d3d font and italics (clootie help?)

**czar** · 22-01-2006, 06:50 PM

That sounds rather promising. I will have a proper look at it in the next few days. When you say displacements are you saying that it is not fixed width? i.e. that the letter i takes less room than the w? That is exactly what I need.

**Clootie** · 22-01-2006, 08:36 PM

Also look here: http://www.clootie.ru/delphi/download_custom.html.
There are 3 different samples using various font classes (all of them are running DirectX 8.0 or 8.1). May be one of them will handle italic styles well...
Samples are: TextDot3.zip. NitroFont.zip, BitmapFont.zip.

**czar** · 22-01-2006, 09:34 PM

Thanks for your help everyone.

I will let you know how we get on. Dan is almost back from holidays and he knows his directx quite well. I will ask him to create a solution.

LP · 23-01-2006, 02:02 AM

Originally Posted by czar

That sounds rather promising. I will have a proper look at it in the next few days. When you say displacements are you saying that it is not fixed width? i.e. that the letter i takes less room than the w? That is exactly what I need.

No, displacementes depends on letter size. For instance, "i" has smaller width than "W" and that's why LetterSizes array is provided. Although letter height is also provided, the letter height will most likely match the pattern height.

**czar** · 23-01-2006, 03:40 AM

Hi Lifepower, that is exactly what I was asking. Not fixed width, i.e. variable width. We are talking about the same thing.

**czar** · 05-02-2006, 09:22 AM

Just an update. I think we have found a good solution. We updated the project to use the dx9 version of Omega.

Dan created a new omega class using ID3DXFont and we have been incorporating that into our program. I still wasn't 100% happy but I think I now have a solution.

To get smooth fonts I am printing the text twice. I am using two variants of the font I create. The first is set to ANTIALIASED_QUALITY and the other is set to not antialiased.

I draw the fatter ANTIALIASED_QUALITY font first with a low alpha (i.e. quite see through) and then draw the other font over the top (no alpha). The result is pretty good, the jaggies dissappear nicely. Good enough for what I want it for.

When we are finished we can publish the new unit if anyone wants it to be incorporated into Omega.

**Firlefanz** · 05-02-2006, 09:31 AM

Hi Czar,

can you show us a screen of that smooth font?
Will that new class also get into Dan's JetX components?

Firle

**czar** · 05-02-2006, 06:48 PM

I think Dan will incorporate it into his DanJetX components

http://www.dan.mirg.ru

Here are the results, nothing spectacular but because this program is used for educational purposes I felt that it was important that the font used made for a pleasing and clear text. BTW I had to make my own font, I have about 5000 fonts to choose from and not one was what I needed

I am pleased that the 'o' now looks round. Before it looked more like an octagon. The letters look smoother in general with this technique. However, still not as good as they do in Microsoft Word.

Does GDI offer more possibilities for fonts?

**Clootie** · 05-02-2006, 07:24 PM

"GDI on screen" can do better antialiasing, as it knows at what position on screen text will be outputted. And so can apply advanced technique 'Clear Type", taking in account LCD color cell interpositions