Vincehood Posted December 26, 2020 Share Posted December 26, 2020 Hello, I would like to play with "converting" pictures into Intellivision backgrounds. I am familiar with the last leg of the process (with IntyColor to generate the IntyBASIC code). But I would like to hear about your tools recommendations to: - resize pictures - adapt them to the Intellivision colour palette - manual fixing - convert to BMP - (any other step) My environment is Mac OS. If any tutorial exists, even better Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted December 26, 2020 Share Posted December 26, 2020 (edited) I would use something like Photoshop for all those preliminary steps. Resizing is easy, then reduction to 16 colours. You need to make certain to not have more than 2 colours (fg/bg) per 8x8 cell (*) and not have more than 64 different 8x8 patterns in the entire image (**). The later can be tricky, but IntyColor will tell you about all the problems when you run it so you can save as BMP, test the converter, fix problems, resave, convert etc until you're happy. I'm sure most drawing programs can handle resizing, palette mode and hand editing. Turning on the grid at 8x8 pixel mode helps a lot as you get to see where each cell appears. (*) Unless you overlay sprites to get more colour fidelity on selected cells. (**) But sprites also count towards those 64 GRAM patterns. Edited December 26, 2020 by carlsson 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted December 26, 2020 Share Posted December 26, 2020 (edited) I use GIMP for all that. It's open source, free, and rather powerful. It also allows you to re-scale images without absolutely no interpolation filter, which essentially lets you blow up images while retaining their pixelation and color palette. That's some if that Pixelmator (Mac) and Paint.Net (Windows) can't do, which are other graphics programs I use. dZ. Edited December 26, 2020 by DZ-Jay 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vincehood Posted December 27, 2020 Author Share Posted December 27, 2020 Hello, I was aware of Photoshop but GIMP looks indeed like a great open source alternative. Any particular setting to use in GIMP when exporting to BMP? I tried to process a resulting image through Intycolor and get the error message: "Cannot handle compressed input files (codec 0x00000003)" Thanks /Vincent Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted December 27, 2020 Share Posted December 27, 2020 1 minute ago, Vincehood said: Hello, I was aware of Photoshop but GIMP looks indeed like a great open source alternative. Any particular setting to use in GIMP when exporting to BMP? I tried to process a resulting image through Intycolor and get the error message: "Cannot handle compressed input files (codec 0x00000003)" Thanks /Vincent You select the menu File > Export As..., then either select "Windows BMP Image" as the file type, or use the default "By Extension," and give it the extension "BMP". That should work. -dZ. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vincehood Posted December 27, 2020 Author Share Posted December 27, 2020 Thanks. Strange that's what I do. I was wondering however about the advanced options when exporting (see attachment). The IntyColor documentation stipulates that it supports BMP file of 8/24/32 bits. So I kept it to 32 bits Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted December 27, 2020 Share Posted December 27, 2020 (edited) Hmm ... I would imagine that it should just be without Run-Length Encoding. Try with 24 bits, just in case -- I thought that was the maximum depth; but other than that, I don't know why it would fail, sorry. -dZ. Edited December 27, 2020 by DZ-Jay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vincehood Posted December 27, 2020 Author Share Posted December 27, 2020 24 bits did not help. However when I open and re-save the generated 32 BMP with another editing tool such as Pixen or some online tool, it seems to work! Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted December 27, 2020 Share Posted December 27, 2020 21 minutes ago, Vincehood said: 24 bits did not help. However when I open and re-save the generated 32 BMP with another editing tool such as Pixen or some online tool, it seems to work! Thanks That's weird. I've never had trouble opening GIMP-generated BMPs in Windows as any other file. However, I do not use IntyColor, so I don't know what its limitations are regarding the format. Good thing you got it working! :) -dZ. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
First Spear Posted December 29, 2020 Share Posted December 29, 2020 On 12/26/2020 at 12:52 PM, Vincehood said: Hello, I would like to play with "converting" pictures into Intellivision backgrounds. I am familiar with the last leg of the process (with IntyColor to generate the IntyBASIC code). But I would like to hear about your tools recommendations to: - resize pictures - adapt them to the Intellivision colour palette - manual fixing - convert to BMP - (any other step) My environment is Mac OS. If any tutorial exists, even better Thanks! I use Paint Shop Pro by Corel on Windows to images "generally" where I want them. When it comes to converting at the command line for sizing and color changing and conversion at any depth, my play is ImageMagick (https://imagemagick.org/script/download.php). It's been around for so long, most Bingle searches return the right set of command-switches to do whatever you want to do (it someone else has done it before). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vincehood Posted January 1, 2021 Author Share Posted January 1, 2021 GIMP is really great. Some humble attempt that eventually compiles in Intybasic code. Source: https://goo.gl/maps/q45nRXgKmZ5iRkUV8 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted January 1, 2021 Share Posted January 1, 2021 36 minutes ago, Vincehood said: GIMP is really great. Some humble attempt that eventually compiles in Intybasic code. Source: https://goo.gl/maps/q45nRXgKmZ5iRkUV8 Hey, that looks really good! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vincehood Posted January 5, 2021 Author Share Posted January 5, 2021 Another sample. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted January 5, 2021 Share Posted January 5, 2021 37 minutes ago, Vincehood said: Another sample. That's very good. It reminds me of nanochess' Sydney Hunter. -dZ. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vincehood Posted January 6, 2021 Author Share Posted January 6, 2021 10 hours ago, DZ-Jay said: That's very good. It reminds me of nanochess' Sydney Hunter. -dZ. Yes that is completely true. I used Sydney Hunter as inspiration for the stones! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted January 6, 2021 Share Posted January 6, 2021 So ... are you making a game? Have you anything to show (gamewise) so far? :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vincehood Posted January 7, 2021 Author Share Posted January 7, 2021 (edited) no, no, just playing with "static" graphics so far, no gameplay to share (below some teenager contemplating a mobile phone, freely inspired from my own children...) Edited January 7, 2021 by Vincehood 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+nanochess Posted January 7, 2021 Share Posted January 7, 2021 On 1/5/2021 at 2:59 PM, DZ-Jay said: That's very good. It reminds me of nanochess' Sydney Hunter. -dZ. I only made the gameplay, @retroillucid made all the graphics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retroillucid Posted January 7, 2021 Share Posted January 7, 2021 On 1/6/2021 at 2:02 AM, Vincehood said: Yes that is completely true. I used Sydney Hunter as inspiration for the stones! Ah! I'm glad to hear that I'm inspiring others But I think you should try another brick design, so your game will stand out from Sydney 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vincehood Posted January 7, 2021 Author Share Posted January 7, 2021 1 hour ago, retroillucid said: Ah! I'm glad to hear that I'm inspiring others But I think you should try another brick design, so your game will stand out from Sydney I will do so if I do a game! ? This was a fast way to train on background design with some animated details (the torches). I want to practice on scrolling next... need to read more about it, not sure if this aspect is covered in nanochess' book Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
masseo1 Posted February 24, 2021 Share Posted February 24, 2021 @Vincehood Nice job with learning and producing the images. I've had a desire to do the same. I started playing with it last week on Linux, with the gimp on images I created with a 16 color palette. Man, do I really appreciate how difficult it is to keep 2 colors in an 8x8 boundary and have a picture actually look pretty good. I am having some issues with Intycolor thinking Im using too many cards and or colors on some pics. Once I get something discernable I will certainly post here. Bravo to anyone here who understands the difficult work needed to make simple backgrounds, let alone a game. I am probably similar to others on here who have always yearned for creating an intellivision game, but never attempted. I'm going to start with "pretty pictures" to see what the end result could possibly be. Good luck to those who try and thanks to those who have made games in ASM or IntyBasic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vincehood Posted February 27, 2021 Author Share Posted February 27, 2021 On 2/24/2021 at 11:21 PM, masseo1 said: @Vincehood Nice job with learning and producing the images. I've had a desire to do the same. I started playing with it last week on Linux, with the gimp on images I created with a 16 color palette. Man, do I really appreciate how difficult it is to keep 2 colors in an 8x8 boundary and have a picture actually look pretty good. I am having some issues with Intycolor thinking Im using too many cards and or colors on some pics. Once I get something discernable I will certainly post here. Bravo to anyone here who understands the difficult work needed to make simple backgrounds, let alone a game. I am probably similar to others on here who have always yearned for creating an intellivision game, but never attempted. I'm going to start with "pretty pictures" to see what the end result could possibly be. Good luck to those who try and thanks to those who have made games in ASM or IntyBasic. Thanks, yes it takes indeed some patience to satisfy the 2 colours limit per 8x8 card. If some day, someone creates an FPGA Intellivision core, it would be fun if we could design games without this limit (while of course keeping a true Intellivision mode). On the other hand, it is a true factor of satisfaction once you finally manage to compile a good looking picture satisfying the constraint Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vincehood Posted February 27, 2021 Author Share Posted February 27, 2021 (edited) A few recent creations: Edited February 27, 2021 by Vincehood 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted February 27, 2021 Share Posted February 27, 2021 (edited) Looks very nice. :) Now you should work on the color boundaries between cards, to make it look more organic and less "tile-based." A few tricks I've used in the past: Reverse video Aligning the elements in the picture so that the start at precise card boundaries. Exploit color combinations that give the impression of depth. Edited February 27, 2021 by DZ-Jay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vincehood Posted February 27, 2021 Author Share Posted February 27, 2021 4 minutes ago, DZ-Jay said: Looks very nice. Now you should work on the color boundaries between cards, to make it look more organic and less "tile-based." A few tricks I've used in the past: Reverse video Aligning the elements in the picture so that the start at precise card boundaries. Exploit color combinations that give the impression of depth. Thanks! If you have any examples illustrating these patterns, it would be very interesting Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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