Most effective way of converting sprites /bobs

[jimmy2x2x]

Is there anything out there that will rip multiple sprites or bobs at various coordinates and sizes to a raw format? I wrote a script driven utility a long time ago, but It's lost to the Sands of time... I've seen a couple of utils that will convert them one at a time, I'm looking for something that can do a screen full of various sizes at once. Thanks

[phx]

You can try it with bmp2raw from the released Solid Gold sources (tools/bmptoraw.c). It's a portable ANSI-C program. Runs everywhere.

It can cut out multiple BOBs or sprites from a picture in BMP format. BOBs are extracted in interleaved format, with optional mask generation. The picture width has to be a multiple of the BOB or sprite width you want to extract.

Example to extract a maximum of 64 masked font characters of the size 16x20 with 32 colours (5 planes) from a BMP picture:

bmptoraw menufont16.bmp 16 20 5 MASK 64 > menufont16.bin

menufont16.bin will contains all 64 objects one after another (interleaved, mask appended to each object).

There are many other options. Like for example NOMASK (no mask generation), SPRITE (output sprite data), CMAP (write the picture's RGB4 colour map), etc..

The source:

[Apollo]

@phx:
Which program did you use for creating the BMPs? Grafx2?

I'm asking because I had the problem that some of the paint tools I used in the past didn't save the colors in the order which were shown in the programs palette (and the indexed format was "wrong" in my point of view). After trying some tools I came back using DPaint IV from within the emulator.

[phx]

Yes, I'm mostly using GrafX2 and Gimp, although only for minor changes, as I'm no graphician. My brother used Gimp for all Solid Gold graphics, and the Retroguru graphicians use other programs, which I forgot.

I had no problems with GrafX2 and Gimp exporting BMP so far. Although with later Gimp versions you have to make sure to untoggle generation of true-color BMPs during the export, even when your image is indexed.

[jimmy2x2x]

That sounds like a great start! Thanks. Does anyone have a compiled windows binary, I'm on mobile Internet following a house move and can't afford to download a compiler right now.

[clenched]

Here is the leftover Windows exe from compiling the Solid Gold game. Be forewarned of the unapproved addition to phx's code. This was because the file redirection syntax used in some tools caused LF CR character to be output after before every CR LF in the io. Net result was an 885k ADF and a funny-looking owl on the boot screen.

#include <fcntl.h>
_setmode(_fileno(stdout),_O_BINARY);

[jimmy2x2x]

Thank you sir, I will try it out later

[Lonewolf10]

Originally Posted by Apollo

I'm asking because I had the problem that some of the paint tools I used in the past didn't save the colors in the order which were shown in the programs palette (and the indexed format was "wrong" in my point of view). After trying some tools I came back using DPaint IV from within the emulator.

I'm guessing MS Paint was one of them?

I have drawn my own super-sized palette tables, one contains the index numbers whilst the other has the colour values in RGB format

http://www.aliensrcooluk.com/public/...lourValues.PNG


I didn't quite finish the indexing (yet), but so far I only use 16 colour images (usually in bitmap or PNG format).

[phx]

Originally Posted by clenched

This was because the file redirection syntax used in some tools caused LF character to be output after every CR in the io.

Wow... indeed! I didn't think about that.

When using stdout then there is no portable way to guarantee binary output. I should better open a new file in binary mode for it...

[Apollo]

Originally Posted by Lonewolf10

I'm guessing MS Paint was one of them?

[...]

I didn't quite finish the indexing (yet), but so far I only use 16 colour images (usually in bitmap or PNG format).

Thank you. No, I didn't tried MS Paint. I remember having the problem with BMPs exported from Gimp. Using the indexed palette mode in Gimp gave me headaches any way. I was too lazy reading the howto's carefully enough. Then I stepped back to GrafX2 (which is a fine program).
Back in the day I wanted to convert rendered logos with GIMP into an indexed format. But I failed because I wanted to 'sort' the colors before exporting into BMP. Really, I miss 'butcher'.

[clenched]

This is the first time I've taken a close look at these tools independently. All sorts of fun trinkets to play with.

Maptapper with grid switched on is a good way to make sure the graphics will look as expected. This is phx's example. Repeat the command with CMAP to make a palette that can be loaded by Maptapper. Color 0 has been fudged a little so everything is visible.