Smooth graphical fonts for your games or DirectX apps!

• Download source files - 300 Kb
• Download demo project - 272 Kb

Introduction

This is another major and final update to my graphicFonts class. New in this version are shadowing, color adjustments, padding, spacing, user interface and more...

First off, you need to be able to make font files. You can get the app I have been using here.

Important: Stay away from converting font files to GIFs. During GIF compression, the colors in the image are shifted to achieve compression and as a result, they will not work properly.

Just use PNG :-)

Class Updates

• Shadowing
• Adjustable Foreground Colors
• Optimized Code
• Adjustable Shadow Offsets
• Adjustable Render Size
• Adjustable Left and Right Padding
• Adjustable space size
• More comments and Cleaner code

Interface Updates

• Hi-Res Timer for performance tuning
• New User Interface
• Separate preview window
• Ability to save rendered fonts

Sample Bitmap file

Coding Challenge

If you can shave time off the rendering process, you will be forever known as the code guru. I have the rendering time pretty good but I think it could be better. If you think you can improve performance, update the class with your ideas and email it to me. I will update this article and give you credit at the end. So are you a coding guru?

Render "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz" with font1.png, my times are between .6 - .552.

Times may vary by system.

Class Constructor

Dim fntFromBmp As cGraphicFont = New cGraphicFont(fontFile, bgColor.Color)

This initializes the cGraphicFont object and passes the active form, bitmap image of the fontFile and the background color of the font file.

Updated: Got rid of the need to reference the parent form.

Class Properties

• LetterSpacing, SpaceSize, LeftPadding and RightPadding

  This specifies spacing. LetterSpacing is the space between letters, SpaceSize is the number of pixels to use if your string has a space in it, LeftPadding and RightPadding adjust the spacing on ether side of the output bitmap.

  object.LetterSpacing = 5
  object.SpaceSize = 15
  object.LeftPadding = 15
  object.RightPadding = 15

• CellsAcross

  This specifies the number of horizontal cells in your image file.

• CellsDown

  This specifies the number of vertical cells in your image file.

  object.CellsAcross = 16
  object.CellsDown = 16

• Offset

  This is the cell number in the image you want to start reading from. Suppose your file has 2 different fonts in it. With this method, you can control the position (Cell) in the bitmap where you want to start.

  Updated: Renamed this property from "FontNumber"

  object.Offset = 128

• FirstLetter

  FirstLetter is the letter your font bitmap starts with. Most font bitmaps start with a space.

  object.FirstLetter = " "

• renderSize

  This is the size to ether grow or shrink the resulting image. (E.g. bitmap.width * txtSize, bitmap.height * txtSize).

  So a value of 1 will render the image in the normal size. A value of 2 will double the resulting image size. Conversely, a value of .5 will shrink the resulting bitmap.

  Updated: Renamed property from txtSize.

  object.txtSize = 1 ' Normal Size
  
  object.txtSize = 2 ' Double Size
  
  object.txtSize = 3 ' Triple Size
  
  object.txtSize = .5 ' Half size
  
  object.txtSize = .25 ' Quorter size

• Shadow & ShadowOffset

  With this property, you can cast a shadow on your rendered text.

  object.Shadow = true
  object.ShadowOffset = 2

• Background, Foreground and Recolor

  These are the colors you want your final image to be. You need to set the Recolor flag if you wish to force a new Foreground color on your image.

  object.Background = color.transparent
  object.Recolor = true
  object.Foreground = red

Class Methods

picturebox1.image = fntFromBmp.getString(RenderText.Text)

This returns a Bitmap object with your string. The first parameter is the text you want and the next parameter is the background color you want.

Updated: Don't specify the color anymore.

picturebox1.image = fntFromBmp.getCell(celNumber)

This returns a FORMATTED cell as a bitmap.

Updated: Now returns a formatted cell.

Example

Dim fntFromBmp As cGraphicFont = _
    New cGraphicFont(new bitmap("font.bmp"), color.black)
fntFromBMP.Shadow=true
fontFromBMP.ShadowOffset = 2
fntFromBmp.LetterSpacing = 5
fntFromBmp.CellsAcross = 16
fntFromBmp.CellsDown = 16
fntFromBmp.FontNumber = 0
fntFromBmp.FirstLetter = " "
fntFromBmp.RenderSize = 1
fntFromBmp.Background = color.Navy
fntFromBmp.foreground = color.red
fntFromBmp.Recolor = true

Rendered.Image = fntFromBmp.getString("Hello world")
fntFromBmp.Dispose()

Example #2

Dim fntFromBmp As cGraphicFont = _
   New cGraphicFont(new bitmap("font.bmp"), color.black)
Rendered.Image = fntFromBmp.getString("Hello world")
fntFromBmp.Dispose()

Tweaking

The private variable ScanLines in the class controls how many points are used to scan the bitmap. Setting it lower will speed things up but, if you set it to low, you will cause an error in the class.

Credits

• Michael Combs

  For his article on ColorMatrix basics.

• Alastair Dallas

  For his article on Hi-Res Timers.

That's about it for now, hope you enjoy this!