Reusable graphic assets

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Dbug
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Reusable graphic assets

Post by Dbug »

Hello,

some time ago Jede started a discussion about storing things like fonts in the SVN repository so anyone could easily reuse them.

He added one of the times of lore fonts, but honestly I don't think it's the way to go, simply because out of context and without explanation and trial and error there's no way you can find out how to use it.

You can check yourself there:
http://miniserve.defence-force.org/svn/ ... s_of_lore/

What I propose instead, is to follow a variant of this idea. I made an example using my Assembly 2002 demo's font:
http://miniserve.defence-force.org/svn/ ... rsets/6x8/

The idea is the following:
- each font should be in a folder related to the actual size. Most things like the system font replacements would be in the 6x8 folder, but if you are doing some typography that uses bigger characters or characters that looks cool in Hires (like some fancy 12x20 Gothic charset) just go ahead and put it in a folder called 12x20. This way it's easier to find out the font based on your needs.
- fonts should not just be dumped in text or binary format: It should be possible see easily what the font look like, and it should be easy to create variants or new fonts based on old fonts. So for this reason I ask people to please put a picture that show what the font looks like.
- it should be easy to use from code, and the best storage is the linear format, that's why my font picture is 6x768 pixels.
- the font should be accompanied by a small text file that explains basic information like who made the font, where it was used, how many characters it contains, and if it's a tricky one how to use it from C or assembler.
- and finally all the files should have the same name so it's easy to find out what belongs to what.

If I was expecting us to have hundreds of fonts I would instead recommend to use sub-folders, but let be honest: it's not going to happen :)

You're welcome about commenting on this sample and making suggestions on how to improve the system. The only rationale is that it should not just be a dump of binary files and have people try to figure out how the font looks like.