Unicode characters in a custom blitter?

[mobichan]

I am trying to adapt a custom blitter example I found to work with the extended unicode character set. The blitter's active object contains an animation per font and each frame is a glyph. I use the String Parser to force the animation frame to the ascii value of the current character glyph, but that only works if each animation frame corresponds to each glyph in the ascii set. Since the glyphs start at 32 and go up to 256 with missing characters along the way, is there a simple solution to dealing with the gaps in the glyph set? My inital thought was to have a blank frame for any missing character and just have 256+ frames per font.

Is this overkill? And is there a simpler way to have only frames for necessary glyphs and have the code easily skip to the proper frame?

[happygreenfrog]

Without the Unicode runtime, extensions can't use the Unicode character set (as far as I know, anyway), and must use the ASCII character set. You would have to do it without String Parser (unless extensions can use the Unicode character set without the Unicode runtime, but even then, I don't think String Parser supports the Unicode character set), unless you are fine with buying the Unicode runtime. Also, I don't use String Parser much, so I don't know if your idea on what might let you use the Unicode character set would work or not. It might work, but it would definitely take a long time to draw all of those animation frames...

[mobichan]

I have the unicode runtime. I was hoping for advice from other unicode runtime users. And I realize making all those frames will be a pain but that is just the consequence of supporting unicode.

[happygreenfrog]

I guess String Parser isn't compatible with the Unicode runtime, then. Maybe you could try to find a object that is Unicode-compatible that does a similar thing to String Parser?

[ChrisBurrows]

Is this my text blitting example? I have re-written it and it no longer depends on the ASCII table and supports unlimited characters if you are interested... I'll find it when I get home.

[mobichan]

Chris: Sorry, I can't remember who made it. It uses an orange and black commenting color scheme, so maybe that is yours? I would love to take a look at your example if you don't mind.

And to be clear, I only need to support the first 256 characters of the ASCII set. I am not actually clear if the String Parser stops at 128 or goes higher.

EDIT: Chris, I just found your latest example and it is the one I used as a reference (the Resident Evil styled one). Wish I had found it yesterday, as I added in one extra you "fixed" in revision 3 (being able to switch animations on the first character). :P But I would still like to see an example that allows any unicode character.

[ChrisBurrows]

Well the new version doesn't pull the ASCII value of each character. Instead it finds the position where the current character appears in a second string, CharSheet and changes the animation frame to this value. Switching tileset is now done with tags, as opposed to characters. For instance <2> switches to tileset 2. You can also use tags for extra characters if you run out of characters on the keyboard.

Just add something like:

On loop "Blit"

If: Mid$(Text( "Blitter" ), LoopIndex("Blit"), 3) = <smiley>
Then: Change animation frame of ("Character") to 120

Keep in mind if you do this, the animation frame will have to be after all the original CharSheet images. Let me know if you need anything explained. Also, I have a version with wordwrapping if required.

[mobichan]

Wow! I have never thought about how to use the "Set loop index" action. Very cool example and I think I can even modify your old example to use this method of pulling characters from a CharSheet string while keeping all the other features. Correct me if there are any unforeseen issues with this.

So the basic idea is to search a string of characters and set the animation frame of the Alphabet object to the numeric position of that character in the CharSheet string? Seems like the CharSheet glyphs could be in any order, correct? Does this mean the unicode runtime will be able to find and match any of the 256 starting unicode glyphs? Or were you saying I should make a special character tag for each glyph outside of the non-unicode set?

[ChrisBurrows]

The latest version of Unicode consists of more than 110,000 characters. You can use them all. Just add them to the CharSheet in the order your frames appear in the animation sequence, which can be any order you like.

[mobichan]

Got it! I was just a little confused by your last comment "Keep in mind if you do this, the animation frame will have to be after all the original CharSheet images."

But I guess you might have been referring to if I was modifying your example...