My game development thread

[tofro]

The best (in my opinion) was TechniQL by Talent. Vector-oriented and probably the most sophisticated of its class on the QL. (Doesn't seem to run on any of the clones or QPC, however - At least I didn't manage)

Cheers,
Tobias

[vanpeebles]

That sounds perfect, can you overlay grids and snap lines to grid points etc?

[RWAP]

I have a version of TechniQL which works in q-emulator and Super Gold Card QLs - not tried it on anything else.

It has the copy protection removed - I was just not sure that this was required now that Malcolm Lear's PCB-CAD continues to be updated regularly.

[Sparrowhawk]

I made the Dreamlands loading screen using CADPak (I think it was called), which came bundled with my SuperQBoard. Only operated in mode 4 though.

I'm not sure how it compares to other progs, as it's the only one I ever used on the QL, and anyway my artistic abilities are pretty non-existent

[Mr_Navigator]

I'm not sure how it compares to other progs, as it's the only one I ever used on the QL, and anyway my artistic abilities are pretty non-existant

there's an app for that

[Sparrowhawk]

Yeah, it's called asking an artist to do it for you instead!

[dilwyn]

What other QL art programs are recommended? ACT can make live screen grabs from other QL programs so it would be possible to draw the graphics in something else and screen grab. The graphic style of the game willl be line drawn with perspective so maybe some kind of CAD/Vector program instead of bitmap?

Worst case scenario, you could use a Windoze program to create the graphic and convert to QL screens using a program like my BMP. You'd need to make sure thatthe screen is no bigger than 512x256 (or whatever size your program uses), and that you use pure colours for mode 4 or mode 8 as appropriate so that they render correctly in mode 4 or 8 wuthout too much stippling, i.e. full brightness blue, red, magenta, green, cyan, yellow and white.
BMP and some screen grab programs are on the graphics page of my website.
Also, check if the program uses a simple 32K screen, or a PIC file (essentially the same as a screen, but with a 10 byte preamble holding screen dimensions, mode number etc).

Dilwyn

[vanpeebles]

I did try experimenting with a BMP to QL program and failed miserably(a few pages back in the thread). It would be nice though as I just could just use a few pictures as place holders and do the proper graphics last.

[RWAP]

For anyone looking to convert BMP to QL screen format, I have just been looking at this myself.

Whilst the QL Graphics Convertor (which we used for QWord) and the bmp2pic program by Phoebus Dokos work for 24 bit BMP files, they fail on converting them to MODE 8 pictures

The QL Graphics Convertor was never released, but allows for a wide range of formats in the final conversion (Standard Mode 4 and 8, Aurora Mode 16 and 256, QPC 4/8/32, QXL 4/8/32, Thor XVI Mode 12), the MODE 8 conversion routine is wrong - it produces a file of 65536 bytes (it should be 32768 bytes).

However, I have successfully used the BASIC programs: http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/graphics/bmp2scr.zip - although the resulting graphics are not as crisp as those produced by Phoebus' program.

[nitrofurano]

For anyone looking to convert BMP to QL screen format, I have just been looking at this myself.

Whilst the QL Graphics Convertor (which we used for QWord) and the bmp2pic program by Phoebus Dokos work for 24 bit BMP files, they fail on converting them to MODE 8 pictures

The QL Graphics Convertor was never released, but allows for a wide range of formats in the final conversion (Standard Mode 4 and 8, Aurora Mode 16 and 256, QPC 4/8/32, QXL 4/8/32, Thor XVI Mode 12), the MODE 8 conversion routine is wrong - it produces a file of 65536 bytes (it should be 32768 bytes).

However, I have successfully used the BASIC programs: http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/graphics/bmp2scr.zip - although the resulting graphics are not as crisp as those produced by Phoebus' program.

btw, do anyone have example of .scr results and their picture sources? it seems to be not that difficult to create, probably even as plugin for GrafX2 - btw, in these years, i were coding picture converters for a significantly (i think) wide range of 8bit and 16bit computers, btw (including zx-spectrum, msx, sam-coupé, c64, coco, etc.)