Good news for Flash 6- developers: FontLab released FontFlasher, a conversion tool that creates new truetype fonts suited for a fixed size based on an original font’s hinting instructions. This software has been discussed here recently. Although there are similar software packages already released by other companies, this will probably make this kind of conversion more popular.
Ok, here it is: a software to painlessly create so-called pixel or bitmap fonts, SimpleFont. It’s a commercial software and I haven’t tested it already, but some people might be interested. Via Quasimondo.
While we’re on the subject and I’m feeling like Santa Claus on crack, I remembered I had to make public my special ‘pixel’ font template. Well, download it here. You can use it to create TrueType (TTF) based ‘pixel’ fonts, and it’s free for anything as long as it doesn’t include kitten killing. Here’s some needed instructions:
1. Use either FontLab or TypeTool to open the .VFB file. Both share a very similar interface and will produce the same results. Both are commercial software and both have a trial version, too, although FontLab costs $549 and TypeTool costs $99 (and comes with less advanced features). So, yeah, this is only free if you already have one of these tools. Sorry.
2. Set your grid steps (Tools > Options > Glyph) to 256×256. That will ensure that each grid box on your screen is the same than a pixel.
3. Create and edit your letters. Each box on a grid will make one pixel, when the font is used at size 8, so just draw squares like there’s no tomorrow! It’s pretty easy, though, both FL and TT has some nice boolean drawing tools which makes ‘bitmap’ font creation amazingly easy.
4. Flash has a rendering problem which makes small fonts be filled when their interiors are too small. To avoid this, you have to make sure the “hollow” parts of the font aren’t real holes (they will look like they are). On the font sample you download, check the ‘B’ glyph. Zoom it to the maximum, and check the part in with the medium horizontal line touches the outer archs. You’ll notice a small diagonal gap of exactly two points. You need a space at least this big to make sure the font’s won’t get filled and render like ink blots (I learnt this trick from the guy from AtomicMedia.net some 4 years ago, although I don’t think he has this on his site anymore).
5. Remember to change the font name and information before release.
Cool, huh? I think so. And I’m not even a communist.
PS: It’s important to note this template file was created solely by me and not copied and/or modified from any other source. I actually went through hell to get this font’s metrics to work correctly – even though in the end they’re pretty simple dumb numbers – and I think the result is satisfactory enough to let it be released like this. Comments and critics are appreciated, though.
Update: Brew just pointed out on the comments that the AtomicMedia.net article I mentioned is mirrored at UltraShock in all its glory. More than being an article on font fixing, it’s an article that teachs how to create pixel fonts on a Fontographer. Pretty cool.
I’d like to point that I disagree with the way the no-fill solution is done, however; I like to make “open” fonts myself (see step 4, above), and keep the vertical and horizontal lines straight on the grid, leaving only a single diagonal opening on one single. Both solutions have the same result on its minimal (ideal) font size, but since there’s a bigger modification on the color weight, bigger path modifications such as moving one entire vertical line will produce errors earlier on greater sizes. That’s a really good article and a breakthrough when it was published, but use caution when doing the no-fill fix.
FuhQuake 0.3 – the new version of the definitive QuakeWorld client – has finally been released.
For some odd reason, I – literally – woke up today and visited mozilla.org to check their latest browser incarnation, Firebird. I had heard a bit about this new browser – most notably Jonas Galvez comments and softwaregod Joel Sposky’s opinnion – but I wasn’t really thrilled to test it. I’ve been a diehard Netscape user for quite sometime – my browser lineage goes like this: Mosaic, Netscape 1, Netscape 2, Netscape 3, Internet Explorer 3, Internet Explorer 4, Netscape 4, Internet Explorer 5 – but I have gave up long ago on the whole browser issue and selected MS’s beast for speed and compatibility’s sake. I had tried Netscape 5+ and some Mozilla releases, but dismissed them as mere pieces of bloat software with a mere resemblance to what Netscape once was.
So I decided to try Firebird today and, to my surprise, they’ve really pulled a good browser with this one. There are some new features, yes, such as the ability to use tabbed browsing or whatever – but that’s not the case. For me, more than new features, the most important aspect is that Firebird didn’t blow my browsing experience down the drill. It’s fast, it doesn’t have weird skins installed as default (as a designer, I prefer a neutral field of vision when browsing and working), it has many of the good features that Internet Explorer has, and also has the features that made Netscape my favorite for ages (Ctrl+U — eat that source obfuscators!). Also, it’s only 6mb.
I tested this browser for one day and I’m pretty surprised and satisfied with it. It has its little quircks (why pop-up blocking only has a “non-block” list, and not the other way around?), but it’s showing it has the guts to compete on the browser market (for users which select their browser anyway) seriously. Score a point for the free world.
Mike Chambers from Macromedia has a new poll at his site, asking what’s your videogame console of choice. It’s a demonstration of the pollster component, available at Macromedia’s Developer Resource Kit CD release 4.
I’ve modified the internal RDF 1.0 template so it won’t include news items with no “Flash” category in it anymore. This way it won’t add misc/general items to MXNA‘s Flash category and contribute to the flood of off-topic articles. A full RDF feed will still be at this new location.
Today – June 15th – is Famicom‘s 20th anniversary, as it was made obvious by Nintendo and the release of the new GBA SP weird-famicom-color edition. Famicom – short for Family Computer – was the first “third generation” game console. It was later released on the western world as the NES – Nintendo Entertainment System – and the rest, like they say, is history.
I remember back in the day when all my neighbours had this weird, toy-looking game console – they were all of Japanese heritage and had relatives in Japan, from where they could send the latest electronic gadgets years before it hit the western market – while I was the only one around with a local clone of the american NES console. We had such a mixed console market that we needed all kinds of 60-72 pins adapters to be able to exchange games with each other. Those were the days.
Update: here’s a really special link about this date, via rednuht.org.
Jonas Galvez – brazilian Flash developer and Macromedia Team member – has opened his blog, in brazilian portuguese and english flavors.
Jonas has been writing articles and news posts at OnRelease.org, but finally decided to create a place of his own. Also worth mentioning is the page design (and way cool illustration) by Irapuan Martinez.
While there are no other news, here’s something to entertain the masses. More hilarious than the Zelda/Link music movie, at least to people who can recognize the games.
That guy is insane, by the way. Check his other Flash movies.