Other fonts

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IL-2 1-vs-1 Closed Pit

[BabaLooey]

Ther are two folders with TTF fonts:

D:\Ka-50\BlackShark\themes\fonts
D:\Ka-50\luagui5\themes\fonts

File themes\main\Theme.lua desctibes the theme. Can a font be added here?

[ZaltysZ]

..\Ka-50\FUI\Fonts\... I think these are for rendering text in 3D world (in flight). They are in pairs (tga and txt).

Txt seems to contain code (in hex) of symbol and coordinates of it in tga. Currently there are only latin and cyrillic characters. By making new tga and txt we could expand it for more languages. I don't know if supported size of tga is technically limited. If not, it would be good idea to make universal font.

Further, if you launch network game and try to type in chat something that is not in English or Russian, you will see that other characters aren't displayed. For example "Grįžti" will be shown as "Grti". I've submited that as bug to ED. Maybe they will provide new fonts with patch... and we won't have to make new ones.

[BabaLooey]

Yup, schema for fonts roughly corresponds that used in LO - txt contains coordinates of character and its width in pixels of that TGA.

Boberros did more experimenting in regards to TGA fonts for DCS, but I hope that by tweaking the DCS settings we could use Windows TTF fonts, or those DejaVu fonts installed.
TGA font has some benefits, primary being that you do not have to adjust its size as it is automatically adjusted relatively to your screen size. TTF fonts are not "stretched" in-game - at least not in this game - and once you define their size in pixels it is fixed as pixels of your screen.

[Boberros]

About TGA fonts. Each TGA font must have addictional TXT which define chars, size, xy position, and char code. Each TXT has table with number of chars containing in TXT and TGA. To add Polish non-standard chars as ć ń ł ą ect I had to do:

1 - Open font you wanna to edit, I edited font_default.txt and font_default.tga (it is one font)
2 - Edit TXT file which you have to be careful with:

256 256 <--- image size (256x256 px)
245         <--- amount of chars (if u add example 20, you have to add 20 to default value)
0x0020   0   0   4   16
0x0021   16   0   3   16
[...]

0x0020 <--- codepoint for this char
0 0        <--- char position from x and y
4 16      <--- size of char - width and height

3 - Edit TGA remembering about Alpha Channel. Each TGA has addictional Alpha Channel which must be re-edited to see correct chars. I don't know what programs you're using to edit graphics, but I used and my advice is to use Photoshop.

Links:

http://people.w3.org/rishida/scripts/uniview/<--- excellent site to figure fonts codes, Unicodes, HTMl, ect

That's all as far I remember. If I remind something helpful I post it here.

[BabaLooey]

OK, today I tested properly. Fonts in intro/menus are OK, but later in game without CRO characters. Same thing in MPlayer...

If editig TGA is th eonly solution, that it is rather--- crap. We have to find a file that assigns fonts and tweak it.

[ZaltysZ]

Why it is crap? Program is only needed to be written for automatic forming of new tga and txt by choosing wanted font and size.

[BabaLooey]

Why it is crap? Program is only needed to be written for automatic forming of new tga and txt by choosing wanted font and size.

Well, I do not know how to do that

[Boberros]

Well Babalui if it would be so easy to make *.ttf fonts working also in-game mode so why ED didn't do this? Hmmm maybe it is so easy , or it is too complicated due of engine, or due of their laziness . Who knows but we can try this.

About this program, I think it is difficult to write something like this, even if it is possible won't be it faster to write letters manually?

[BabaLooey]

Because TTF fonts are hard to fix inside of the game, regaring to their size (varies in respect to monitor size and resolution), and I think there is an issue with the width, but not sure. With TGA font you can define size in pixels, but it will be fixed size on every monitor resolution.

Actually, now that think again about what ZaltysZ said - I beleive there are some apps to manipulate with TGA fonts, but can't remember now. Anway, if you have to fix 1-2 fonts, then it is not worth the trouble (maybe?), but if you have 50 fonts--- I do not beelive that those ED guys painted one by one char all this years

[Boberros]

Check Fontrast application. It does similar like ED's default fonts Maybe it is this ;]

[BabaLooey]

Yeah! It was something liek that! Actually, I think that I've tried several of those, but there was something else that made me gave up on this approach... Maybe the alpha channel was not compatible? Dunno, will search my archive...

PS: Found this tools, one of them was rather good, but each had some problem...
http://www.codehead.co.uk/cbfg/
http://www.angelcode.com/products/bmfont/
http://www.lmnopc.com/bitmapfontbuilder/
http://www.pixelperceptions.com/index.php?id=home
http://www.linux-games.com/sfont/

Also, I think there is a way to create such font using some 3D app? Like gmax?

[ZaltysZ]

Tomorrow I will try to write some code to assist us in making these TGAs.

< ------         ------ >
  spojene poruke
< ------         ------ >

Update:

http://www.ipix.lt/images/94190767.png

This is automatically generated font of characters from 32 to 1000. I will try to finish program today and submit for testing.

[Boberros]

Wow, can you do exactly as is in DCS? I mean app does TXT with:

char_code x y w h

?

[ZaltysZ]

Yes

[Boberros]

 

[BabaLooey]

(...)
I will try to finish program today and submit for testing.

WOW!!! ED is realy missing some serious guys