Font love needed?

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I don't know you about guys, but I'm not really liking our font solution
right now. I spent a lot of time yesterday trying to create a cleaner font
that could scale, but I couldn't get acceptable results from a bitmap.

I also tried FreeType with GRRLib4 from this guy:
http://www.plaatsoft.nl/wiibrew/grrlib-40-freetype-library-support/
But had no luck integrating with our stuff... too tired to reconcile.

So let's discuss:
1. Should we change our font solution?
2. If so, do we stick with bitmaps or move to TT
3. If TT, which lib/implementation?

Thoughts?

Original issue reported on code.google.com by afou...@gmail.com on 6 May 2009 at 4:43

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I'm a fan of tt.  If we use tt; i'd reccomend using the one plaat already 
uses... no
since reinventing the wheel.

I used bitmap fonts b/c its what grrlib supported out of the box; and i didn't 
care
about text when i was trying to just get it working... 

With that said; I do not want to implement ttf, but if someone else wants to 
i'd love
to see it in. :)

Original comment by justin.h...@gmail.com on 6 May 2009 at 4:51

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Yeah TTF would be a huge improvement! Helvetica (apple's font) or Arial would 
really 
be a big improvement over the bitmaps...

Original comment by git...@gmail.com on 6 May 2009 at 5:14

[GoogleCodeExporter]

If TTF is added, you could always use the "Continuum" font if you want to give 
it a
more Wii-feeling font, or the font used could be added as an option between a 
few
different fonts.

Original comment by kylee...@msn.com on 6 May 2009 at 8:10

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I'll give it another integration try... last night it wasn't working because of 
the
existing changes we had made to GRRLib and our 2D/3D painting. If we overhaul 
that,
we could probably get TTF working.

Oh, and I thought the Apple Finder/Coverflow font was Lucida Grande.

Original comment by afou...@gmail.com on 6 May 2009 at 8:32

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Yikes "Overhaul" i dont like the sound of that.

I set up the GRRLIB library so taht you could switch back and forth between 
rendering
2D and 3D

ALl you need to do prior to rendering ttf font is call:

GRRLIB_2D_Init();

Original comment by justin.h...@gmail.com on 6 May 2009 at 8:34

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Sorry, overhaul was too strong a word. It's just that I'm trying to figure out 
the
multiple drawing layers. 

So can we can switch back and forth between GRRLIB_2D_Init() and 
GRRLIB_3D_Init()
before Render()?

Like this pcode

2DInit()
   // BOTTOM LAYER
   // draw the background gradient texture
3DInit()
   // MIDDLE LAYER
   // draw the covers
2DInit()
   // TOP LAYER
   // draw the title, buttons, slider, etc
Render()

Should this sequence work?

Original comment by afou...@gmail.com on 6 May 2009 at 9:03

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I would think so

Original comment by justin.h...@gmail.com on 7 May 2009 at 2:21

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How are TTF Fonts coming?

Original comment by justin.h...@gmail.com on 7 May 2009 at 7:39

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I hope to have time to look at this today

Original comment by afou...@gmail.com on 7 May 2009 at 8:16

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Font love is definitely needed now everything else looks so beautiful. Good 
luck with
this afour98

Original comment by F1SHE4RS@gmail.com on 9 May 2009 at 7:52

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Font love complete as of R215... I gave up on the TTF and decided to hand craft 
my
own tileset. Feedback please!

Original comment by afou...@gmail.com on 9 May 2009 at 10:35

[GoogleCodeExporter]

can you compile R215 and ill tell you what its like... got a nice 32inch 
widescreen 
screaming for a better font...

Original comment by redmanma...@gmail.com on 9 May 2009 at 11:37

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Font looks good; I have one suggestion...

On the load page where long names get cut to "Name ...", we should have the 
name 
slowly scroll (Like in Itunes...)

Other than that, looks great :)

Original comment by justin.h...@gmail.com on 9 May 2009 at 4:39

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Thanks... and the scrolling is a really cool idea!!

I still would like to pursue TTFs which would help solve the length issue that 
the
monospaced bitmaps give us, but fist I wanted to get some immediate polish into 
the
app...

Original comment by afou...@gmail.com on 9 May 2009 at 9:29

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I'd like to close this one out, and then reopen a new one specific to adding 
TTF as a
future enhancement. I think we can ship with these fonts for now.

Original comment by afou...@gmail.com on 12 May 2009 at 4:16

• Changed state: Fixed