Tile and Sprite editor for Genesis/Megadrive

[Archer]

Besides all the other projects i am working on, i really want to write a Tile and Sprite editor exclusively for the Megadrive. The reason is that most utilities i find are to "simple" or "stupid" but mostly look and feel very dated. I also want to have some special features that i have not found yet in other programs.

I want it to be open source and multi-platform (Linux, Windows and mac) so everyone can use it. It will be written in C/C++ and use GTK+ as a GUI toolkit. Since i use Linux myself, the first version will be linux only.

Here are some of the ideas i have right now:
- Import from BMP, PNG, JPG, etc (not GIF, because it has a patent on the compression)
- Export to RAW and compressed "tile set"
- Export to Sourcecode (C, ASM 68k, ASM GAS)
- Import/Export palettes in RAW or other formats
- Undo and Redo (Partially done)
- Megadrive Color selector (DONE)
- Overview of all Tiles in a Tileset
- Editor with grid to draw and edit tiles (DONE)
- Sprite preview (with all options from the SAT - Sprite Attribute Table)
- Extended editor to edit a Sprite madeup of any size sprite (DONE, but slow for large sprites)
- TitleScreen Editor and "generator"
- Sprite color shifter (shift colors on palette and change sprite color codes to match)

Suggestions by others:
- Import palette from bitmap
- Drawing "flickering trick" tiles using solid color (saved tile is split on export)
- Clicking both mouse buttons at the same time will undo current action
- Middle mouse button select color under cursor (DONE)
- tools selectable with keyboard-shortcut
- one pixel drawing with keyboard
- Normal/Shadow/Highlight colors (DONE)

And a few more i can't think of right now. If you have ideas or features that i should add to the list just leave a message.

EDIT: I just thought about a name, searched on Google and got nothing so i guess it's not in use. What about: Gentile



Link to post with latest version: Gentile 0.07

[Golpezas]

You may ask Tulio. When Watermelon launch PS were shown some pictures that suggest that they developed great great tools to edit sprites.

[Sik]

I believe those are Windows-only and I'm not sure everybody would be happy with whatever license those tools turns out to have though (this is all speculation, but whatever).

No plan for support for flickering trick on sprites? =P (some Project MD sprites did it)

[Archer]

No plan for support for flickering trick on sprites? =P (some Project MD sprites did it)

Can you explain this trick? I can only support what i understand

[Sik]

Er, you know how when making a checkerboard pattern, there are two possible ways to do it, right?

##  ##  ##  ##          ##  ##  ##  ##
  ##  ##  ##  ##      ##  ##  ##  ##
##  ##  ##  ##          ##  ##  ##  ##
  ##  ##  ##  ##      ##  ##  ##  ##
##  ##  ##  ##          ##  ##  ##  ##
  ##  ##  ##  ##      ##  ##  ##  ##
##  ##  ##  ##          ##  ##  ##  ##
  ##  ##  ##  ##      ##  ##  ##  ##

The flickering trick consists in toggling between both patterns every frame to make it look like a solid color. It's used a lot in Project MD, even in the title screen (heck, even the arrow in the menus!).

It'd be nice if it was possible to edit tiles drawing those like a solid color. Moreover, it'd be nice if it was possible to apply that when importing sprites =P

Also you may want to offer the option that, when importing a bitmap that uses a palette, to use the palette itself and don't attempt to convert it if the user wants that. For normal importing, just take the low 4 bits of the pixels (makes it easier to have multiple subpalettes). For flickering trick, use the high 4 bits for one frame and the low 4 bits for another frame.

[Archer]

i think i understand how this works, but drawing them as a single color would mean a table of all possible mixes needs to be made. Or a routine that calculates the color it should be. It can be done, but first i need to complete the editor itself. Importing paletes from bitmaps is one of the things i forgot, i will add your ideas to the list.

Thanks for explaining

[Sik]

For a 16 colors palette, there are 136 possible combinations (repeats not included, transparent included though). For 15 colors (no transparent), 120 possible combinations. Making a table isn't all that ridiculous really. You may want to provide a way to make it obvious which colors are truly solid and which colors aren't. You may also want to provide an option that lets you see it either as a solid color or as flickering, to see how well the effect works with a given combination.

[Archer]

i was thinking about drawing a square around the pixel that is mixed with two sides made up of first color and the other two sides the second color. And have two preview "windows" that show the first and second frame of the mixed image. maybe i should even make them editable as well.

Is that making any sense? i could draw a picture if it's not clear.

[Sik]

That... doesn't seem very useful. You only end up with a grid-like appearance on the editor that will never appear in the actual game =S

[Archer]

You know when you zoom in very deep in some drawing program, like paint, and have the grid enabled? Each pixel of the image is a large square in the grid, right. That's the pixel i meant to put a rectangle on.

Like This (click to see bigger image):
flicker_trick_pixel.png
But now i see it this way i don't think it's gonna work, it was just a thought.

[djshok]

Check this out, I don't know much about it, but it might be relevant to your interests: http://www.segaage.com/forum/message...threadid=48982

[Archer]

Check this out, I don't know much about it, but it might be relevant to your interests: http://www.segaage.com/forum/message...threadid=48982

That looks very good, and has it has some features i want in an editor. Unfortunately it's still beta and windows only. I tried it in wine and i got it working. But crashes when i create a fullscreen "sprite". They are clear about it on the site, it's not complete yet. But if you need an editor NOW, you can use it. Thanks for sharing.

I like the export options to Source code (ASM, C and BEX). i wanted to do this to, but forgot to put it on my list. 100% better than drawing using HEX codes what i have been doing so far.

Affinity: Draw is freeware but not open source. Gentile will be completely open source and multi-platform.

[Archer]

I think i will create a GUI that looks like GnomePaint.

GnomePaint.jpg

i looked at the glade file, and i will use it as a guide for creating my own. I want a selection tool to select a palette, and view all plates. The current palette colors will be loaded into the "color bar" below.

[Artemio]

Genitile is out there with source code (DOS only though). I know it is quite different, just mentioning it since the name is quite close. http://www.pascalorama.com/article.php?news=28&cat=21

[Kamahl]

Hardest part is keeping motivated