8 Bit fonts from C64 games

[Kitty Hello]

http://kofler.dot.at/c64/font_01.html has some fonts as bitmaps, so I think you can use them 1:1 in your games.
...pay attention to copyrights.

[ampos]

I remember "ripping" the font charsert (16x16 pixels) of RAMBO game and making a video-titler for my father wedding videos... LOL.

I am still amazed I was able to do this with 17 years...

[Ruidesco]

Wedding videos with Rambo lettering, now that is something you don't see every day.

[ampos]

They were not so bad... considering my other fonts were drawn with the original C64 font grafics (they look as letters made with pipes):

[Ruidesco]

I didn't mean they were bad, they were pretty nice all considered. What I mean is that they are army-like chars being used in a wedding video.

[Slydog]

I remember "ripping" the font charsert (16x16 pixels) of RAMBO

16x16?  Wasn't the custom fonts limited to 8x8?
Did you have to make a custom 'print' routine that would plot a 2x2 custom font character to make up one letter?
Or were they sprites?  (but if I recall, you didn't have many sprites to play with)

But still, very talented at 17!

[ampos]

Yes, the big one, 16x16s.

In C64 it was very easy to print big letters, as you can insert cursor movements inside a string (do you remember the black chars inside the ""?)

It was some thing like

Code (glbasic) Select Expand

ch$(33)="QW(left)(left)(down)AS")

So if you do

Code (glbasic) Select Expand

Print ch$(33)

you got

Code (glbasic) Select Expand

QW
AS

In a Vic20 Karate game I did, there was 2 characters on screen that fills the entire screen. I move them just with a print command, as the string itself was full of cursor movements...

Ah, they was the days...

[Hatonastick]

LOL That was exactly the reasoning behind my push for our first computer too ie. "We bought it to help with your homework", but like everyone else I spent more time playing games (and programming) than doing homework on it.

[fuzzy70]

I wrote a little proggy to convert the C64 files from the site Kitty linked into a usable bitmap for LOADFONT. The source & the files are all in the zip.

There are a few "To-do's" like the double width, height etc so this just rips the standard 8x8 chars. The normal fonts are the same name with .bmp bolted on & I couldn't work out what to do with the rest (ascii wise) so just dumped them into another file with the extension "_udg.bmp". Most are all upper case thanks to the way the files are laid out so if you want both upper & lower happy editing in photoshop or whatever 

Excuse the code, not the best I have written but then again its not a program I have spent much time on & just a quick hack.

Lee

Code (glbasic) Select Expand

// --------------------------------- //
// Project: 64fontToGLB
// Start: Wednesday, November 09, 2011
// IDE Version: 10.159

TYPE Tgrid8x8
xpos%
ypos%
ENDTYPE

GLOBAL grid%[] AS Tgrid8x8, charbytes%[], charpixels%[], stdchars%[]

LOCAL files$[], getlist%, xgrid%, ygrid%,tcount%=0

DIM grid%[256]
DIM charbytes%[8]
DIM charpixels[8][8]
DIM stdchars[64]

RESTORE c64mappings
FOR tcount%=0 TO 63
READ stdchars%[tcount%]
NEXT

tcount% = 0 // Reset tempcount variable

FOR ygrid%=0 TO 15 // Populate the grid% array with
FOR xgrid%=0 TO 15 // the x & y positions to help
grid%[tcount%].xpos% = xgrid%*8 // plot the chars in the right place
grid%[tcount%].ypos% = ygrid%*8
INC tcount%,1
NEXT
NEXT

SETCURRENTDIR("Input") // go to C64 files

getlist% = GETFILELIST("*.64c", files$[])

FOR i=2 TO BOUNDS(files$[], 0)-1

IF files$[i]<>"." AND files$[i]<>".." THEN readfile(files$[i])
USESCREEN -1
DRAWSPRITE 1,0,0
DRAWSPRITE 2,0,129
PRINT "Processing char set "+i,0,380
SHOWSCREEN

NEXT
PRINT "COMPLETE - Press mouse to exit",0,400
SHOWSCREEN
MOUSEWAIT

FUNCTION readfile: file$
LOCAL charcount%=0,rbyte%,cline%=0,fonttype%=0,udgchar%=0,outfile$
CREATESCREEN 0,1,128,128
CREATESCREEN 1,2,128,128
CREATESCREEN 2,3,128,128
OPENFILE(1,file$,1)
IF INSTR(file$,"_multi.64c")<>-1 THEN RETURN
IF INSTR(file$,"_x.64c")<>-1 THEN fonttype%=1
IF INSTR(file$,"_y.64c")<>-1 THEN fonttype%=2
IF INSTR(file$,"_xy.64c")<>-1 THEN fonttype%=3
FILESEEK 1,2,0
WHILE NOT ENDOFFILE(1)

READBYTE 1,rbyte%

    SELECT fonttype%
    CASE 0
IF charcount%<=63
USESCREEN 0
bytetobits(rbyte%,cline%)
INC cline%,1
IF cline%>=8
cline%=0
drawchar(8,8,stdchars%[charcount%])
INC charcount%,1
ENDIF
ELSE
USESCREEN 1
bytetobits(rbyte%,cline%)
INC cline%,1
IF cline%>=8
cline%=0
drawchar(8,8,udgchar%)
INC udgchar%,1
ENDIF
ENDIF
CASE 1
// todo
CASE 2
// todo
CASE 3
// todo
ENDSELECT
WEND

CLOSEFILE 1

IF fonttype%=0
USESCREEN 2
DRAWRECT 0,0,128,128,RGB(0,0,0)
DRAWSPRITE 1,0,0
outfile$=file$+".bmp"
SAVESPRITE outfile$,3
ENDIF

IF udgchar%>0
USESCREEN 2
DRAWRECT 0,0,128,128,RGB(0,0,0)
DRAWSPRITE 2,0,0
outfile$=file$+"_udg.bmp"
SAVESPRITE outfile$,3
ENDIF

ENDFUNCTION

FUNCTION bytetobits: byte%,lineno%
LOCAL bittest% , bitcount%
FOR bitcount%=0 TO 7
bittest%=bAND(byte%,128)
IF bittest%
charpixels%[bitcount%][lineno%]=1
ELSE
charpixels%[bitcount%][lineno%]=0
ENDIF
byte%=ASL(byte%,1)
NEXT
ENDFUNCTION

FUNCTION drawchar: sizex%,sizey%,charpos%
LOCAL x%,y%
FOR y%=0 TO sizex%-1
FOR x%=0 TO sizey%-1
IF charpixels%[x][y]
SETPIXEL x%+grid%[charpos%].xpos,y%+grid%[charpos%].ypos,RGB(255,255,255)
ENDIF
NEXT
NEXT
ENDFUNCTION


STARTDATA c64mappings:
// Data = GLBasic(Ascii) position

// char 0, @
DATA 64

// Chars 1-26, A-Z
DATA 65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90

// Chars 27-29, [ £ ]
DATA 91,163,93

// Chars 30-31, Up & left arrow graphic
DATA 128,129

// Chars 32-47, Space ! " # $ % & ' ( ) * + , - . /
DATA 32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47

// Chars 48-57 , 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
DATA 48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57

// Chars  58-63, : ; < = > ?
DATA 58,59,60,61,62,63
ENDDATA



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[Ruidesco]

Awesome!
PS. This forum needs a "thanks for this post" button so bad.

[erico]

I am still amazed I was able to do this with 17 years...

That is the least I expect from a movie actor!!

[chve]

A wondefull code which helps a lot   

I like to see those "small" and great pieces of code "translated" into bmp fonts 

Thank  you very much  fuzzy70 

[r0ber7]

Nice one fuzzy70. 

[fuzzy70]

Nice one fuzzy70. 

Ty

Being the sad retro freak that I am work is nearly complete on a GLB program that reads real Amiga fonts & creates a bitmap/sprite sheet lol

Lee

[r0ber7]

Nice one fuzzy70. 

Ty

Being the sad retro freak that I am work is nearly complete on a GLB program that reads real Amiga fonts & creates a bitmap/sprite sheet lol

Lee

!!!!! Could you share the source? I haven't found a font yet and being an Amiga fan still, I'd absolutely love to use an Amiga font in my game!