Mad Studio

[Gury]

New version (0.9.5):

 

Graphics Editor

- Very basic implementation of drawing graphics shapes (line, rectangle, circle, triangle, filled rectangle)

- Added new toolbar for additional features

- Bug fix: correct handling of graphics mode 8 screens on loading and saving process

- Bug fix: correct loading of multi-color player files (*.mpl)

Character set editor

- New tool: copy drawing character to selected character set cell

- Changed and added icons in toolbar (Flip horizontally, Flip vertically, Rotate, Copy character...)

- Bug fix: eliminated switching of inverse video characters (found by Kaz)

- Bug fix: eliminated deleting of character beneath cursor on load and default character set operation

Atascii editor (changed to Text mode 0 editor)

- Source code generator:

- added new examples for automatic generation of statements for data values and screen loaders

About graphics additions... Currently these are very basic operations to help you to draw some basic shapes. Unfortunately, there is no Undo/Redo function currently, which waits for next version. When the shape is selected, the drawing process seems a little bit sketchy, but it doesn't influence final results. I am sorry about that.

Character set editor - new function for copying drawing character to other cells works this way:

1. When this function is selected, currently drawn character can be copied to other cells freely

2. Use your mouse and click (left button) on selected cells where you want the new character to be

3. To end the process, press 'Esc' key to come back to normal mode

Kaz, I hope this is what you wanted to use. Also, yourself as graphics artist maestro, please tell me if new icons for Flip horizontally, Flip vertically, Rotate look ok, because I didn't like the old ones.

Greetings

Gury

Edited April 13, 2019 by Gury

[Kaz atarionline.pl]

Wow, a lot of improvements! Thank you. I'm going to use it as usual and will report bugs and propose add-ons .

 

PS. New icons look ok

[Gury]

New version (0.9.6)

 

- Character set editor

- Character view (original and modified set) for all supported text modes

- Character set selection boxes for Antic modes 4, 5, 6 and 7

- Antic mode 4/5 editor

- Buf fix: proper handling of color registers

- Source code generator:

- added new examples for automatic generation of byte array values and screen loaders

Text mode 1 & 2 editor

- Bug fix: correct handling of color registers

- Source code generator:

- added new examples for automatic generation of byte array values and screen loaders

and more... (see About / Release notes)

Edited May 10, 2019 by Gury

[Kaz atarionline.pl]

Nice, installed!

 

I'm still preparing the report, so let's check what can be removed from the list

[Gury]

New version 0.9.7

 

Most updates and fixes were done in Player/missile editor. Some highlights of new version:

 

  - support for loading and saving missile data (file format includes height, color and byte array data representation)
  - representation of selected missile in all possible sizes

  - enhanced formats for saving and loading players and multi-color player files:
    - byte array data representation instead of binary (the size of file is automatically quite smaller from older data format)
    - player height information (currently fixed to 30-pixel height)
    - player color information

  - Source code generator:
     - full support for selecting the size of each missile (this one was pain in the ass finding out all 255 combinations of selecting different sizes for each missile)
     - selection of player/missile color
     - player/missile coordinate values are now interchangeable between editor and generator (remembering current values)
     - checkboxes for setting a player and missile default position
     - (Mad Pascal): universal skeleton code on using P/M graphics (without any external P/M units)

  - Bug fixes:
     - proper loading and saving of multi-color player (*.mpl) files (bug in loading data from old format found by Philsan from AtariAge forum)
     - proper usage of color registers 2 & 3 when loading data files

 

  - Text editor
     - A warning message after closing source code generator, so the user can decide to copy new code contents in source code editor (suggestion by Philsan from AtariAge forum)
     - Buf fix:
       - saving new/unnamed filenames by using standard naming convention of incrementing number by one (removing annoying consequent 1's in filenames reaching number 19)

  - Animation player editor
    - Bug fix (source code generator): switched selection of Action! and Mad Pascal example source code listings

 

Definitely this program needs some documentation which will be prepared in some later version.

 

 

 

Regards

 

madstudio.zip

[800xl_1984]

On 11/5/2016 at 8:12 AM, Gury said:

Hello there,

 

I introduce you PC utility program Mad Studio for Windows environment featuring:

 

- Source code editor plus compile feature for Mad Pascal (it is really mediocre editor right now)

- graphics editor

- player/missile editor

- character set editor

- Atascii editor (graphics 0)

- Source code generator

- Color palette loader

 

 

I am utterly envious of this. I wish there was something similar for Mac. 

 

[flashjazzcat]

I think I'll be using this font editor instead of Envision from now on. Looks great.

 

Minor suggestion: Antic mode 3 preview as well? I realise this mode is hardly ever used, but it would be really useful to see the lowercase descenders 'in situ' while editing.

[Gury]

I will add support for Antic mode 3 in next major release.

Definitely one of the less used modes on Atari.

 

[flashjazzcat]

14 minutes ago, Gury said:

Definitely one of the less used modes on Atari.

100 per cent true. Almost forgotten, in fact. Perhaps support in MAD studio will make it fashionable again.

 

Thanks!

[Gury]

I hope so, too

 

[+skr]

5 hours ago, 800xl_1984 said:

 

I am utterly envious of this. I wish there was something similar for Mac. 

 

Not a native solution, but I use it on my Mac with wine. Downloaded "Winebottler" and created a pseudo-native Mac-App. Works good, only the paths are confusing, but one gets used to it quickly.

[+Philsan]

In PM Graphics Editor, Multi-color Player Editor, if you flip players, data displayed on the right don't change.

[Gury]

Hi,

 

Just post here any additional suggestions and tracked bugs, all will be on To-do list for inclusion in new version.

 

[Gury]

On 8/22/2019 at 1:52 PM, flashjazzcat said:

Minor suggestion: Antic mode 3 preview as well? I realise this mode is hardly ever used, but it would be really useful to see the lowercase descenders 'in situ' while editing.

New version 0.9.8

 

- Support for Antic mode 3 (editor + source code generator)

- Antic mode 4 & 5 editor

  - [Added]Input dialog box for entering decimal values of character lines (this features is added to character set editor and Antic mode 3 editor)
  - Source code generator
     - Refactorized examples in treevieew list
     - Added example "Modified characters with screen loader" to show modified characters and custom drawn screen, not just default Atari system character data
     - [Fixed]Atari BASIC and Turbo BASIC XL examples allowed hexadecimal representation of data values

 - Updated development environment
     - Lazarus 2.0.6 (x86_64-win64) to compile Mad Studio
     - Mad Assembler 2.1.0 build 4
     - Mad Pascal 1.6.3

and more... Read Release notes in the program itself.

 

 

 

In source code generator, currently there are only examples for Atari BASIC and Turbo BASIC XL, other languages will be supported later.

 

The examples came from the article in Antic magazine (vol. 3, no. 5), the link is here.

An example from the article can be selected from the example item "Antic mode 3 screen with predefined characters". Your modifications to the characters and screen can be seen by selecting "Antic mode 3 screen with modified characters".

 

Antic mode 3 editor allows you to edit characters to make descenders. All characters with Atascii code between 96 and 127 are displayed differently from the rest. In ANTIC 3, each mode line is ten scan lines high.  Each character is still represented by eight bytes, and two scan lines normally appear as blanks below the character.

 

The first two bytes of these 32 characters are displayed at the bottom of the character, and the two blank lines appear at the top. This allows us to redefine these characters to have lower-case descenders.

This editor allows you to manipulate character data this way. It can also make changes to other characters, but you cannot make descenders to them, because they behave like in all other normal text modes.

 

The article provides two important machine language routines with the examples. One transfers the character set to RAM and performs the modification quickly. The other routine shifts the eight bytes in the character down by one, and moves the last byte to the top of the character. When ANTIC 3 displays the character, it displays the first two bytes last, so the vertically shifted characters will look fine.

 

Edited February 9, 2020 by Gury

[Kaz atarionline.pl]

Thanks Gury,

I recently used Mad Studio to create this game (Thoghtcrimes) during a game jam session (Global Game Jam in Warsaw):

 

[Gury]

Wow, that's great to hear. Is this game available to download? It seems nice psychedelic game

 

[flashjazzcat]

On 2/9/2020 at 5:14 PM, Gury said:

Support for Antic mode 3 (editor + source code generator)

Thanks so much! Can't wait to try it out.

[+Stephen]

On 2/9/2020 at 12:14 PM, Gury said:

- Support for Antic mode 3 (editor + source code generator)

What a crazy mode this is.  I wonder how it works (internally) - I am guessing a hack of sorts, something easily implemented since every transistor counted back then.

[+slx]

Thanks @Gury for your awesome work! It runs great under Wine. If I may make a suggestion, it would be great to have the text information about the selected character that is shown in the graphics 0 editor also available in the character set editor. Sorry, if it should be there anyway and is just hidden by Wine.

 

[+Philsan]

Would it be possible to set Source code editor default language?

Every time it starts with Mad Pascal and I have to change it to FastBasic.

 

Undo on graphics and PMG editors would be nice.

 

By the way, a new version of FastBasic has just been released with Display List Interrupts command!

[Gury]

On 2/29/2020 at 8:40 AM, slx said:

Thanks @Gury for your awesome work! It runs great under Wine. If I may make a suggestion, it would be great to have the text information about the selected character that is shown in the graphics 0 editor also available in the character set editor. Sorry, if it should be there anyway and is just hidden by Wine.

Hi! Of course, I will add this.

On 2/29/2020 at 9:01 AM, Philsan said:

Would it be possible to set Source code editor default language?

Every time it starts with Mad Pascal and I have to change it to FastBasic.

 

Undo on graphics and PMG editors would be nice.

 

By the way, a new version of FastBasic has just been released with Display List Interrupts command!

Sure, it will be fixed in next release. I will check new features of FastBasic, thanks for the info!

 

[+Philsan]

21 hours ago, Gury said:

I will check new features of FastBasic, thanks for the info!

 

First of all, thank you very much for your work.

Previous FastBasic's versions introduced some commands, useful for your Players Missile Graphics source code generator:

PMGRAPHICS (setup PMG)

PMADR (returns the address of the data for Player n or the address of the Missiles with n = -1)

MSET (to clear memory)

PMHPOS (sprites horizontal position)

 

I would help you but I am not skilled enough...

 

[Gury]

No problem at all. There will be two ways of generating P/M graphics listings, the one implementing new commands and the other in old fashion way.

 

[mariusz-buk]

Hi @Gury

 

When I prepare characters for Antic mode 4/5 I would like to just set a colour inside the character. Don't you mind if I suggest following changes?

- add 4 colour definitions + 1 additional for characters in negative

- resize the width of the editor to 4 columns (each pixel can use one of four colours)

- allow to build blocks from characters and save the screen as .byte array (each row separated)

 

This will make creating a board made from different characters much easier. 

 

What do you think?

[Gury]

Hi, mariusz-buk!

 

Of course, I am more than happy for new suggestions. I, too, thought about making extended editor for drawing directly with available combinations of colors. Inverse (negative) color is also on schedule.

 

I also thought about a way to save and load a bulk of characters together like objects (blocks, as you said). This would make drawing on screen easier.

 

It will be done.