Bitmap Object help?

How do I...?
1

Is there a way to…

Make a 3 * 5 pixel font? and implement it into Gdevelop?

Because/Context

I am making a game with a low resolution because it is pixel perfect. (256*144). But the one drawback about this, is I cant use text objects, which is important because I need a dialogue system. But I recently found out about the bitmap text object. I have been searching for a way to make FNT files and PNG files, but I cant find a way to make them.

Do keep in mind

I want actual 3 * 5 letters. Not a “big” font that just looks like a 3 * 5.

2

In the documentation for the BitmapText object are a few suggestions for editors that can generate the atlas image and the fnt-file. Bitmap Text - GDevelop documentation

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I have looked at them and…

snowB. Looks VERY blurry when trying to set to a low resolution.

bmFont. Same as above

bmGlyph. Is only available for Mac

Hiero. Doesn’t seem to have pixel support.

4

I use bmFont and it is pixel perfect. Something must not have been right with the settings. Which is understandable because there are a lot of them… took me a lot of guessing to get there and I still don’t think I did it completely right.

I couldn’t figure out how to actually export the atlas image so I just took a screenshot of the preview… so yeah it’s a pain but it can be done

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Can you give me a screenshot of your settings? Any pixel perfect is better than no pixel perfect I guess.

6

Hopefully magicsofa can provide their settings for a pixel-perfect font in bmFont.

I checked snowB and I understand what the problem is for the small pixel size. A workaround could be to get the atlas-image with the blurry characters and paint them over in Piskel or any other art-software. An advantage of snowB is that it exports the fnt- and png- file together.

7

I found out I could paint text characters in this website called Fontstruct. I can export them into BMfont as a font and then do all the work from there.

I still want magicsofa’s settings just in case though.

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8

The smallest font size you can have with a 3x5 font is size 8 (because spacing/gaps need to be taken into account)

I just tested with a 3x5 font (3 by 5 Pixel Font | FontStruct) on snowb.org and it works fine

image
image698×697 4.48 KB

If you’re having blurry images, then you may be either A: using something smaller than the real font size possible on a 3x5 font, B: have odd settings on snowb, or C: may be previewing at a non-integer zoom on either SnowB or in your game (which will make any small pixel font or image have subpixel rendering).

This is my snowB setting, but the only thing you should ever have to do is ensure Sharp is set to 100%

image
image240×916 17.7 KB

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9

Sure thing, here’s what I did for an 8px high font:

bmfontSettings
bmfontSettings917×651 36.9 KB

And the build settings in bitFontMaker2:

bitfontmakerSettings

To make the atlas image I just cut the preview out of a screenshot, then remove the background and cell markers (so just white glyphs on transparent)

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