Bitmap Font Generator

**Nitrogen** · 02-01-2007, 01:34 PM

I've just released version 3.0 of my bitmap font generator: Font Studio.

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One of the minor irritations when making games or graphics apps, is that if you need quick text you have to either dig up some huge library or write one yourself. Well, I've taken the hassle out of making and displaying fonts. Font Studio is easy to use and saves font information into one convenient file using jpeg compression. This file can be loaded into Delphi or C++ and integrates with your OpenGL projects.

Features:

* New Interface

* Much faster processing times

* Drop Shadows!

* Delphi and C++ support

* Full control over character placement

* Coloured fonts and masks

**JSoftware** · 02-01-2007, 02:19 PM

Looks great. I'm going to try that

**WILL** · 02-01-2007, 04:39 PM

Very nice...

I remember the last such tool was bundled with XCESS, but it had saved in it's own format only. Plus you had to get the whole suite to just use it.

This is great stuff. I may have a use for it myself.

**jdarling** · 02-01-2007, 04:41 PM

Any chance that you could implement using PNG instead of JPEG since in PNG you have full alpha transparency and wouldn't have to record a mask? This would also allow for smoother edges. I know that FPC supports PNG and I believe that there is support in the newer versions of Delphi (though I haven't tried them).

**Nitrogen** · 02-01-2007, 06:38 PM

Yea, I was thinking about using TGA files because I can decode TGA's easily..

But it saves a 24bit JPEG and an 8bit grayscale jpeg inside a single file which is very easy on your file size.. And I've set the quality to very high, I've never seen any jpeg artefacts on it...

**jdarling** · 02-01-2007, 07:00 PM

PNG gives you everything that TGA and JPG give you. Alpha Transparency, Compressed Size, and on top of it its lossless. Of course, JPG or TGA are also valid options, my concern would be with JPG's lossly compression if you did manage to get a pattern that would allow for artifacts.

Also, looking at your code, you save the image to a standard file and then save/load it accordingly. You don't have to do this, and can simply load/save directly to your main buffer. This will save on some overhead and fix any problems associated with drive size and writes issues.

One final thing, I wrote a quick version of your loader in FPC (extracts all info and the image file) and the JPG's don't load properly with the standard FPC libs. They are fine when I extract them to a file, but not fine when loaded within the TJPGImage object. So TGA or PNG would be better if you want support through native libraries in FPC.

**Nitrogen** · 02-01-2007, 08:48 PM

Yea, I'll have a look into PNGs.. I wrote the whole JPG saving thing a long time ago.

Strange that those jpg objects dont work in FPC, any good Delphi PNG loaders you can suggest?