[AQUARIUS] Rexpaint Ascii graphics package

[Kyzrati]

Ah yes, forgot to thank you for the XPM support data, Pset. One of the new export formats is XPM Was easy enough to support, and interesting to learn about, though I wonder how many people would actually use it!

[Pset]

Thanks for XPM support.

It's kind of an oddball, but its nice to be able to see an image and also see the data as an image in a text document.

The CSV is super ideal, gives me chills.

 

Hiding your export options under those keybinds is kind of odd.

 

Maybe by using your layer system, with layers that are private to the program and

on top of any other layers you can display export options and accept clicks like
buttons then hide the layer? Or maybe a page flip like the paint | browse thing?

 

Can REXpaint import all the files it exports? That might be a thing that's handy.

 

If you add 'export each layer separately', you can support animation frames.

Oh the Aquarius characters used as GUI borders for the are awful.

They look fine in your default font, but anything that isn't those fine lines is going to be weird.

If you expose the values being used in the config file then maybe they can just be set to character 32.

Or maybe just a boolean "show menu lines"

 

I'd like to override these config defaults:

// Dimensions (min: 40x60)

[CANVAS_VIEW_WIDTH]62

[CANVAS_VIEW_HEIGHT]60

Aquarius resolution is only 40x24, and it would also be great use Rexpaint to make sprite tiles that are square from 8x8, 16x16, etc.

So it would be good to have a secondary step in the config for 'Default page size', depending on ones projects.

By trying to over ride the default size by using a file lead me to discover that

associating .xp files with Rexpaint fails to launch REXpaint when double clicking the file.

REXPaint v0.97r8

I=0000001 Initializing Rogue Engine X

I=0000001 | Starting SDL

I=0000045 | Importing icon

I=0000046 | Initializing resources

F=0000047 | XResourceMgr() | PhysFS::init() returned error: PHYSFS_addToSearchPath() failed to add base directory search path "C:\Program Files\REXPaint-R8\REXPaint.exe C:\Program Files\REXPaint-R8\", File not found

If I try to double click an .xp file in the images folder I get this:

REXPaint v0.97r8

F=0000000 loadConfig() | Unable to open REXPaint.cfg

Hope there's a way around that.

Keep up the good work! Thanks for supporting our tiny community.

Put that Aquarius font in the release!

It's public domain, Radofin the owner of all original Aquarius IP vanished forever in 2003.

Edited February 10, 2014 by Pset

[Kyzrati]

Thanks for XPM support.

It's kind of an oddball, but its nice to be able to see an image and also see the data as an image in a text document.

The CSV is super ideal, gives me chills.

 

Hiding your export options under those keybinds is kind of odd.

Thanks, glad you like them!

 

PNG was the only planned export option (since that was sufficient for my own uses), so the interface design didn't include an easy way to access anything beyond the default "Export" button.

 

The lack of a traditional submenu-based application interface means it's more difficult to tack on new options right now. Suddenly there are all these export options... by 1.0 we should look into more convenient ways to access them. As you can see in the manual there are a huge number of features only accessible through keyboard commands.

 

Can REXpaint import all the files it exports? That might be a thing that's handy.

Importing is a more complicated issue, mostly because of the way REXPaint deals with its image database--it simplifies everything by including its own browser, and mixing in other file types would totally ruin the simplicity. It would be easier if RP had OS integration and allowed you to load a file directly, but it doesn't, yet (see further below).

 

If you add 'export each layer separately', you can support animation frames.

I thought about adding animation before but the UI design would need some pretty big changes. As is it only supports 4 layers. Technically you can export each manually since export commands only export non-hidden layers, though that would be annoying (almost may as well make each "layer" of an animation in a separate image...). Without an internal player you also can't see the results. Ideally it would just export GIFs, but I'd rather not bother with animation because the implementation would be sub-par. For anyone interested there's another ASCII art program that supports animation and GIF exporting. Check it out here.

 

Oh the Aquarius characters used as GUI borders for the are awful.

They look fine in your default font, but anything that isn't those fine lines is going to be weird.

If you expose the values being used in the config file then maybe they can just be set to character 32.

Or maybe just a boolean "show menu lines"

You can specify a separate font for the GUI and image. Use the Aquarius font for the image and a non-Aquarius font for the GUI. This is done in the fonts/_config.xt file.

 

I'd like to override these config defaults:

// Dimensions (min: 40x60)

[CANVAS_VIEW_WIDTH]62

[CANVAS_VIEW_HEIGHT]60

 

Aquarius resolution is only 40x24, and it would also be great use Rexpaint to make sprite tiles that are square from 8x8, 16x16, etc.

So it would be good to have a secondary step in the config for 'Default page size', depending on ones projects.

Ah, great idea, thanks! I'll definitely add that in the next release.

 

By trying to over ride the default size by using a file lead me to discover that

associating .xp files with Rexpaint fails to launch REXpaint when double clicking the file.

 

Hope there's a way around that.

REXPaint currently isn't able to be associated with .xp files. Part of the reason is it expects all the files it's working with to be within its own "images" directory. File association is on the to-do list as a potential feature.

 

Keep up the good work! Thanks for supporting our tiny community.

Put that Aquarius font in the release!

Oops, should have done that a while ago. I'll include the font in the download page's resources section. Most everyone interested in REXPaint checks out the resources, so it'll get exposure there, probably more since even if included in the package it would be deactivated anyway to avoid "zooming" through that font by default.

 

Thanks for helping to make RP more useful, and I'm sure the community has found your conversion tool useful as well (maybe you'll have a significantly faster version now that there's support for more file formats like CSV, eh?).

[nitrofurano]

the editor is really great, but i'm struggling to have a x2 display mode, Mattel Aquarius has only 16 colours (instead of 256, so i guess we must repeat it all along?), there are situations of computers like sharp-mz700 (similar somehow to Aquarius in some aspects) that has 512 characters instead of 256, i can’t get other file formats than that .gz compressed .xp format, etc. - also missing is a "transparent" mode, where you could draw with the colour attributes only, or the characters without colour attributes - great also would be if we could extend it with scripts (python, lua, bash, etc.), scripts that we could export the resulting picture into one compatible with Aquarius memory dump

[Kyzrati]

the editor is really great, but i'm struggling to have a x2 display mode,

Not sure what you mean to do with something like this. x2 just for viewing? Why not use a larger font size?

 

Mattel Aquarius has only 16 colours (instead of 256, so i guess we must repeat it all along?),

What are you referring to? You can create your own palettes, and exported color information is as expected in the standard formats.

 

there are situations of computers like sharp-mz700 (similar somehow to Aquarius in some aspects) that has 512 characters instead of 256,

Support for an increased number of characters will probably happen at some point, but not soon unfortunately.

 

i cant get other file formats than that .gz compressed .xp format, etc.

It exports to all kinds of formats (listed in the manual are many more commands that are accessible only via hotkeys).

 

- also missing is a "transparent" mode, where you could draw with the colour attributes only, or the characters without colour attributes -

There are buttons that control this on the console. Read the manual for more if you're having trouble using it.

 

great also would be if we could extend it with scripts (python, lua, bash, etc.), scripts that we could export the resulting picture into one compatible with Aquarius memory dump

I won't be adding this feature, but it should be fairly simple to write a tool to convert one of the many output formats into what you need.

[nitrofurano]

Not sure what you mean to do with something like this. x2 just for viewing? Why not use a larger font size?

the larger size appears exactly like the smaller size (weird...)

 

 

What are you referring to? You can create your own palettes, and exported color information is as expected in the standard formats.

a screenshot of what i got:

the palette is at http://pastebin.com/chHC9McC

weird for me is why we have to repeat all these 16 colours until filling the whole 192 colours (and why 192) area from the palette

 

(the theme i'm using on the screenshot, in the case you might want to add it http://pastebin.com/dHYpNZiP )

 

Support for an increased number of characters will probably happen at some point, but not soon unfortunately.

thanks! btw, in the case you might want to support hardware like Philips VG5000, it has also this amount of characters as well (btw, 384 available for displaying from 512, they are 8x10 pixel cells, and some of them are redefinable)

 

 

It exports to all kinds of formats (listed in the manual are many more commands that are accessible only via hotkeys).

thanks! btw, the manual.txt were hard to find at first (lost around the root folder! - i moved it into a documentation folder there ), and yes, csv is ctrl+k, thanks! (and it is a format that seems easy to convert)

 

 

There are buttons that control this on the console. Read the manual for more if you're having trouble using it.

i didn’t find it... :S

 

 

I won't be adding this feature, but it should be fairly simple to write a tool to convert one of the many output formats into what you need.

yes, that .csv seems easy to convert for now

 

 

 

another thing i found compicated is how to have the 40x24 canvas size by default, i only can get then when i resize the canvas - i edited to "[CANVAS_VIEW_HEIGHT]24" from REXPaint.cfg, and it keeps 60 when i run REXPaint.exe (on Wine) again

 

 

thanks!

[Kyzrati]

the larger size appears exactly like the smaller size (weird...)

The only reason I could guess for this would be that the larger fonts are not loading at all because your desktop resolution is too small. (There is at least one font larger than the default.) You can look at run.log and it will tell you if fonts failed to load for this reason.

 

a screenshot of what i got:

the palette is at http://pastebin.com/chHC9McC

weird for me is why we have to repeat all these 16 colours until filling the whole 192 colours (and why 192) area from the palette

Ah, the palette is generally intended to be edited from *within* REXPaint, not via the actual text file You can double-click on a space to edit that color with the color picker. The RP palette format expects a value for every space, so within the file it will set unused/unneeded colors to black. To make your palette you can just start with a blank one (press the '+') and click on black spaces to set their new RGB/HSV values. So basically while there's *room* for a lot of colors (192 happens to be what fits in that part of the UI), you don't need to set them all.

 

thanks! btw, in the case you might want to support hardware like Philips VG5000, it has also this amount of characters as well (btw, 384 available for displaying from 512, they are 8x10 pixel cells, and some of them are redefinable)

When I do get around to adding this feature, it will support an arbitrary number of glyphs. The program already supports it, but it will require some tweaking to make them accessible in the UI.

 

thanks! btw, the manual.txt were hard to find at first (lost around the root folder! - i moved it into a documentation folder there ), and yes, csv is ctrl+k, thanks! (and it is a format that seems easy to convert)

Glad you found it. Should be lots of answers in there (Plus the full command list.) CSV is a pretty easy text format to work with, so I added it for users like yourself.

 

another thing i found compicated is how to have the 40x24 canvas size by default, i only can get then when i resize the canvas - i edited to "[CANVAS_VIEW_HEIGHT]24" from REXPaint.cfg, and it keeps 60 when i run REXPaint.exe (on Wine) again

Yeah, it's not a problem with your environment. The "view size" setting only affects the viewport, which requires a minimum height so that the full UI can be shown. Your request to be able to modify the default image size is at the top of the list of new features to be added. For now all you can do is either resize a new image manually, or as a slightly faster shortcut: create an image and name it "blank40x24" or something like that, then whenever you want to create a new image that size just shift-click its name in the browser to make a copy. Custom default image dimensions are coming in the next version, for which there are already dozens of potential features to pick from. Been busy lately; just need a day or two to sit down and implement some of them. I'll announced it here when the time comes, of course.

 

Thanks for using REXPaint!

[nitrofurano]

The only reason I could guess for this would be that the larger fonts are not loading at all because your desktop resolution is too small. (There is at least one font larger than the default.) You can look at run.log and it will tell you if fonts failed to load for this reason.

 

yes, it is a 1280x800 by default (i imagined it goes beyond the display area, which was not a problem since we can move windows with alt+leftclick on GNU/Linux easily )

 

(yes, at run.log, it shows " (resolution exceeds desktop)" )

 

 

Ah, the palette is generally intended to be edited from *within* REXPaint, not via the actual text file You can double-click on a space to edit that color with the color picker. The RP palette format expects a value for every space, so within the file it will set unused/unneeded colors to black. To make your palette you can just start with a blank one (press the '+') and click on black spaces to set their new RGB/HSV values. So basically while there's *room* for a lot of colors (192 happens to be what fits in that part of the UI), you don't need to set them all.

 

i must confess that love to edit palette files on text editors (.gpl files from Gimp and Inkscape is one example! ), or to create them from converting scripts! - i also use to copy/paste hexcolours between picture/illustration editors (gimp, inkscape...) or image-related tools (like display pickers like gcolor2), or from websites like colourlovers or chromapost

 

btw, there, a confusing thing is that the palette format seems to need tab character as separator, it doesn’t open when we have spaces or nothing between "}" and "{" - interesting and useful also would be if we could have colours there in hexcolour formats like {#4488CC} or {#48C}

 

btw, as soon as we create some palettes (like for Aquarius, C64, Vic-20, etc.), i guess would be great having them defaultly available from the next REXPaint versions? (i'll put the weblinks of them here: https://etherpad.mozilla.org/ZDK7vo9ux0 )

 

 

When I do get around to adding this feature, it will support an arbitrary number of glyphs. The program already supports it, but it will require some tweaking to make them accessible in the UI.

tweaking the ui you mean, perhaps, "paging" the character table?

 

 

Glad you found it. Should be lots of answers in there (Plus the full command list.)

i'm going to read it more carefully then, thanks!

 

 

CSV is a pretty easy text format to work with, so I added it for users like yourself.

thanks! it's really neat, actually!

soon i hope coding and sharing some converters

 

 

Yeah, it's not a problem with your environment. The "view size" setting only affects the viewport, which requires a minimum height so that the full UI can be shown. Your request to be able to modify the default image size is at the top of the list of new features to be added. For now all you can do is either resize a new image manually, or as a slightly faster shortcut: create an image and name it "blank40x24" or something like that, then whenever you want to create a new image that size just shift-click its name in the browser to make a copy. Custom default image dimensions are coming in the next version, for which there are already dozens of potential features to pick from. Been busy lately; just need a day or two to sit down and implement some of them. I'll announced it here when the time comes, of course.

i were about to try it, but i saw one thing: there is no "save as" yet, and as "dyslexic" as i am, i was concerned on using it, and then going to destroy the template file accidentally... :S

 

 

Thanks for using REXPaint!

yw!

Edited July 7, 2014 by nitrofurano

[Kyzrati]

i must confess that love to edit palette files on text editors (.gpl files from Gimp and Inkscape is one example! ), or to create them from converting scripts! - i also use to copy/paste hexcolours between picture/illustration editors (gimp, inkscape...) or image-related tools (like display pickers like gcolor2), or from websites like colourlovers or chromapost

 

btw, there, a confusing thing is that the palette format seems to need tab character as separator, it doesnt open when we have spaces or nothing between "}" and "{" - interesting and useful also would be if we could have colours there in hexcolour formats like {#4488CC} or {#48C}

The tabs are intended--all my programs use tab-delimited data files. I didn't intend for users to be editing the palette file directly, so I may not have mentioned that anywhere!

 

I first created REXPaint when the engine didn't have hex support (since I generally use RGB/HSV myself), but now it supports hex color reading under the hood so I could add that in the next release.

 

btw, as soon as we create some palettes (like for Aquarius, C64, Vic-20, etc.), i guess would be great having them defaultly available from the next REXPaint versions? (i'll put the weblinks of them here: https://etherpad.mozilla.org/ZDK7vo9ux0 )

That'd be great, although did/could you make sure to right-align the colors when they don't fill the palette? Just a reminder, since the UI is on the left and having colors on the right makes more sense from a user perspective (for example, qbicfeet's palette available on the RP site).

 

I will gladly put all the palettes on my site for download (users do download from the resources there to extend RP), but probably wouldn't add them to the release itself since many users will create their own and having a large collection of unused palettes would get annoying (especially for new users)--the UI doesn't make it easy to scan through a long list of palettes.

 

tweaking the ui you mean, perhaps, "paging" the character table?

Yeah, mostly that, although I will also have to add a solution for displaying images created with a font that has more glyphs than the original font--images don't store any font information themselves.

 

thanks! it's really neat, actually!

soon i hope coding and sharing some converters

Cool, I was going to mention that if you do write some converters I'm sure the community here would appreciate it if you shared them. I considered doing it myself, but I don't know the first thing about programming/formats for these old systems. I just happen to be here because people are using REXPaint

[nitrofurano]

awesome, Kyzrati! i'm going to share some stuff as soon as possible (in a week, i hope)

[nitrofurano]

i'm updating palettes at https://etherpad.mozilla.org/ZDK7vo9ux0 - btw, it seems that #FF00FF (or {255,0,255}) is being used as transparent colour?

[Kyzrati]

i'm updating palettes at https://etherpad.mozilla.org/ZDK7vo9ux0 - btw, it seems that #FF00FF (or {255,0,255}) is being used as transparent colour?

Oh yeah, I wonder if any of these old palettes actually use that as a color... The engine treats it as a permanent transparent color (because there is no separately-stored transparency information). This is indicated in the manual, and you'll see it missing from the color picker as well for the same reason.

[nitrofurano]

i guess would be possible to choose the transparent colour for something instead #FF00FF in the settings? (which colour was a quite usual in 8bit machines, like zx-spectrum, mz700, bbc-micro, etc.)

 

another thing that i figured out, that is often mistaken by developers of graphic editors and tools (even Nodebox syntax), is that Oval and Ellipse are two very different things - what REXPaint draws as oval is an ellipse, and an oval is actually made of 4 circle arcs (with aspect ratio 1:1 - this technique was often used from 15th century furniture wood workers (and around), most of them had no patience or techniques for drawing ellipses! - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oval - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Owal_by_Zureks.svg ) - i think "Elli" in the interface can be a nice shortcut for "Ellipse", or something like?

Edited July 8, 2014 by nitrofurano

[Kyzrati]

i guess would be possible to choose the transparent colour for something instead #FF00FF in the settings? (which colour was a quite usual in 8bit machines, like zx-spectrum, mz700, bbc-micro, etc.)

It shouldn't be too much trouble to provide a way to override the transparent color in the next version for working with classic systems which have restrictive color palettes anyway. It might not be easy to figure out for most people, but it would at least make using #FF00FF as a color possible for those who really need it.

 

another thing that i figured out, that is often mistaken by developers of graphic editors and tools (even Nodebox syntax), is that Oval and Ellipse are two very different things - what REXPaint draws as oval is an ellipse, and an oval is actually made of 4 circle arcs (with aspect ratio 1:1 - this technique was often used from 15th century furniture wood workers (and around), most of them had no patience or techniques for drawing ellipses! - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oval - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Owal_by_Zureks.svg ) - i think "Elli" in the interface can be a nice shortcut for "Ellipse", or something like?

In the code it's always referred to as "ellipse," but I only have 4 letters for it in the UI and the most obvious and immediately recognizable button name is "Oval," so I stuck with that.

[nitrofurano]

a converter, from REXPaint to Aquarius display memory dump: http://pastebin.com/7xN6MzKc

[nitrofurano]

It shouldn't be too much trouble to provide a way to override the transparent color in the next version for working with classic systems which have restrictive color palettes anyway. It might not be easy to figure out for most people, but it would at least make using #FF00FF as a color possible for those who really need it.

thanks!

 

In the code it's always referred to as "ellipse," but I only have 4 letters for it in the UI and the most obvious and immediately recognizable button name is "Oval," so I stuck with that.

for now i fixed it with a hex editor!

[Kyzrati]

for now i fixed it with a hex editor!

You are... quite dedicated =p

But I bet you didn't fix the fact that you still have to press 'o' as a hotkey Actually, I've been using REXPaint for over a year now for my own projects and I've never once used the ellipse tool (though I've heard from people who have...).

 

a converter, from REXPaint to Aquarius display memory dump: http://pastebin.com/7xN6MzKc

Nice! Though in this format how useful would it be for others? Could you compile it into some program that would be more accessible? Or is this sort of script something people who work with Aquarius would be familiar with? (Forgive my ignorance on this topic )

[nitrofurano]

updated the palettes at https://etherpad.mozilla.org/ZDK7vo9ux0

[nitrofurano]

You are... quite dedicated =p

thanks!

 

 

But I bet you didn't fix the fact that you still have to press 'o' as a hotkey Actually, I've been using REXPaint for over a year now for my own projects and I've never once used the ellipse tool (though I've heard from people who have...).

i didn’t know that was hotkeys available!

 

 

Nice! Though in this format how useful would it be for others? Could you compile it into some program that would be more accessible? Or is this sort of script something people who work with Aquarius would be familiar with? (Forgive my ignorance on this topic )

 

i coded in sdlBasic because i code faster there! (laziness! ) - i though on coding it in Python also (Python comes pre-installed on GNU/Linux and OSX, so i guess there would be more people using it)

 

i also imagined that what i coded i think is simple enough to recode on other languages, if people needs it

Edited July 8, 2014 by nitrofurano

[Kyzrati]

i didn’t know that was hotkeys available!

Dude, seriously, RTFM (or press F1, or that little question mark in the GUI...)

 

I never use the buttons to actually do anything. Way too slow! Come to think of it, I should make an option to remove them all and use that space for some kind of extra/advanced UI... That would be a slightly more time-consuming project, though.

 

i coded in sdlBasic because i code faster there! (laziness! ) - i though on coding it in Python also (Python comes pre-installed on GNU/Linux and OSX, so i guess there would be more people using it)

 

i also imagined that what i coded i think is simple enough to recode on other languages, if people needs it

I guess. Just not sure myself what level of expertise people have with this sort of thing, but if they're fooling with legacy systems...

 

 

I'll get around to putting up your palettes for download. Wonder if anyone else here is still finding RP useful for this sort of thing.

[nitrofurano]

 

Dude, seriously, RTFM (or press F1, or that little question mark in the GUI...)

 

laziness! - btw, some i actually figured out, even that f1!

 

 

 

I never use the buttons to actually do anything. Way too slow! Come to think of it, I should make an option to remove them all and use that space for some kind of extra/advanced UI... That would be a slightly more time-consuming project, though.

me too - the problem is that we need to use a program a lot for getting used or memorize - or at least following some conventions (except messing ellipses with ovals, and making it as a convention as well! ;D )

 

 

I guess. Just not sure myself what level of expertise people have with this sort of thing, but if they're fooling with legacy systems...

well, people that use ascii-art editors (i think even that truly amazing Raquel Meyers?) normally have some minimal coding skill that might figure out how these things are done

 

I'll get around to putting up your palettes for download. Wonder if anyone else here is still finding RP useful for this sort of thing.

be tuned that i might often update it! - right now i added bitmap fonts of Hitachi MB6880 (a quite rare japanese computer), Philips-VG5000, Orao and Galaksija, at https://etherpad.mozilla.org/ZDK7vo9ux0 as usual

Edited July 9, 2014 by nitrofurano

[Kyzrati]

be tuned that i might often update it!

This is why I hadn't actually done anything yet, since I'm under the impression it's still a work in progress. Looking at it again, wow, you're even putting up all the font files from these systems now, too. That's pretty impressive work.

[nitrofurano]

This is why I hadn't actually done anything yet, since I'm under the impression it's still a work in progress. Looking at it again, wow, you're even putting up all the font files from these systems now, too. That's pretty impressive work.

thanks! i added 2 bitmaps from 2 old Silicon Graphics (SGI) Iris machines (i really love SGI! there were where i start loving Unix and Linux! ) - there are lots of different ones from msx (cyrillic is there, missing korean, arabic (al-alamiah, quite known in the msx scene), latin, japanese, brazilian (i guess they used brazilian abnt norm instead of latin version... :S) ), c64 has that shifted version that i can’t figure out how it works (perhaps it’s 512 characters based like mz700 or vg5000)

[Pset]

a converter, from REXPaint to Aquarius display memory dump: http://pastebin.com/7xN6MzKc

 

Does what now? How does it get the Rexpaint file? What path does it expect?

I ran the .sdlbas file with a .csv file in the same folder (after changing the target in the .sdlbas file) and it made a .bin file but that had no content and was 0 bytes.

 

Oop, looks like I got it to work, without 'stepping' through the program, or perhaps when I reformatted the image to correct Aquarius size and exported a new file.

However, what is this data dump? How can it be used?

Edited July 12, 2014 by Pset

[nitrofurano]

so

 

 

Does what now? How does it get the Rexpaint file? What path does it expect?

I ran the .sdlbas file with a .csv file in the same folder (after changing the target in the .sdlbas file) and it made a .bin file but that had no content and was 0 bytes.

 

Oop, looks like I got it to work, without 'stepping' through the program, or perhaps when I reformatted the image to correct Aquarius size and exported a new file.

However, what is this data dump? How can it be used?

 

sorry! - the script and the source files are expected to be in the same directory, and we should edit ‘ finp$="test2z.csv" ’ line and replace it with the csv filename we need. Actually most of my converters are coded this way!