#68380 - jake2431 - Tue Jan 24, 2006 4:47 am
Does anyone know a program that can create 8-bit pcx files? I have photoshop elements, but fail to figure out how to save the pcx images to a certain bit depth. My favorite program for this is graphics gale, but it doesn't support pcx and thats what I need.
-Jake
#68384 - nmain - Tue Jan 24, 2006 5:26 am
irfanview can convert to pcx
#68392 - tepples - Tue Jan 24, 2006 6:12 am
This should work in GIMP or Photoshop: Convert the image to indexed color mode using 17 through 256 colors and no alpha channel, save as bmp or pcx, and you'll get what your conversion tool is expecting.
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#68563 - jake2431 - Wed Jan 25, 2006 6:39 pm
Yeah, thanks tepples. That method works great!
#82448 - Dark Knight ez - Sat May 06, 2006 2:18 pm
Is it required to have at least 17 colours in the palette? Could that be causing me not getting transparency of sprites to work? (I only have 3 colours, of which the first I'd like to be transparent.)
edit: I just read in another topic, that it might be because Photoshop reverses the palette... which is exactly what I was seeing in the output of pcx2sprite. I'm going to make the last palette entry be the transparent one, and that should fix things.... I hope.
I'm still interested in hearing about why you mentioned 17 colours though.
#82455 - Lord Graga - Sat May 06, 2006 3:36 pm
You shouldn't be using pcx2gba. If you can, then use gfx2gba, as it is way more sophisticated and allows binary output, which compiles faster.
When I do highcolor->256 color conversion, then I use Photoshop with indexed colormode as mentioned previously, and save as 8-bit BMP. Notice that it might be a good idea to turn on dithering if you are having a lot of colors. (Alternatively, you can just convert with Graphics Gale if it supports the format with the Color Depth option).
After Photoshop conversion, I using Graphics Gale to choose my BG color. Just right-click the image where the transperancy is, and shift-drag the highlighted palettebox to index 0. Easy, and it works like a charm.
#82463 - SevenString - Sat May 06, 2006 6:20 pm
Sorry if this is going to go a little OT, but some of these techniques have been very useful for me...
I agree with Lord Graga that gfx2gba is pretty cool, especially the versatility that lets you do binary output. Another tool that I use AFTER the gfx2gba stage is katie -
http://www.console-dev.de/katie.html
I use katie to concatenate all of my data into a single raw file, and it automatically produces a resource header that gives you the proper offsets and sizes for that raw data.
You can choose to either link the katie generated ResourceData.o file directly with the code to produce a self-contained ROM image, or if you're using a GBAMP2 or similar piece of kit, you can set up your program to load the ResourceData.raw file dynamically using chism's FAT library.
The cool thing is that the resource header generated by katie can be used for both types of builds. The same offsets/sizes work with the data in your ROM, or as as offsets/sizes for FAT_fseek/FAT_fread calls as you access the ResourceData.raw file.
I have my own data IO wrapper functions set up so that IO requests automatically use that resource header data in the right way, depending on the type of build I have specified. I also have a specialized "free" function that actually frees the data if it was allocated and loaded from a FAT function, or does nothing if the data was originally returned as a pointer to a ROM location.
As a side note, I automatically generate both types of builds in my makefile so that I can always run on my PC with an emulator using the "ROM data" version, and run on my GBAMP2 using the "CF data" version.
Finally, be aware that I'm no expert on gba/nds data management. I haven't really felt the urge to investigate other similar tools because katie does what I need it to do quite nicely. There may be something out there that someone likes better, or that works better for their needs. Using katie is only my own personal choice.
_________________
"Artificial Intelligence is no match for natural stupidity."