Thread: Creating fonts in Configurator

Originally Posted by Dan2008

Will the updater pick it up or do we need to download it?

The updater will pick it up, but not for a while. It is currently in a non-releasable state. I have many debugger variables alive and am finishing up new things. I cant release until I put it back!

Originally Posted by Dan2008

I hate to break your bubble but "screen scrapers" have been around for about 25 years in the mainframe world. I've never seen a manual screen scraper though. They are used to gather data from one program for input into another where the two programs are incompatible (that happens a lot in mainframe software).

Can the process be reversed? What I mean is for the user to enter characters and have the software create the image file. If so, this would be a great improvement to flexibility.

Yes screen scrapers have been around for a while, but they dont output a file that can be used for bitmapping fonts. I searched for one to look at, and most didnt do much. And going the other way is a possibility, but a program like photoshop can make those feathered edges much more nicely than I could. The letters would look very rough.

Originally Posted by greenman100

I think you'll need to download it... I'm sure Nick will post here.

It will be an update, but again not until the middle of the month or so.

Originally Posted by Dan2008

Any graphics program that can create a PNG file with an alpha channel will work.

I would like to have a step-by-step as well.

Again...why not just use True Type fonts and forget about all of the complications this adds?

The DirectX support for fonts in horrible, it slows the whole app down. Even StreetDeck uses bitmapped fonts. And origianlly I was programming this in XNA which is used on the xbox 360 too and the 360 has NO support for tt fonts so neither did XNA. Any video game you play on any console/pc made by a real company will use bitmapped fonts, you just dont have the flexibility to change it.

Originally Posted by RedGTiVR6

I tried using the same one you uploaded here...only changing the font to Arial.

It only finds 64 of the 71 characters....

Did it find all 71 for you?

If I use the font you had initially, it finds all 71.

If you change it to Arial then you may have to change the spacing. It found every character for me. Something to look for are letters with curve parts that go over to another curved letter which joins them as one. If it finds 64, then look at what it found. It shows a preview of each character. Look at the ones that it joined together, and there are the letters with the problem. If it is only a few characters difference, you can manually edit the font's xml file with new boundaries.

Originally Posted by Dan2008

I just tried to open the file with Paint Shop Pro and get an error. I get the same error if I try to convert it to another file type.

PSP correctly identifies it as a Photo Shop file and shows the dimensions (375 x 75) and resolution (72dpi), it just won't open it. The version PSP I have is old so if you used a newer PS, it probably can't read the format.

It was made with Photoshop CS3 Extended, but compatibility is turned on so I think CS2 can use it and the one before that whatever it was 7?

Just an explanation of what all of the different fields are would help. For example, when you first open an image file you get a popup dialog asking for the font height. Is this supposed to be the image (not font) height?

Then you have to enter a character height. If you enter the wrong value (no guidance there) it says it is not a multiple of the font height. If I enter, say, 20 for font height and 40 for character height, I get the same error, even though 40 is most definitely a multiple of 20. I think you have the meaning reversed.

Another area of question is the offset values. What are they and how are they used?

Ah heck, while we're at it, how does one go about determining what the top left and bottom right values are supposed to really be? The analyze function never seems to get the right coordinates for me.

As for True Type fonts, why not give users a choice? Setting up a new brain instance would be so much simpler if you did. We're not talking about an action game where display speed is that critical. If using True Type fonts cause that much of a slowdown then something else must be wrong.

I'm using PS CS (8.0) if it matters or helps at all....

I found a bitmap font editor (there are lots of them) and have been tinkering with it. It creates a .bmp file from any font installed on your system. Convert the .bmp to .png and fire away.

I'm still running into the same issues with font height vs character height though.

The font editor can be found at and its free for non-commercial use.

I refuse to give up!!!

Originally Posted by Dan2008

Just an explanation of what all of the different fields are would help. For example, when you first open an image file you get a popup dialog asking for the font height. Is this supposed to be the image (not font) height?

No it is font height. Height between highest point of a character to lowest point including the difference between the stem in a "d" and the stem in a "p" type thing. The whole distance. Also must be a multiple of the canvas size.

Then you have to enter a character height. If you enter the wrong value (no guidance there) it says it is not a multiple of the font height. If I enter, say, 20 for font height and 40 for character height, I get the same error, even though 40 is most definitely a multiple of 20. I think you have the meaning reversed.

I dont understand what you are saying. But it is simple. If the letters are 20 high, then you put in 20. If they are 40 high then you put in 40. If they are 40 high and you put in 20, all characters will be chopped in half. And the canvas must be that size. All values are in pixels.

Another area of question is the offset values. What are they and how are they used?

The program places the character at X,Y depending on how you configure it. If a certain character looks better with different spacing, you add offset and it will go to X+offset,Y+offset

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Ah heck, while we're at it, how does one go about determining what the top left and bottom right values are supposed to really be? The analyze function never seems to get the right coordinates for me.
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What do you mean it doesnt get the right coordinates? It wont surround the character 100% of course or else everything would be drawn at the same height. Obviously all characters are different hieghts. You have the ones like "acei" which are the same, then "bdh" which are the same, and "gjp" are the same, and then there is punctuation like the quotes and periods. If they are all at the same height, it would look screwy.

As for True Type fonts, why not give users a choice? Setting up a new brain instance would be so much simpler if you did. We're not talking about an action game where display speed is that critical. If using True Type fonts cause that much of a slowdown then something else must be wrong.

I will not be including TTF support. You dont have to create your own font, I supply a basic font which will work. And it is a well known fact that TTF in DX do not play nicely. There is a whole lot more to it than speed, but that is the major concern. All TTF are converted to bitmap each time you use them with DirectX. So instead of converting onthe fly, I do it before hand.

Arial 25pt font file image: [media]http://www.fusioncontrolcentre.com/TemporaryNick/arialFont/MyFont.png[/media]
Arial 25pt font xml file: http://www.fusioncontrolcentre.com/T.../Arial25pt.xml


Whole thing took 5 minutes including all the screenshots and saving them and uploading them