PCE Image Converter

[touko]

Hi, a guy named beddy made a bmp to pce images converter .

You can see the last beta here :
gamopat-forum.com/t66680-version-alpha-010-image2pce

Sorry, it's a french forum, but no translation is needed ,pictures speak for themselves.

somanybits.com/i2pce/download.html
somanybits.com/download/i2pce/I2PCE_0_1_91.zip

[Arkhan Asylum]

Well that's cute.  I'm glad they used Shadow of the Beast for the examples.


Might have to give that a shot.  I'm assuming it's similar to the command line ones that are floating around.

[TurboXray]

That looks reallly promising!

[_Paul]

If this works I wanna make a digital comic!

[touko]

If this works I wanna make a digital comic!

Yes it works, we made some tests for a final release .

Might have to give that a shot.  I'm assuming it's similar to the command line ones that are floating around.

In a large way, yes we can say that .
You can choose here how many bg subpalette you want spend,and choose the dithering level .

You can also dithering only selected zone .

original image :


auto converted


dithered:


select your zone for fine dithering:


And you have your final image, and at pce format directly


You have 3 output bin files.
tiles datas
bat
and palette(s) .

[OldRover]

No download links?

[NecroPhile]

What happened to the stone peaks in the fine dithering step?  The square edged, solid colors are pretty ugly.

[Nando]

oh wow, very nice!

[ccovell]

Looks very good and what many people have wanted.  I hope you can select BAT sizes up to 1024x512 as the hardware allows.

[Arkhan Asylum]

I hope you can select BAT sizes up to 1024x512 as the hardware allows.

That would be glorious.   We need that.

[TurboXray]

Yeah, 1024x512 would be nice. Also, what about a mode that uses pseudo 8x4, 8x2, and 8x1 subpalette format? Instead of the 8x8 format. It's still 8x8, but you use hsync to reposition the tilemap, on the same set of tiles but a different subpalettes. More color freedom, at the expensive of some vram for a larger tilemap.

[FraGMarE]

THE DIGITIZER EVER

[touko]

this tool is not yet finished, and there are some artifacts(bugs) sometime, and this is why no download is available .

And yes the bat is selectionable,but for now i don't know if it is for a huge bat like 1024x512 ..

This exemple is for a 40000+ colors picture, i don't think we need to convert so many colors for games bgs .

[fratzengeballer]

Looks really helpful and promising, hopefully the bugs can be wiped out and we will have a nice converter. Great work

[touko]

Download available for testing  . 

http://somanybits.com/i2pce/download.html

[OldRover]

This is pretty damn awesome.

[OldRover]

Code Select Expand

Image2PCE 0.1.8 - Export date : 20/02/2014 23:04:54
BAT.bin 1280 bytes
PAL.bin 32000 bytes
DATA.bin 512 bytes
-------------------------
BAT Size 32x20 Tiles -> 256x160 Pixels
16 palettes used.
It kind of got PAL.bin and DATA.bin's file sizes backwards. Also, DATA.bin was listed as twice as large as it really is. Other than that, so far so good, it seems. The log is just a minor detail.

[ccovell]

Touko, a cool program!  I just tried it out.   The optimizing algorithms seem woefully inefficient (couldn't remap a 39-colour image even to the PCE's 241 palette spaces) so I suppose a slider that can adjust between blockiness <---> colour loss might help us.

Also: 30 % PCE Color (what's that?)
Trame ?
Also, how does the program (we?) choose which colour in the image is the BG colour?  I usually use magenta, and there are 2 magentas in each palette.

[Tatsujin]

Well that's cute.  I'm glad they used Shadow of the Beast for the examples.

where do you see SotB? I only see agony

[Tatsujin]

wow..this is amazing..I've tried several arcade screenshots between 1985 and 1990, and most of them could be displayed almost unchanged.

I've also tried sonic the hedgehog and it looks even a tad nicer ;)

[touko]

thanks for testing ..

eh nothing is perfect  , i will send to bebby the list of bugs.

[fratzengeballer]

I just has a quick look and the test graphics I tried look the way I would likw to have them on screen. Nice work, keep going and a big thank you

[OldRover]

Yeah touko, this is a pretty sweet app so far. I like that you can specify the number of palettes it's allowed to use... that helps for making things like digital comics where it's useful to have one palette set aside for text displays.

[touko]

Yeah touko, this is a pretty sweet app so far. I like that you can specify the number of palettes it's allowed to use... that helps for making things like digital comics where it's useful to have one palette set aside for text displays.

Of course, i knew that the idea of ​​choosing the number of subpalette to use was good, i had in mind more a backgrounds tool than just a single bitmap converter,because in a game, you don't need to spend all your 16 subpalettes on a single background . . 

[TurboXray]

Nice job! Works pretty great. It beats out Pro Motion 6.5, 9 times out of 10. An option to be able to set what the max number of colors per tile, would be great. Instead of using all 16, sometimes sorting algorithms get better results when max tile color of 14 and 13. And usually no perceivable detail is lost.

 BTW: I took the image output of this app and ran it back through my own sorting app (though mine is lossless, so it doesn't reduce anything color wise):

pcedev.net/j2pce/pic1.png
pcedev.net/j2pce/pic2.png

 Pic1 is mine, pic2 is the new app (the source image is from both though, so the new app did the reduction). I was able to squeeze the subpalettes from 16 down to 13.

 I usually do this anyway (with Pro motion, quither, etc); two stage process. One app does the reduction and then I re-run through my app to see if I can get the subpalettes crunched smaller.

 Edit: My sorting algo is pretty simple, if you guys want to implement it. Though it can be processing intensive at times.

[ccovell]

Of course, i knew that the idea of ​​choosing the number of subpalette to use was good, i had in mind more a backgrounds tool than just a single bitmap converter,because in a game, you don't need to spend all your 16 subpalettes on a single background . . 

And choosing the starting subpalette (ie: pals 10-13) would be very useful too, otherwise you have to edit all tiles in the BAT manually.

I found that right-clicking in the PCE palettes window shows boxes that note which subpalette is assigned to which tiles.  Very useful, but more useful would be if you could DEFINE which range of tiles use which subpalette, thereby forcing the palette-generating program to work a little smarter.

example: I loaded in some sprites from my game, and they use only 2 subpalettes (31 colours maximum) with the tiles from each subpalette strictly cordoned off... but still your image converter wanted to generate 6 subpalettes total!!

[OldRover]

I'm just glad that they will be able to keep improving this, as this is an awesome start. I'm kind of curious as to why it doesn't have BMP support... one of the easiest file formats to parse. Not a huge issue, just a curiosity. The "CRT Emul" option in the "PCE Render" tab is nice... that was an interesting and useful addition.

[touko]

And choosing the starting subpalette (ie: pals 10-13) would be very useful too, otherwise you have to edit all tiles in the BAT manually.

ah yes you're right 

I'm kind of curious as to why it doesn't have BMP support... one of the easiest file formats to parse. Not a huge issue, just a curiosity

I don't know, but i'll ask him .

[beddy]

Hi !

Tks Touko to talk about Image2PCE et tks everyone for your comments.
I have to correct some bugs. Sometimes, There is colors duplicated in the same pallet. It also has artefacts(square effect) on certain tiles but I should be able to fix that soon.

Now, I am going you to tell it more about me :

When I was adolescent I coded a lot in assembler on C64 and Amiga.
I discovered the PCE only 1 year ago by a friend. He spoke to me with so much passion that about it I was conquered by this machine. At this moment, I decided to develop tools for this generation of machine. My first work is PEA. It is a multi-assembler multi-platform structures but I would return above later. The second work and Image2PCE.

I am not truth coder on PCE yet, and I can understand that Image2PCE is not completed. That is why don't hesitate to ask for evolutions. I shall try to do the best.

Have a good day !

Eddy

 
Eddy

[beddy]

Touko, a cool program!  I just tried it out.   The optimizing algorithms seem woefully inefficient (couldn't remap a 39-colour image even to the PCE's 241 palette spaces) so I suppose a slider that can adjust between blockiness <---> colour loss might help us.

Also: 30 % PCE Color (what's that?)
Trame ?
Also, how does the program (we?) choose which colour in the image is the BG colour?  I usually use magenta, and there are 2 magentas in each palette.

ccovell, (30 % PCE Color (what's that?)) is not active yet ;) It'll an indicator for converter computing.  I'm gonna use the maximum of cpu of the computer to make the conversion.

Trame will be active on the next version.
Original

PCE Color (No Trame)

PCE Color (With Trame)


You right about slider lock to 241 colors. I'll will optimize this part later too.

[beddy]

Code Select Expand

Image2PCE 0.1.8 - Export date : 20/02/2014 23:04:54
BAT.bin 1280 bytes
PAL.bin 32000 bytes
DATA.bin 512 bytes
-------------------------
BAT Size 32x20 Tiles -> 256x160 Pixels
16 palettes used.
It kind of got PAL.bin and DATA.bin's file sizes backwards. Also, DATA.bin was listed as twice as large as it really is. Other than that, so far so good, it seems. The log is just a minor detail.

Arrhhh! Dammed, I gonna fix that ! tks !

[beddy]

Yeah touko, this is a pretty sweet app so far. I like that you can specify the number of palettes it's allowed to use... that helps for making things like digital comics where it's useful to have one palette set aside for text displays.

Sure, I gonna do that !

[beddy]

I'm just glad that they will be able to keep improving this, as this is an awesome start. I'm kind of curious as to why it doesn't have BMP support... one of the easiest file formats to parse. Not a huge issue, just a curiosity. The "CRT Emul" option in the "PCE Render" tab is nice... that was an interesting and useful addition.

The Old Rover : The reason is simple, the standard java api don't The function from java api I'm using doesn't support this format. I gonna see what can i do for bmp files.

[beddy]

I'm just glad that they will be able to keep improving this, as this is an awesome start. I'm kind of curious as to why it doesn't have BMP support... one of the easiest file formats to parse. Not a huge issue, just a curiosity. The "CRT Emul" option in the "PCE Render" tab is nice... that was an interesting and useful addition.

The Old Rover : The reason is simple, the standard java api don't The function from java api I'm using doesn't support this format. I gonna see what can i do for bmp files.

I saw, you right is very simple. If you want, I can implement bmp reader The bmp files will supported on the next version. Format supported on next release :

• JPEG
• PNG
• BMP
• WBMP
• GIF

[touko]

Eh i'am glad to see you here, you can talk of your tool better than me ;-) .

[TurboXray]

So there's gonna be support for XOR pattern dither? Oouuu :3

 How hard is it to great GUI apps in java?

[beddy]

So there's gonna be support for XOR pattern dither? Oouuu :3

 How hard is it to great GUI apps in java?

No bad ! I'm using NetBean to create my GUI.

[ccovell]

Trame will be active on the next version.

Oh, so "Trame" is French for dithering (halftone / XOR dither)?

Can I request an option that Image2PCE does NO colour remapping?  I load in a 16-colour image file that has a correct palette already and in the correct order; I don't want it removing or altering any colours in the original image, only to make a MAP and remove duplicate tiles.

Also, right now I'm testing out a 1024x512 map and the tile data is 50% garbage...  :-(

[Arkhan Asylum]

How hard is it to great GUI apps in java?

the netbeans GUI dropper makes it easy (read: sane).

I haven't really tested / messed with this yet (working on Atlantean!)...

but I think I'll give it a go for some of the stuff in Atlantean, when the time comes.   By then, whatever you guys have spotted should be sorted out.

[beddy]

Trame will be active on the next version.

Oh, so "Trame" is French for dithering (halftone / XOR dither)?

Can I request an option that Image2PCE does NO colour remapping?  I load in a 16-colour image file that has a correct palette already and in the correct order; I don't want it removing or altering any colours in the original image, only to make a MAP and remove duplicate tiles.

Also, right now I'm testing out a 1024x512 map and the tile data is 50% garbage...  :-(

I'll will change name of "trame" with "halftone".

I tested 1024x512 and the problem from the memory of my vdc emulator.

1024x512 -> 128x64 tiles and if all tiles are differents size is 128*32*64 = 262144 bytes (it's over the VRAM size). May be is wrong because I'm not really awake ;)

How can resolve this point ? Where is my mistake ? Tks

I gonna see about remapping colors

[ccovell]

Yes, but AFTER tile optimization, the number of unique tiles can possibly be below the limit for a map of that size (49152 bytes, or 1536 unique tiles), so the "remove duplicate tiles" feature should not be within the constraints of PCE memory.

[beddy]

Yes, but AFTER tile optimization, the number of unique tiles can possibly be below the limit for a map of that size (49152 bytes, or 1536 unique tiles), so the "remove duplicate tiles" feature should not be within the constraints of PCE memory.

I save only optimisation of tiles. I gonna do before to put in the VRAM of my VDC emulator. I'm know sometime i'm stupid ;)

Tks ;)

[TurboXray]

Even if the results aren't perfect, your app allows me to get to where I can edit out the errors manually:

Original from Image2PCE
pcedev.net/pics/misc/girl_org.png

Tweaked manually, afterwards
pcedev.net/pics/misc/girl.png

Test rom: pcedev.net/pics/misc/girl.zip

[shubibiman]

I can't wait for a new Girls of Hawai to be released :p

[touko]

eh tom, not bad at all ...

[beddy]

Even if the results aren't perfect, your app allows me to get to where I can edit out the errors manually:

Original from Image2PCE
/girl_org.png

Tweaked manually, afterwards
/girl.png

Test rom: /girl.zip

Well done ! I gonna do all is possible to improve the conversion ;)

[esteban]

I can't wait for a new Girls of Hawai to be released :p

ASIDE: ha!

RESUME SERIOUS DISCUSSION....

[beddy]

I'm working on the next release and I can tell you the 1024x512 is working ;)

Not gfx data optimized :


Gfx data optimized :

[NightWolve]

Great work, beddy! Plenty of people here that would be thankful for something like this and make good use of it for homebrew or hacks.

Tweaked manually, afterwards
/girl.png
Test rom: /girl.zip

Ah, see, like this, Tom made good use of it already! Heh. That's the spirit!

[beddy]

tks ;)

And in the next release you'll have a VRAM Monitor ;)