NES Screen Tool

A place for your artistic side. Discuss techniques and tools for pixel art on the NES, GBC, or similar platforms.

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neilbaldwin
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Post by neilbaldwin »

Brilliant - many thanks Shiru :)
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neilbaldwin
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Post by neilbaldwin »

Works great Shiru, I didn't think about associating the nametable with the .chr file too so that was a nice surprise :D

If you're still interested in more ideas?

Some of the drawing modes in YYCHR are actually quite handy: the line tool and the rectangle tool especially. Also the ability to remap colours in YYCHR comes in really handy sometimes. Not that I think you necessarily need to make a copy of YYCHR but I think you've got the beginnings of a really great tool here.
Shiru
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Post by Shiru »

My workflow for any platform involves GraphicsGale as the main graphics editor, I make all the graphics in it as 16 or 256 color bitmaps (it allows to reassign color numbers etc), and a converter, mostly command-line. Often I have just a set of BMP files in a project, and building script converts them into binaries or asm/h files. So this tool was supposed to be used as a converter mostly, however not automatic (because it is not so easy in case with NES).

I can add some more features if they are really needed (to exclude a tool from a toolchain, maybe). I'm not too familiar with the YYCHR, however, so I need better explaination of needed features. These line and rectangle drawing - they should work in the tileset window (2x fixed zoom) or in the CHR editor (if so, isn't it overkil to have such tools for 8x8 image)?
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neilbaldwin
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Post by neilbaldwin »

Ah I see.

I tend to just work in YYCHR because it's fast and easy so I guess I'm just giving you ideas that would make me use NESST instead :)

If you're still up for adding features though, the rectangle and line tools work in the tile editor. I find them handy - actually I use the rectangle tool almost all the time as you can do single pixels, lines or rectangles with it. You could probably forget about the line tool. :)

Oh and colour fill in the tile editor too :)
Shiru
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Post by Shiru »

Rectangle only allow to draw straight lines, arbitrary lines aren't needed then?

Isn't it could be rather difficult to use these tools with 2x zoom only? You barely can target to the exact pixel with this zoom. If I'll add more zoom levels, I'll have to add scroll bars to the tile set, probably, and also if there will be ability to draw in the tileset and zoom like 16x, CHR editor window will be redundant.

For now, I can't clearly imagine how it could look and which changes are necessary.
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neilbaldwin
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Post by neilbaldwin »

I don't know how much time you want to spend on this Shiru or how much you'd be happy moving away from what it was originally but personally I would lose the CHR window and do the tile editing in the tileset itself (with zoom and scroll, as you say). Then it would be easier for you to draw graphics that are made of more than one tile etc.
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Dwedit
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Post by Dwedit »

I usually just copy-paste into YY-CHR, basically just using it as a character converter from the clipboard.
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Shiru
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Post by Shiru »

I don't want to spend too much time on it, it is just a little tool for rather specific tasks, but I can spend few days on it.

I'm afraid that zoom+scroll could be not enough. For example, with 16x zoom (as in CHR Editor window) you only be able to see 16x16 area, and with 8x (smaller zooms aren't comfortable to edit the graphics, I think) only 32x32. Is it enough? You also will need to press a key or a button to switch between the tile select and tile drawing modes, or use some shift key to select a tile (increases chances of accidental graphics change).
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neilbaldwin
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Post by neilbaldwin »

Shiru wrote:I don't want to spend too much time on it, it is just a little tool for rather specific tasks, but I can spend few days on it.

I'm afraid that zoom+scroll could be not enough. For example, with 16x zoom (as in CHR Editor window) you only be able to see 16x16 area, and with 8x (smaller zooms aren't comfortable to edit the graphics, I think) only 32x32. Is it enough? You also will need to press a key or a button to switch between the tile select and tile drawing modes, or use some shift key to select a tile (increases chances of accidental graphics change).
Yes, that's what YYCHR does. Depending on your zoom level you can only draw on 1 x 1, 2 x 2, 4 x 4, 8 x 8 etc. But then YYCHR does have a tileset (that you can always see 256 tiles) and an tile editing box - YYCHR has it's nametable editor in a different window but I prefer your approach of having the nametable in the main window.

Let me have a think about it a bit more before I ask you to make such big changes - I wouldn't want to waste your time if it turns out to be a bad idea.
3gengames
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Post by 3gengames »

I really like it! BUT.....forcing the character file to be 4K? I can't use it. :'(
Shiru
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Post by Shiru »

Please understand that simple 'I can't use it' does not help me much. If you detail why you need >4K, how you use it, and how you see it's support in the tool, it could help.

Meanwhile, another small feature I've needed is added, download link is the same.
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neilbaldwin
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Post by neilbaldwin »

Shiru,

Would it be easy to implement a "export tile numbers" function?

You would select part of the nametable (using shift and drag) and then select the export function and either binary data be exported row by row of the selected area, or even better, export hex numbers (or .byte/.db?)

So if you selected an area 4 rows x 4 columns, the export will result in a file that looks like ;

.BYTE $00,$00,$00,$00
.BYTE $01,$02,$03,$04
.BYTE $00,$00,$00,$00
.BYTE $01,$02,$03,$04

(the $xx numbers are just made up as an example)

I'd love this function. It comes in really handy if you're trying to design partial nametables that you might overlay in your code. Best example would be for menu boxes etc
3gengames
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Post by 3gengames »

Okay, Here's two reason.


4K ROM's are a waste and just adding 4K to that (Like every NES game ever released) lets you do alot more with graphics and backgrounds.

8K is the minimum standard. Even the simplest NROM games use 8KB graphics. (Searching for games under 16KB in size yields one result, galaxian clone that uses 8KB PRG and 8KB CHR, still too much)
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Post by Shiru »

neilbaldwin, yes, it should be easy. I could make a function which will puts the data as .db's into the Windows clipboard, it is ok, or you need file export?

3gengames, you giving me not the information I need. Of course I know that the CHR ROM banks are 8K. I use NESASM, which allows me to include arbitrary set of data in a bank. So I just incbin two 4K *.chr files to fill a CHR ROM bank, and there is no waste, you just have two *.chr files instead of one. I assume that more than one page on a screen is a rare case (requires tricks to switch pages mid-screen), and I don't plan to support these cases, that's why 4K files.
3gengames
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Post by 3gengames »

I don't know about you, but I think most others have all their graphics in one file. I hope I am not sounding mean, it's just that I'd bet most graphic files aren't split up. :/
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