News:

Printed Amstrad Addict magazine announced, check it out here!

Main Menu

Software for Graphics and Sounds used for CPC creation.

Started by sigh, 19:35, 17 January 22

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

sigh

What software are people  using for their creativity in regards to graphics and sound? Might be helpful to post them here?
I'm currently still using the clunky paint shop pro 8, but will be making a hard switch to Pro Motion(which I have, but have not fully used yet) when I finish the beat em up.

1) Paint Shop Pro 8 - clunky and struggles with large animation and layer work which results in crashes.
2) Pro Motion - a bit of a learning curve.

GUNHED

Graphics:
- G-Paint
- Kane24
- GSEd
- iMPdraw
- OCP art studio
- GMSK
- Different apps inside JavaCPC
- more, I just don't remember right now
http://futureos.de --> Get the revolutionary FutureOS (Update: 2023.11.30)
http://futureos.cpc-live.com/files/LambdaSpeak_RSX_by_TFM.zip --> Get the RSX-ROM for LambdaSpeak :-) (Updated: 2021.12.26)

lmimmfn

I use DPaint/Brilliance on my Amiga, tbh the best pixel art packages ive ever used.Can easily be run under emulation with WinUAE.
I have a CPC basic sprite designer on my laptop, exports compiled sprites, dont have the name handy but ill dig it out.


Anything new, photoshop etc is junk for pixel art.
6128 for the win!!!

dthrone

Interesting to see other people's tools!

Here's mine, GFX -

* MS Paint for most design work
* RGAS and ConvImgCPC for generating bytes
* GIMP for colour management

SFX -

* Starkos 'Instrument Editor' for envelopes
* https://onlinesequencer.net/ for putting together lists
* PSG 'driver' bespoke to the specific project

rexbeng

Well, my general tool for pushing pixels is Photoshop, I guess mainly this because I am very used to it since I also use it for me daily job. So I know it very well and it suits my workflow (I make heavy usage of layers, to do 'patches' of different pixels, to mockup multimode pictures, even to mockup effects and so on).
There's plenty of times that I draft images by hand, or by using other apps before taking them to Photoshop. One of my favorite methods for doing that is by using PETSCII editor (http://www.kameli.net/marq/?page_id=2717) by Marq, which is basically for creating PETSCII pics for the C64, but since this is about placing characters in a given grid which is compatible sizewise with the CPC screen format, it's very handy for drafting layouts of fullscreen pictures, rough form placements etc. A good example for this is the loading pic for Corsair, which started as a PETSCII draft:

There's even a case where I released both versions side-by-side!  ;D

(full version here: https://media.demozoo.org/screens/o/fc/de/3ab3.296735.png)

Brundij

Quote from: lmimmfn on 00:21, 18 January 22Anything new, photoshop etc is junk for pixel art.
I guess it depends on the user. It's what I use to do pixel art. I had issues with previous versions but right now I'm using CS6 and the grid works much better.

norecess464

@rexbeng thanks for presenting to us briefly your PETSCII-based workflow, it's really amazing!   8)
My personal website: https://norecess.cpcscene.net
My current project is Sonic GX, a remake of Sonic the Hedgehog for the awesome Amstrad GX-4000 game console!

Nworc

@rexbeng thank you for presenting this. Wow, this art is so beautiful !

Your insights in the way of working is an interesting read - really being open minded.

GUNHED

ASCII art? Well, if this counts a GFX too (and on the CPC it's a 'must be'), then in addition to all mentioned apps. I use FutureTex for that. It has a character generator, works with characters sets and can display all 256 possible characters on screen (as the text editor it is). If there is some interest, then I can record a video of that.
http://futureos.de --> Get the revolutionary FutureOS (Update: 2023.11.30)
http://futureos.cpc-live.com/files/LambdaSpeak_RSX_by_TFM.zip --> Get the RSX-ROM for LambdaSpeak :-) (Updated: 2021.12.26)

rexbeng

Thanks boys! Well, it would be awesome to have an Amstrad ASCII ('AMSCII') editor that runs on modern PCs and has all the proper tools and functions featured in contemporary C64 PETSCII editors  (and even more, because the CPC can have characters in 3 modes, so that would be extra fun!). There's even an online one: https://petscii.krissz.hu/. Perhaps Demoniak is reading this and is feeling creative!  :D

eto

Quote from: rexbeng on 21:47, 19 January 22Well, it would be awesome to have an Amstrad ASCII ('AMSCII') editor that runs on modern PCs and has all the proper tools

https://logiker.itch.io/amstrad-ascii-exporter


But don't get your hopes up too much, the Amstrad character set is by far less useful for graphics. You won't get close to anything you can do on the C64. Especially since you have very bulky characters if you want 16 colours as the Amstrad does not have a character mode like the C64.

http://logiker.com/AMSCII-Results-1

rexbeng

I am not so sure about that...  ;D

I had had a look at this Playscii tool, but I struggled a lot with it and it lacks many features I find useful. At the moment I am creating AMSCII-art (like the pictures you see here) using a map editor (yep, the kind you use to make 2D game levels) with the ASCII table loaded and handled like a tileset. The only drawback is that I have to have a separate set for every pen+paper combo, so that would be 12 sets for mode 1! And it's a pretty messy method already, so I wouldn't dare to even think using this with mode 0!  :o
C64 PETSCII editors are designed so you can change pen and paper colours on each character on the fly. That's a killer feature compared to having to go back and forth tileset sheets...

Nworc

The online petscii tool you mentioned (https://petscii.krissz.hu/) looks good, and is easy to use. But that one is also feature rich and to implement that all is a lot of work.

What about this one: https://nurpax.github.io/petmate/ it's much simpler, yet it seems to have the important things. When looking onto it: which features would you say would be missing so that it has what you need?

The project is written in React/Electron, the bitmap used by the tool would be easy to replace with a mode 1 CPC charset IMHO - yet it's currently lacking the functions to handle a charset in mode 2/0. Source code is public, MIT license would allow to tweak it. I don't say anything, I'm not even thinking loud.

rexbeng

Petmate is one of the two PETSCII editors I'm using. The other one is PETSCII by Marq (the reasons I am using two different editors that do practically the same job, go down to a handful of very specific areas where one is a bit better over the other). So I am quite familiar with it.
So, if I were to speak an opinion, I'd be thrilled with the idea to have a 'CPC' version.

But since you brought modes 0 and 2 in the conversation, perhaps PETSCII by Marq would be the better candidate to have a look into the code, because it supports different Commodore machines, including the PET which has a 80x25 char grid that is compatible with the CPC mode 2, and the VIC-20 which sports a 'widepixel-ish' charmode, although at 23x22 it's not absolutely compatible with mode 0.
Either way, the absolutely far-fetched wish would be for this imaginary editor to support 48x24 char grid (overscan)!  :D

tronic

Quote from: dthrone on 01:17, 18 January 22
* https://onlinesequencer.net/ for putting together lists

Didn't know this one.
Very useful/powerful to create/purge/work on .mids before AT2's imports.
Thanks.

GUNHED

Quote from: eto on 22:11, 19 January 22
But don't get your hopes up too much, the Amstrad character set is by far less useful for graphics. You won't get close to anything you can do on the C64. Especially since you have very bulky characters if you want 16 colours as the Amstrad does not have a character mode like the C64.
The CPC can change its character set, so we're unlimited.  :)
http://futureos.de --> Get the revolutionary FutureOS (Update: 2023.11.30)
http://futureos.cpc-live.com/files/LambdaSpeak_RSX_by_TFM.zip --> Get the RSX-ROM for LambdaSpeak :-) (Updated: 2021.12.26)

eto

Quote from: GUNHED on 00:01, 23 January 22
The CPC can change its character set, so we're unlimited.  :)

But even then: we can't get 40characters per line at 16 colours like the C64. And once you start redefining the character set, you can also just draw a normal picture.

GUNHED

Quote from: eto on 00:20, 23 January 22
But even then: we can't get 40 characters per line at 16 colours like the C64. And once you start redefining the character set, you can also just draw a normal picture.
Absolutely, because the CPC has a Graphic screen, no text screen. Thank's god!  :)
Nevertheless characters can be in different colors on CPC, up to 16 in MODE 0. In this case you basically have a 16 color character with 2 dots and 8 scanlines. But why not?  :)
http://futureos.de --> Get the revolutionary FutureOS (Update: 2023.11.30)
http://futureos.cpc-live.com/files/LambdaSpeak_RSX_by_TFM.zip --> Get the RSX-ROM for LambdaSpeak :-) (Updated: 2021.12.26)

rexbeng

Quote from: eto on 00:20, 23 January 22
But even then: we can't get 40characters per line at 16 colours like the C64. And once you start redefining the character set, you can also just draw a normal picture.
While this is a fact, there's more sides to it. Since the CPC doesn't have a fixed textmode, you can define both pen and paper colours per char, whereas on the C64 you have a fixed paper and may change the pen for each character (well, you can hack-in to change paper per char if you like, but that's not considered 'normal' PETSCII and I havent seen it done often, because it's not really necessary so why bother anyway). Then, the CPC charset features some per pixel dithered characters, even slope ones, which the C64 lacks. So, there's quite some detail there, and effectively this opens opportunities for colour mixing and thus creating gradients that are impossible on the C64.
Bottom line, a good pixeler able to exploit a machines strengths and circumvent weaknesses, can create pretty things on any computer graphics mode. Even using plain 2 colours. The big factor is to have the proper tools.

Powered by SMFPacks Menu Editor Mod