Hi, if you want to use more than 256 tiles then you can do it yes, you will just need to export the map data as 12bit or 16bit.
Exporting as 12bit or 16bit is currently only available (from CharPad) as text/asm/ascii but you can still use it in your project, just include the exported text as a link in your source code and build your project.
See the import/export menu items.
ps. unless you plan to dynamically load the data as binary from disk on the C64 at runtime, in that case you *will* actually need it in binary form I guess, CharPad can't currently do it but there are workarounds.
Hi, I would use it with basic 7.0 commands on a real C128. What are the benefits of this tool? People always talk about C64, but how about C128 owners ? Thanks
can we have a feature to offset the sprite overlays in the sprite editor (eg. top sprite will be at different x/y coords than the underlaying sprite)? Pretty, pretty please...
Suggestion for ECM mode. when I have a selected area in the map add the option to paste back with an offset i.e. BG0 set, BG1 set,BG2 set, BG3 set ? essentially AND mask the data with 0x3f then OR with 0x00,0x40,0x80 etc.
McAfee antivirus reports a threat in the latest (Oct 01 2023) CharPadC64pro_NET.exe and will not let me use the application, does anyone else get this?
Let me ask you this: I dont know how to make games, but if I created maps and characters using these programs, would programmer be able to put them together and finishing up a game?
Hi, I just bought both of these, they are great. However I'm having a problem with charpad where it will not display csets in multicolor. I have to select bitmap-multicolor in order to see it in multicolor, text mode doesn't work and stays in high res. Please fix. :)
Thank you very much for your purchase, your support is greatly appreciated.
On the Commodore 64, "multi-colour text mode" allows both hi-res and multi-colour (wide) pixel chars, the choice is made using the colour value in each screen matrix cell (ie. the relevant Colour RAM byte),
Colours 0-7 make the cell "hi-res" and colours 8-15 make the cell multi-colour.
So in CharPad, to make characters appear in "text - multi-colour mode"...
1. Choose "Text - Multi-colour mode" on the Project form..
2. Select "Colour Matrix (low nyb)" on the Project form.
3. Choose any colour on the bottom row of the colour palette (these will have red dashes on them to indicate "wide pixel").
It has always worked this way and always will, there is nothing to fix.
Ps. "multi-colour bitmap mode" works differently, all chars are wide pixel.
Weird, the first time loaded the char set and set that mode it worked as I expected, but then didn't afterwards.
I guess it's a bit unintuitive for me, setting MCM mode in my brain would disaplay all chars in multicolor mode. There is no color information in a character set so that just seems weird to me. I get it though because of how the c64 works with how color memory is set. It'll just take some getting used to.
Hi, great tools. With Charpad, is there any way to colour individual cells on the map? I'm designing a fixed screen shooter so it's just one 25x40 high res text screen, not a map as such. And no need for tiles. I don't want every instance of a given character to be a particular colour, I effectively want to specify colours in the C64 colour RAM and export that. Thanks.
Is there any chance you could let us define the filenames for the Binary->Export All? Maybe a custom export option to also only export specifically what you need? My game uses Chr attr1, map, charset, and tiles, but my current flow is to manually export each, and every now and then I forget one, or overwrite one with the wrong thing.
A couple of additions to the program would be really time saving.
1. Is there any chance you can add a search for a char facility? My map design covers 64x6400 chars and finding a rogue char is a logistical nightmare.
2. Is it possible to increase the re-tiling operation to utilise more than 65536 tiles. To tile my maps takes 102496 tiles which I can't with a limit of 65536. The only way I can create a tile map is to export the map, then import the map back into CharPad. The trouble is it then breaks the colour map.
I've also discovered a bug. If I import a map of size 64x1250 it works fine. Increasing this over 1250 causes issues whereby graphic rows are missed and the imported image gets compressed. If the map was square 640x640 this issue doesn't occur.
Thanks for the feedback and the bug report, I have saved a copy of your post and will look into these things.
Yes the size of a tile-set is currently limited to 65536 and a char-set is limited to 500,000, allowing more tiles would be simple enough, although the CTM project file format only supports 16-bit values (max 65536) for both chars and tiles, so you would still need to reduce the count before a project could be saved.
Was the bug you found seen when doing a binary file import of map data?
Anyway, I will try and look into these things before the next release.
Another question I can't solve. I edited a nicht Map in the Display mode "Bitmap - Multi-colour" but struggle with getting it displayed in ASM on my C64. Can you give your users in ASM an complete example who to display a "Bitmap Multi-colour" map / screen. In my case I just have a screen - no tiles just the font and a 40x25 char map.
I also edited a map (40x25) in Text Multi-colour and when I export the data I thought I would see also the colour data ($D800), but in the ASM file is only charset_data, charset_attrib_L1_data and map_data.
Sorry for the late reply, yes including asm code examples is something I have considered before and I have large amounts of code that I could include with the apps.
Part of the reason I haven't is that I don't want to deprive users of the pleasure of discovering how to do these things for themselves.
Writing code and finding good ways of doing things should be exciting and fun and educational, not just an exercise in copying and pasting somebody else's code.
As for your colour data problem, the "charset_attrib_L1" data IS the per-char colour data, the upper nybbles may also contain material data which you may or may not not need.
If you decompress the project so the charset contains 1000 chars (for a full-screen bitmap), then the charset data IS your bitmap data and the map data is not needed.
The chars just need loading/copying to your 8K bitmap and the L1 attribute data (1000 bytes) just needs to be loaded/copied to the colour matrix at $d800.
For a MC bitmap, the L2 attribute data (1000 bytes) will need to be loaded/copied to the screen matrix.
I'm having the same problem as pirat28hh, and agree on the matter that he raise that it could be nice with some ref. examples. Yes, people might find pleasure of figuring it out themselv, but I guess they could find this in refining and optimizing their code instead.
Is there an option to move chars in the charset from position a to position b? I would like to organize the charset for better programming stuff like a vertical font scroll for a game.
I just installed Windows 11 on a new computer and downloaded CharPadC64Pro359. I could not save my project (the options were greyed out). Also I did not see the "Flexi-Grid Settings" under Options. At first I thought it was because I was using Windows 11. But then I tried the previous version of CharPad (3.42) and that worked fine. Could it be that there's a problem with the version you released yesterday?
If the save/export options are greyed out then that is the anti-piracy system doing it's thing, make sure you are running it from it's original folder and not just running the exe moved somewhere else.
The flexi-grid options are on a second tab marked "Misc" on the project form.
If you ARE running it from it's original folder (with all the pre-packaged files) then you may need to email me for further instructions as I cant post a solution here for obvious reasons.
nb. you may need to wait 15 seconds after starting it for the save/export options to become ungreyed.
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Hi, I have more 256 tile in my game in development (Tiny Quest II) is possible to export the tile set in 16 bit format? Thanks
Hi, if you want to use more than 256 tiles then you can do it yes, you will just need to export the map data as 12bit or 16bit.
Exporting as 12bit or 16bit is currently only available (from CharPad) as text/asm/ascii but you can still use it in your project, just include the exported text as a link in your source code and build your project.
See the import/export menu items.
ps. unless you plan to dynamically load the data as binary from disk on the C64 at runtime, in that case you *will* actually need it in binary form I guess, CharPad can't currently do it but there are workarounds.
Hi, thanks for your quick reply! You save my life of little coder :-)
Any way I have the Python script for convert *.asm to binary.
Keep up the good work.
Hi, I would use it with basic 7.0 commands on a real C128. What are the benefits of this tool? People always talk about C64, but how about C128 owners ? Thanks
can we have a feature to offset the sprite overlays in the sprite editor (eg. top sprite will be at different x/y coords than the underlaying sprite)? Pretty, pretty please...
Suggestion for ECM mode. when I have a selected area in the map add the option to paste back with an offset i.e. BG0 set, BG1 set,BG2 set, BG3 set ?
essentially AND mask the data with 0x3f then OR with 0x00,0x40,0x80 etc.
McAfee antivirus reports a threat in the latest (Oct 01 2023) CharPadC64pro_NET.exe and will not let me use the application, does anyone else get this?
Let me ask you this: I dont know how to make games, but if I created maps and characters using these programs, would programmer be able to put them together and finishing up a game?
Yes of course! that is the reason they exist.
Our tools have been used in the creation of hundreds of games and demos over the last 20 years including most of the biggest "physical" releases .
There are no better "general purpose" tools for the job.
Espectacular estas herramientas. Ya me gustaban mucho las versiones gratuitas, pero fue probar esta Pro y se nota mucho la diferencia.
Hello, I bought CharPad 64 Pro + sprite Pad 64. Have you published any tutorial to create a tile for my game?
Es todo bastante intuitivo! chars > tiles > maps
Hi, I just bought both of these, they are great. However I'm having a problem with charpad where it will not display csets in multicolor. I have to select bitmap-multicolor in order to see it in multicolor, text mode doesn't work and stays in high res. Please fix. :)
Hi,
Thank you very much for your purchase, your support is greatly appreciated.
On the Commodore 64, "multi-colour text mode" allows both hi-res and multi-colour (wide) pixel chars, the choice is made using the colour value in each screen matrix cell (ie. the relevant Colour RAM byte),
Colours 0-7 make the cell "hi-res" and colours 8-15 make the cell multi-colour.
So in CharPad, to make characters appear in "text - multi-colour mode"...
1. Choose "Text - Multi-colour mode" on the Project form..
2. Select "Colour Matrix (low nyb)" on the Project form.
3. Choose any colour on the bottom row of the colour palette (these will have red dashes on them to indicate "wide pixel").
It has always worked this way and always will, there is nothing to fix.
Ps. "multi-colour bitmap mode" works differently, all chars are wide pixel.
Cheers.
Weird, the first time loaded the char set and set that mode it worked as I expected, but then didn't afterwards.
I guess it's a bit unintuitive for me, setting MCM mode in my brain would disaplay all chars in multicolor mode. There is no color information in a character set so that just seems weird to me. I get it though because of how the c64 works with how color memory is set. It'll just take some getting used to.
Hi, great tools. With Charpad, is there any way to colour individual cells on the map? I'm designing a fixed screen shooter so it's just one 25x40 high res text screen, not a map as such. And no need for tiles. I don't want every instance of a given character to be a particular colour, I effectively want to specify colours in the C64 colour RAM and export that. Thanks.
Is there any chance you could let us define the filenames for the Binary->Export All? Maybe a custom export option to also only export specifically what you need? My game uses Chr attr1, map, charset, and tiles, but my current flow is to manually export each, and every now and then I forget one, or overwrite one with the wrong thing.
Anyhow, love the apps!
Hi,
Ok yes I see your point, that sounds like it would be a useful feature, request noted!
How much success do people have with Wine on linux?
Hello, I'm not a Linux user myself but I know that many people do run our tools using WINE on Linux.
Conversely, I have not heard of any particular problems with it.
If you are capable of installing Linux and WINE then you shouldn't have any problems running the Win32 or Win64 versions of our tools.
To run the .NET version(s) you would probably just need to install .NET (3.5 and 4.0) into your WINE installation.
It get's better and better with each new release.
A couple of additions to the program would be really time saving.
1. Is there any chance you can add a search for a char facility? My map design covers 64x6400 chars and finding a rogue char is a logistical nightmare.
2. Is it possible to increase the re-tiling operation to utilise more than 65536 tiles. To tile my maps takes 102496 tiles which I can't with a limit of 65536. The only way I can create a tile map is to export the map, then import the map back into CharPad. The trouble is it then breaks the colour map.
I've also discovered a bug. If I import a map of size 64x1250 it works fine. Increasing this over 1250 causes issues whereby graphic rows are missed and the imported image gets compressed. If the map was square 640x640 this issue doesn't occur.
Hi,
Thanks for the feedback and the bug report, I have saved a copy of your post and will look into these things.
Yes the size of a tile-set is currently limited to 65536 and a char-set is limited to 500,000, allowing more tiles would be simple enough, although the CTM project file format only supports 16-bit values (max 65536) for both chars and tiles, so you would still need to reduce the count before a project could be saved.
Was the bug you found seen when doing a binary file import of map data?
Anyway, I will try and look into these things before the next release.
Cheers!
Hi,
Thanks for your response.
Was the bug you found seen when doing a binary file import of map data? Yes.
Thanks
Another question I can't solve.
I edited a nicht Map in the Display mode "Bitmap - Multi-colour" but struggle with getting it displayed in ASM on my C64.
Can you give your users in ASM an complete example who to display a "Bitmap Multi-colour" map / screen.
In my case I just have a screen - no tiles just the font and a 40x25 char map.
I also edited a map (40x25) in Text Multi-colour and when I export the data I thought I would see also the colour data ($D800), but in the ASM file is only charset_data, charset_attrib_L1_data and map_data.
Hi,
Sorry for the late reply, yes including asm code examples is something I have considered before and I have large amounts of code that I could include with the apps.
Part of the reason I haven't is that I don't want to deprive users of the pleasure of discovering how to do these things for themselves.
Writing code and finding good ways of doing things should be exciting and fun and educational, not just an exercise in copying and pasting somebody else's code.
As for your colour data problem, the "charset_attrib_L1" data IS the per-char colour data, the upper nybbles may also contain material data which you may or may not not need.
If you decompress the project so the charset contains 1000 chars (for a full-screen bitmap), then the charset data IS your bitmap data and the map data is not needed.
The chars just need loading/copying to your 8K bitmap and the L1 attribute data (1000 bytes) just needs to be loaded/copied to the colour matrix at $d800.
For a MC bitmap, the L2 attribute data (1000 bytes) will need to be loaded/copied to the screen matrix.
I hope that helps.
Brought CharPad and SpritePad some months ago.
I'm having the same problem as pirat28hh, and agree on the matter that he raise that it could be nice with some ref. examples. Yes, people might find pleasure of figuring it out themselv, but I guess they could find this in refining and optimizing their code instead.
Is there an option to move chars in the charset from position a to position b?
I would like to organize the charset for better programming stuff like a vertical font scroll for a game.
Hi
Yes there are lots of ways to move chars around such as using Cut, Copy, Paste, Swap, Reverse Order, Cycle Order.
The Paste function has 3 versions (insert, overwrite, append) depeding on how you want to do it.
You can swap any two characters by selecting one and then selecting another with CTRL held.
Have a look in the "Chars" menu when the Char Set form is active for all the options.
Oh... There ;)
Thanks a lot... I was to blind...
Just a note to readers that the reported issues with the anti-piracy system have been resolved with the most recent (CharPad 3.60) release.
I just installed Windows 11 on a new computer and downloaded CharPadC64Pro359. I could not save my project (the options were greyed out). Also I did not see the "Flexi-Grid Settings" under Options. At first I thought it was because I was using Windows 11. But then I tried the previous version of CharPad (3.42) and that worked fine. Could it be that there's a problem with the version you released yesterday?
Hi,
If the save/export options are greyed out then that is the anti-piracy system doing it's thing, make sure you are running it from it's original folder and not just running the exe moved somewhere else.
The flexi-grid options are on a second tab marked "Misc" on the project form.
If you ARE running it from it's original folder (with all the pre-packaged files) then you may need to email me for further instructions as I cant post a solution here for obvious reasons.
nb. you may need to wait 15 seconds after starting it for the save/export options to become ungreyed.