. |
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| *makes a mental note to order this next month* It is one of the best inventions since toilet paper. |
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| Hmm, looked at the ordering. How come you are not allowing BMT to accept snail mail orders for this? Not everybody has a credit card. |
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| Great tool! This strikes me as a must-have for working with Blitz. This should come included when you purchase Blitz. Brice's point is sound; I for example would have already ordered this except that I recently canceled my credit card due to apparent identity theft and have yet to order a new one. |
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| Brice and jhocking - you can now order using snail mail on the website. Thanks. |
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| Thank You, payday is May 1st, a order will be in the mail then :c) |
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| Any ideas what to add next? |
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| I've just added HUDline (with thickness), HUDrect, HUDplot, HUDcurve (with thickness) and HUDtextCurve commands. All looking very nice. It lets you specify color and alpha for each new draw. You can even draw (thick) lines with characters of your choice or just normal textures. Very flexible. |
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| You can get a demo of animated TextCurves here. |
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| Anyone having problems getting to the normal website can try the mirror here. Apologies for any inconvenience. |
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| Nice tool Robin, do you include the fontext b+ sources in the registered version ? |
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| No |
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| No |
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| I don't, at least not for the standard single user license. Would you want it? |
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| stuck an order for it in the mail today :cD |
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| when's this line update coming out, dude? matt |
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| MasterBeaker, Are you still developing this? Your website doesn't seem updated. It's also confusing that you have the latest version number at the top of your page and nothing else refers to it. ------------- Also, can you talk to Mark S., or anybody else who can do it, to update the link for Fontext on this site? ================== This proggy looks great. |
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| Hi FONText is still in development. There is a new version in beta at the moment. Unfortunately, I am also in the middle of moving house. :) If you have any particular requirements in the meantime then feel free to drop me an e-mail or catch me on IRC (if you can). dangerdave - that link should still work. I'll look into it and update if necessary. Thanks for the heads-up. Rims - if you want the line stuff then drop me an e-mail or pop into IRC. It's ready but I wanted to roll out all the new stuff simultaneously. |
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| MasterBeaker, I hope you have quick and safe move. -------------- I look forward to the new version. I am heading over to buy it. |
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| Yay! I ordered it. ========================== Too bad you dont receive the money right away. 8( |
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| New permanent address here. |
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| FONText v1.5 ready to roll. :) Masses of new features. |
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| What ARE the new features, oh Mr. MasterBeaker? |
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| New features include: Font packing. HUD events for interaction. Animated curvetext. User interface improvements. Copy to clipboard. Video export. Drawing primitives including curved lines. Syntax highlighting in Blitz IDE. |
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| OI gis the update then :) |
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