Has anyone written a BASIC Engine sprite/tile (as in pixel by pixel) creation program? I seem to recall that Kevin (Bitartrate on these forums) had a good deal of work done on one, but he seems to have disappeared.
BASIC Engine Sprite Creation Tool
painintheworld I would love to know too. In my opinion, having a set of tools like fantasy consoles have (for example, what Pico-8 has), would be awesome for Basic Engine.
The combination of game creation tools and an accessible language like BASIC in a powerful platform (well, compared to 8-bit BASIC machines, at least, he, he) could be attractive for a lot of people (or so I think).
I reckon I should play about with developing one. @bitartrate had a functioning sprite editor for the original BASIC Engine, which would be perfectly fine for me using the BASIC Engine Orange Pi edition (using only 256 colors). He and I used to communicate via email pretty frequently, so I will look and see if he had ever sent his code over to me.
My screen design skills are very subpar, being stuck in the1983 Atari 8 bit and C64 world, but I should be able to put together something useful. For my purposes, an inbuilt 256 color palette is perfectly fine. Since I started using the OPi version, most of the stuff I've played around with has been in SCREEN 12 (320x240),SCREEN 14 (480x272), and SCREEN 15 (640x480).
Advice and recommendation requested
Should I prompt user for sprite size?
Draw that size virtual graph paper to screen?
Draw a color swatch to the opposite side of screen?
Label each part of the swatch with its corresponding color #?
Any hints, recommendations, or constructive criticism is welcomed
What is your goal? To create a simple sprite editor or to go for a set of tools integrated in BE?
If it's a set of tools, you can use Pico-8 as an example:
If you want just a sprite editor, there are a few out there that you can use as reference.
For example: piskel
I would limite the options, if it was me, because having too many options sometimes, could be overwhelming.
I have taken this opportunity to finally implement mouse support. Try HELP
on MOUSEX
, MOUSEY
, MOUSEDX
, MOUSEDY
, MOUSEBUTTON
and MOUSEWHEEL
on the latest build.
Dmian Thank you for the reply and my apologies for the long delay. I have a defibrillator & pacemaker implanted in my chest and have had some issues with it of late - I think things are ironed out.....for now
My goals are extremely simple I just need to be able to create some simple sprites and tiles, kind of pixel art style. I will just be using an inbuilt 256 color palette. Just this evening I finally got my portable BE OPI out and laid out a color swatch on the right hand side, with the color numbers (0-255) to the left of the 8x1 pixel rectangle of each color (using an 800x600 resolution). A mock up was put on the lower left hand side of a 1x, 2x, and 3x scale of the sprite, so as to give an idea of what it might look like at different resolutions (I keep gravitating towards the 480x272 and 640x256 modes). For now it is basically: fill in the virtual graph paper by choosing the color # required, saving that sprite, repeat, or quit
The end goal is to make a port of Star Raiders, of Atari 8 bit fame, for the BASIC Engine. I've got a rough version running on the original Color Maximite, and have thought of just coding up something simple to parse the sprites I developed for that version and writing them out for the BASIC Engine, but they are extremely simple (mostly monochromatic, with some having another color or two - since the original CM only displays 8 colors). So, a simple BASIC Engine tool is needed Zylon Fighters, Zylon Cruisers, Zylon Battlestars, and some of my own additions are waiting to be drawn out pixel by pixel, just so that I can blow them up
I see below that Uli has added mouse support, so I need to play with those controls on Sunday!
Wow! Thank you, @uli ! Just wrote a couple of microSD cards with v0.90-271 and will try this out!
I'm not sure if I need to start a new thread or if it is okay if I ask here....so I will ask here first
What USB game controllers are you guys using? I've not had much success as of yet. I've tried an old school Gravis Eliminator, a generic SuperNES style, generic PS2 style, and a USB to Playstation adapter (using the Playstation controller I use with my original BASIC Engine). The only thing I've got working at all are a couple of buttons on the generic USB SuperNES style controller.
I'd like to thank you again for all of the work on this!
painintheworld You have nothing to apologize for, and your health is always more important, donβt worry at all.
Well, if I can be of help, let me know. I really like the idea, though Iβm not a programmer, so I canβt help in that regard. But maybe with graphics, or help you with the UI, or things like that. Cheers.
painintheworld Please start a new thread about the non-working USB controllers. Hook them up to a Linux system (RPi or OPi or PC or whatever), run sudo usbhid-dump
and post the output. (Please don't use win-hid-dump or stuff like that; its output is "reconstructed" (read: made up by Windows) and thus useless.)
I was using a generic "DragonRise" USB gamepad, a DualShock 4 controller and various PSX-to-USB adapters for development. Saying that the HID descriptor parser takes shortcuts would be quite an understatement, so I'm not surprised that there are controllers that don't work yet...
uli Will do and thank you so much!
Dmian Damian, I'm not much of a programmer, either I can pull off something like the tool we are discussing and simple games like Star Raiders and such. One of these first days I will certainly welcome graphics help
Related to sprites....today I learned that using SCALE doesn't require integers - allowing fractional scaling. OMG! This is immensely helpful
Dmian I haven't seen that one before, thank you! I hope to work a little on this project this weekend, as well as finally getting around to testing some gamepads per Uli's instructions.