Thelen Posted February 2, 2022 Share Posted February 2, 2022 (edited) Since being busy with the A8 machines (again, and having some time for it), I looked for a tool to design Antic mode 4 charactersets/screens -and I couldn't find one for mac users. I decided that it would be nice and fun to make a new Tool, which would work on WINDOWS and MAC (most of the time I use OSX). In the first place I made a basic editor, with a editable chararcterset,basic colors and a 40x24 characterscreen. Later I thought how I could use it as best, and decided to add some more functionallity in it (because I'm thinking of making a new A8 game, so it would ease the making of it). Right now the tool has the following features: Create a characterset, export characterset to asm, Make a screen 40x24 and export it to asm. Create from characters mutiple tilesets, save and export them. Make a tilebased screen and export them. Use multiple colors onscreen by generating displaylist interupts and export it. Well, I thought it would be nice to share this tool, maybe somebody else also can make a use of it. If you're interested, you can watch my little tutorial on using this tool( the Youtube underneath). And I'm sorry, I'm not a very practised English speaker ?. One last thing I forgot to mention in the video is that in tilesetmode tilesets can be earased by a right click on it. Also there are two Zip files, one for Windows and one for MacOS with the Mario files I demonstrated. Let's hope there aren't that much bugggs to be found ... If you've created something with it, it would be nice to see or hear it ? Tutorial (I'm to lazy to write a manual): https://youtu.be/fFu4Zt4NtUo Mode4 Windows.zip Mode4 MacOS.zip Edited February 2, 2022 by Thelen 14 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsom Posted February 2, 2022 Share Posted February 2, 2022 Very cool! Downloaded and tried on my MacBook Pro M1 Max. Seems to run fine, though I run in dark mode, so some of the screens are a little hard to read. Good job! This will be fun to play with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+bhall408 Posted February 4, 2022 Share Posted February 4, 2022 Thanks alot! I do all my development on Mac with ca65 and cc65 -- looking forward to giving this a try. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted February 4, 2022 Share Posted February 4, 2022 I will definately check it out. Been wanting to get back into 8-bit game development, so any tools to make the job easier are much appreciated :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ascrnet Posted February 5, 2022 Share Posted February 5, 2022 Good job, I reviewed it quickly and it is very easy to use especially when you want to make DLI's on the screen. ? Could a linux version be made?? Regards Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Cafeman Posted February 5, 2022 Share Posted February 5, 2022 This seems a lot more modern than the otherwise great Antic4.exe app I always used, now I have to run it in Dosbox which is a pain. Can you import charsets that werent created using this same tool? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+bhall408 Posted February 5, 2022 Share Posted February 5, 2022 11 hours ago, Cafeman said: This seems a lot more modern than the otherwise great Antic4.exe app I always used, now I have to run it in Dosbox which is a pain. Can you import charsets that werent created using this same tool? I was wondering the same thing -- I have a few Antic4 sets I'd import and improve if that were the case. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tuxon86 Posted February 5, 2022 Share Posted February 5, 2022 This is really great! I've an iMac, I'll try it out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thelen Posted February 6, 2022 Author Share Posted February 6, 2022 (edited) Thanks for the kind words everybody ? On 2/5/2022 at 4:00 PM, bhall408 said: I was wondering the same thing -- I have a few Antic4 sets I'd import and improve if that were the case. In the early 2000's (2002/2003) I also used Antic4..It was great! Since I'm more back in programming and Atari again, I thought about making a new game, but was missing tools as a(nowadays) Mac user. Using Dosbox or Virtualbox with Win-XP to use the old(but great!) Antic4 software wasn't the best option for me. It would be nice indeed to import the Antic4 files. If I remember correctly, there was a txt/readme with the Antic4 app which described the fileformat it used. Does anybody have that txt file? Nice feature to add. Edited February 6, 2022 by Thelen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Cafeman Posted February 6, 2022 Share Posted February 6, 2022 1 hour ago, Thelen said: t would be nice indeed to import the Antic4 files. If I remember correctly, there was a txt/readme with the Antic4 app which described the fileformat it used. Does anybody have that txt file? Nice feature to add. Is this what you need? ANTIC4 File Format ------------------ Bytes Format Purpose ----- ------ ------- [Version 1.00-1.22] 4 Text Version "x.xx" 1 Binary Antic mode (always 4 right now) 960 Binary Screen image (40x24, stored row by row as char 0-255) 17476 Binary Character set (8738 words, stored high byte 1st) 0-33=34 bytes each*257=8738 5 Binary Chosen palette colors (5, range for each color 0-254, evens) 2 Binary Primary/secondary drawing colors (0-254 evens) 1 Binary Selected palette color (0-254 evens) 2 Binary Primary/secondary drawing characters (0-255) [Version 2.00-2.02] 1 Binary Selected line (0-23) 115 Binary Chosen palette colors for lines 2-23 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thelen Posted February 6, 2022 Author Share Posted February 6, 2022 52 minutes ago, Cafeman said: Is this what you need? Thakns, yes! I tried to understand this one: 17476 Binary Character set (8738 words, stored high byte 1st) 0-33=34 bytes each*257=8738 hmmm, don''t really understand the 34 bytes*257? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Cafeman Posted February 6, 2022 Share Posted February 6, 2022 I don't know how to read one of the xxx.ANT records that ANTIC4.EXE uses, but here is one example and its produced ASM file. In the ASM file, other than the colors info, 128 rows of 8 bytes each for the character set. 120 rows of 8 bytes each for the actual drawn Antic4 screen (960 bytes). KEYTST.ASM KEY.ANT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thelen Posted February 7, 2022 Author Share Posted February 7, 2022 Thanks, I've been looking in a Hex editor, and I think I get it ? Later this week I've hopefully had some time to do a update. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thelen Posted February 8, 2022 Author Share Posted February 8, 2022 On 2/5/2022 at 2:17 AM, ascrnet said: Could a linux version be made?? I will take a look at that ? It was a nice challenge to find out how the .ant files stored the data (screen data was easy). I even installed Antic4.exe to make small changes to .ant files to see how and where the characters/colorsbits are stored in a Hex editor. Eventueally I managed to load it in Mode4, with beneath image as result. Later this week I will add this feature to the mode4 GUI and will upload the new version. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dely Posted February 8, 2022 Share Posted February 8, 2022 Great tool, good job! I would ask for an option to allow loading regular FNT files (as they appear in Atari memory - example attached). Thanks! skrfont.fnt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thelen Posted February 9, 2022 Author Share Posted February 9, 2022 Updated the mode4 app to v1.1: added support to load .ANT files made with the Antic4.exe software. At the load/save/prefs tab you can do the import. Was fun to do, checked my old .ANT files from years ago ? 21 hours ago, dely said: Great tool, good job! I would ask for an option to allow loading regular FNT files (as they appear in Atari memory - example attached). Thanks! skrfont.fnt 1 kB · 1 download Thanks! Good idea, do you also have a font/charset for mode 4 which I can use as an example? This font is for Antic 2 (basic gr.0) ? Mode4 Mac 1.1.zip Mode4 Win v1.1.zip 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dely Posted February 11, 2022 Share Posted February 11, 2022 Of course. Here is charset from my game. I would appreciate it if you could add the possibility of uploading these types of files. level_01.fnt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Cafeman Posted February 11, 2022 Share Posted February 11, 2022 I loaded my early and mid 2000‘s ANT files and screens and it worked fine! However, there was a revision to the antic4 program in 2010 where he added some extra stuff like DLI color changes. My files using this version load all screwed up so there must be a difference. Still looking at it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thelen Posted February 11, 2022 Author Share Posted February 11, 2022 10 hours ago, dely said: Of course. Here is charset from my game. I would appreciate it if you could add the possibility of uploading these types of files. level_01.fnt 1 kB · 0 downloads Thanks! I will get back on this ? 5 hours ago, Cafeman said: I loaded my early and mid 2000‘s ANT files and screens and it worked fine! However, there was a revision to the antic4 program in 2010 where he added some extra stuff like DLI color changes. My files using this version load all screwed up so there must be a difference. Still looking at it. Ah, I don't have any files from the updated app. Could you please sent me some .Ant files which are using this update to check on this? And if possible, the updated Antic4 app. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dely Posted February 12, 2022 Share Posted February 12, 2022 On 2/11/2022 at 6:58 PM, Thelen said: Thanks! I will get back on this Can't wait. Cheers! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thelen Posted February 14, 2022 Author Share Posted February 14, 2022 Updated the mode 4 tool to v1.2 *Added loading and saving of .fnt files (in the characterset section) @dely *Added support for v2 Antic4 .ANT files with DLI @Cafeman Let me know if there's still something buggy/wrong...or good Mode4 1.2 Mac.zip Mode4 1.2 Win.zip 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dely Posted February 19, 2022 Share Posted February 19, 2022 Loading FNT files works great. However, I have a problem. I load a file with character definition, then the screen content (960 bytes) - and in the Screen and Character tabs everything disappears. Attaching the font and scr files. Thanks. l01.fnt l01.scr Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thelen Posted February 19, 2022 Author Share Posted February 19, 2022 53 minutes ago, dely said: Loading FNT files works great. However, I have a problem. I load a file with character definition, then the screen content (960 bytes) - and in the Screen and Character tabs everything disappears. Attaching the font and scr files. Thanks. l01.fnt 1 kB · 1 download l01.scr 960 B · 1 download Ah, didn't knew about the .scr files ? I will add that ? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Cafeman Posted February 19, 2022 Share Posted February 19, 2022 I still haven’t had time to use the newest version, but I intend to soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Cafeman Posted February 20, 2022 Share Posted February 20, 2022 It loaded an ANTIC4.ANT file from the 2010 version of ANTIC4. I'm still learning my way around the Mode4 app. 1. Do I need to individually save the screen as a file, and the Charset as its own file, every time I change something? 2. Are there any copy/paste features on the screen view, or on the charset view? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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