Atari 2600 graphics maker tool

[Aloan]

Hi friends, I just made a simple Atari 2600 graphics maker (drawing) app which allows you to draw the background, the playfield and even the player without worrying about all the math, aspect ratio (double stretch effect) and limitation rules as all that is built in.

 

instructions and executable are inside the zip file... app was made using Fusion 2.5 and only works on windows or linux pcs

 

Features:

 

Background drawing (coloring) mode

Mirrored or repeated playfield mode

Normal, 2x or 4x Player drawing mode
Turbo cursor movement
Turbo drawing (by holding) W,A,S,D... use arrow keys to turbo move the cursor around as well as fast delete with arrow keys after pressing Z..

scanline per scanline coloring rule limitation (when drawing the playfield and the player)

press C for 128 color table GUI (pick color with the mouse)

press 1 to draw the background one scanline coloring at a time
press 2 to draw the playfield (mirror mode)
press 3 to draw the playfield (repeated mode)
press 4 to draw the player (normal size)
press 5 to draw the player (double size)

press 6 to draw the player (quad size)

Picture above is composed of:
sky, sea and grass: background
clouds and palms: mirrored playfield
player: double wide player

Obs: I guess the ball and the missiles can be drawn using the player cursor as well, so I may not create a drawing brush just for them (no need)

Soon I will also change my Atari 2600 drawing page to reflect such helpful tool.

Get the Atari 2600 graphics maker tool here (scroll down) http://aloan.site90....simplified.html

Att.: after you are done drawing you can then print screen, go to Paint.net, resize first to 1280 width without aspect ratio ticked, but with nearest neighbor ticked (if your monitor resolution is more than 1280 pixels) then resize again with aspect ratio ticked to 320x192 for original viewing, then resize without aspect ratio again to 160x192 to match the Atari 2600 resolution!

Edited June 26, 2018 by Aloan

[Flojomojo]

This is really wild. So it actually works?

[RainbowCemetery]

your link didn't work out for some reason, i'll attempt to post it http://aloan.site90.com/atari_graphics_simplified.html

 

i'll check it out in a bit probably, i was lookin for something like this

[Mockduck]

Very cool

[Aloan]

Thanks Rainbow Cemetery for giving a working link! Yes Flojomojo, this actually works! I wonder why nobody has ever done this for the love of the Atari 2600 memory. I am not a coder either. Fusion 2.5 is a creation tool that you can create stuff drawing dragging and dropping and putting in pre-made events to make things work. So no need to know any programming language. Hence why I could do this tool.

here is another image I just made using the tool (background and PF)
A couple of firefighters (lloking more like red ambulances, heheh) on a sunny day. I love the Atari 2600 colors. They are colorful, yet pleasing to the eyes (not over saturated).

I say this is the best Atari 2600 drawing tool as of yet, as it encompasses most all that is needed to make faithful Atari 2600 graphics (background, playfields and players). The only problem is it cannot save and load the image. When you are drawing in it, it is like doing it on a tv.

If you turn it off, it is gone. So keep the link for any updates to any of the programs available in the Atari 2600 graphics teaching page... My desire is to incentivize people to start making Atari 2600 like (faithful to the hardware) games with the easy Fusion 2.5 program and perhaps help the new Atari VCS (AtariBox?) to keep the Atari 2600 classic gaming spirit alive.

Atari 2600 graphics drawing for future games teaching page

Edited June 28, 2018 by Aloan

[Gamemoose]

I haven't used a Clickteam product in a lonnng time. Back with Click & Create/Multimedia Fusion I made a game for a leaving coworker called "Kosher Krunch" (he had a sense of humor about his religion) starring his head in a "Fast Food" style contest where you had to avoid non-Kosher foods.

 

Anyway, I know the past Fusions had add-ons/extensions you can put in to give extra functionality. Check out this thread and see if that works for you.

[Aloan]

I haven't used a Clickteam product in a lonnng time. Back with Click & Create/Multimedia Fusion I made a game for a leaving coworker called "Kosher Krunch" (he had a sense of humor about his religion) starring his head in a "Fast Food" style contest where you had to avoid non-Kosher foods.

 

Anyway, I know the past Fusions had add-ons/extensions you can put in to give extra functionality. Check out this thread and see if that works for you.

Thanks! I will check it

By the way, can a missile draw the tree barks like that?

You can see that the bark overlaps the bushes a bit. Maybe only that part can be a missile and above it can be the playfield as usual

P1 and p2 are double sized

Edited June 28, 2018 by Aloan

[ZackAttack]

By the way, can a missile draw the tree barks like that?

You can see that the bark overlaps the bushes a bit. Maybe only that part can be a missile and above it can be the playfield as usual

P1 and p2 are double sized

 

No, M0 must be the same color as P0 and M1 must be the same color as P1 on each horizontal line. If the players always remained below the tree trunk you could use the missiles for that.

[Aloan]

Thanks a lot ZackAttack! I'll take note of that and see if I can add that note to my page and also incorporate that rule on the drawing tool.

 

Update: the tool just got an update! here are the fixes/changes:

 

before: mouse would not disappear after picking a color from the 128 color table GUI
now: mouse disappears after color picking
before: all cursors (brushes) would start black in color (too dark/almost couldn't see...)
now: all cursors (brushes) now start glistering white!
before: cursors (brushes) were not disappearing after picking a different cursor (brush), like changing from player to playfield for example...
now: cursors (brushes) disappear after picking a different cursor (brush) - (changing between drawing mode numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6)
before: mirrored and repeated playfield left cursor would be on top of player if a quad player
were chosen before going back to other drawing modes
now: mirrored and repeated playfield left cursor stays only on top of the background.

Edited June 29, 2018 by Aloan

[Big_Mo]

I think the texts should more directly indicate what is required to run this and where to find it. I had to do some Googling to figure it out.

 

[Linndrum]

Any chance I could get the MFA? I really want to check it out!

[Linndrum]

Nevermind, found it That's really cool! Nice work!

[Aloan]

Update today!!! now we have a graphical Menu from which to choose (via mouse) what drawing mode we want! so that made it speedier (instead of memorizing what number does what!)

 

It's in Portuguese, as I first catered to my people! but here is the translation:

 

FUNDO = background
Cenario Repetido = Repeated playfield
Cenario Espelhado = Mirrored playfield
Personagem normal = normal size character (player)
Personagem esticado 2x = 2x size character (player)

Personagem esticado 4x = 4x size character (player)

I have included both the mfa (editable file for the Fusion 2.5+ program) and the executable in the zip!

Edited January 3, 2020 by Aloan

[Aloan]

Update today: added a color clock grid!!! to help you count the horizontal color clocks. Helpful when drawing double or quadruple sprites and drawing the playfield (mirrored or repeated) - link is on the page: http://aloan.site90.com/atari_graphics_simplified.html 
Now, all drawings are made in a white (canvas) background (as in a regular ms paint).

Edited January 5, 2020 by Aloan

[0078265317]

Nice

[Aloan]

Hey! well, well, well... after so many years of being hosted at 000webhost, today I was surprised by their greediness. They shut down my website. They said many people were accessing it and that violated their terms. So I am totally glad I had a second copy of the website on the Glorious (never had problems with) and Free Neocities host. So I will be working tonight on the Neocities version so as to update all the links and downloads so they work. Because before all links pointed to the 000webhost, which I will be removing tonight. So here is the new webpage (later tonight the download link will work again: https://aloan.neocities.org/atari_graphics_simplified.html

Edited January 17, 2020 by Aloan