A good graphics tool required

Mr Millside

I'm trying to design / draw some large graphics for my game and have been using TommyGun. Unfortunately this tool has a few bugs that is making the job very hard. Can anyone recommend a tool that can do basic drawing. I need to be able to export the images as data that I can paste into my assembler. Other than that I'm just after something reliable. I wanted to try zx paintbrush but I don't seem to be able to download it from the website.

Sokurah

How about just drawing what you need in your favourite art package - for my own needs I use Paint Shop Pro, but it could be anything. Save as PNG or BMP and then import into SevenuP and do the final tweaks there?

Ralf

Yes, draw in any general graphic editor and later import to Spectrum through Sevenup. I created all my stuff this way.

While creating your graphics in general tool you must remember about Spectrum attributes. Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop won't do it for you. So just turn on 8x8 grid and keep to "2 colours in grid cell" rule.

BiNMaN

Bit long winded to use other editors, just use seven up or zx paintbrush then you don't have to worry about getting attributes right

Seven up saves out to asm as does zx paintbrush, you can animate sprites etc

There really isn't any need to use something like paint or Photoshop to produce your graphics, have to try to remember attribute boundaries, import them, tweak them , then export them into something useful when we already have two capable dedicated art packages that can do it all for you.

Timmy

I usually draw them in any editor and then convert it with a custom made converter.

With the current technologies, writing a converter is usually less than an hour of work for me (if I ever have the time, that is) so I'm mostly concerned with drawing stuff.

Note: By "any" I mean a really good image editor. It's so much easier nowadays using a good tool to make preshifted graphics, for example.

Ralf

Seven up saves out to asm as does zx paintbrush, you can animate sprites etc

There really isn't any need to use something like paint or Photoshop to produce your graphics, have to try to remember attribute boundaries, import them, tweak them , then export them into something useful when we already have two capable dedicated art packages that can do it all for you.

If you say so than probably Sevenup is enough for your needs. For me it definitely isn't.

From the feature that I use and it lacks:

-working on several files at once and having them all visible
-selecting parts of images, moving, cutting,copying and pasting them
-drawing lines, circles and rectangles
-using different brushes (different size, dithered etc.)
-adding text
-airbrush
-layers
-working on normal 16 million colour picture or so to convert it gradually into Spectrum graphics.

and many more.

Sevenup is the best current choice to convert pictures to Spectrum formats but as a graphic editor it is very simplistic. I could change a pixel or two in it but it would hurt badly if I had to create art from scratch in it.

But in the end of the day everybody should use what he personally likes and is used to :)

BiNMaN

I may only be able to edit one screen at a time in zx paintbrush but I can have multiple open at any one time and cut and paste between each window and you can do most things you can with 'normal' editors.

They are really impressive.