Font Studio 4

[Nitrogen]

(PS. I couldnt reply to the end of the last Font Studio topic, kept saying my session ID is invalid and randomly logging me out...)

Ok, after a LONG while, I've finally done summore on Font Studio...

Here's what it's looking like:



Firstly I've managed to override the windows font smoothing effect, so it defaults to nice AA!
And the main difference is that I've implemented the Outline effect.. Looks neat no?
I had a bit of fun with this one. At first I tried the StrokePath() API call on the text paths, but this didnt work because it doesnt AA the result. Then I tried a simple average blur on the outline, and that looked very crappy so I ended up using this technique:

Draw the text onto the background, then grow all the edges of the text using the following algorithm:

For each pixel:
   ThisPixelValue = Add up and average all neighbors which have a higher value than ThisPixelValue

Then draw original text onto the result.

And it works pretty well, but it does give blurry edges with large Outline Widths. I tried to counteract this a bit by cube-rooting the colour value to give it a bit of a sharper image and that's given the results you see above.
Anyone got a better idea of getting a sharp (but AA'ed) edge?

[jdarling]

So, how long till we see a download ready to go?

[Traveler]

This sure is looking better and better with each update!

[Nitrogen]

So, how long till we see a download ready to go?

Weeeeell, all of a sudden I've got 4-5 projects/assignments/contracts all clamoring for my time, so I cant say any time soon...

I havent even got the alpha channel working yet or the file saving routines. Those are the two major barriers in the way at the moment.

[JernejL]

You should implement non-grid placement of characters into maximum optimal space usage (more characters - smaller texture), something that angelcode font bitmap generator does:

http://www.angelcode.com/products/bmfont

[chronozphere]

Looks great... keep it up :thumbup:

[Nitrogen]

You should implement non-grid placement of characters into maximum optimal space usage (more characters - smaller texture), something that angelcode font bitmap generator does:

Way ahead of you there. It already does that using a 2d binary partitioning tree. And you can choose from which corner of the texture to pack the characters.

[Chebmaster]

Alas, for download there's stil v.3 that crashes when you press "Characters..." button.
At least, in Wine.



Note: the console has no any output, i.e. Wine doesn't detect any problems or missing WinAPI functions.

[unhappy] Anyway, the win32 programs do not "see" the native Linux fonts like "Nimbus Sans L Condensed". So I have to draw 'em using GIMP and implement the splitter by myself [pulls out a bunch of 20x6000-sized PNGs] :x Damn.

'Seems there's yet a price for ditching Micro$oft completely... :?

[paul_nicholls]

You should implement non-grid placement of characters into maximum optimal space usage (more characters - smaller texture), something that angelcode font bitmap generator does:

Way ahead of you there. It already does that using a 2d binary partitioning tree. And you can choose from which corner of the texture to pack the characters.

Hi Nitrogen :-)
I don't suppose you could share the 2d binary partitioning tree algorithm for packing the characters?

I would like to be able to pack 2d rectangles into a texture for my own uses :-)

I am making a sprite packing program that will store smaller bitmaps and their 'hotspot' origin into the larger texture, and this feature would be very handy...

cheers,
Paul.

[Sly]

Do a search on "packing lightmaps". They often use more or less the same techniques to pack many smaller images onto a single larger image.

Example: Packing Lightmaps