nesdev.org

I have recently downloaded a copy of tUME. I tried creating a few maps with it and it worked.
But there's a catch! tUME expects the tileset to be in .LBM format. I have no idea about this format. I have so far dealt with only .CHR files.

Are there any tools for conversion between .CHR and .LBM?


..and 1 more thing. The tUME download link on main page of NesDev is not working.

Cheers.

Unless I'm absolutely mistaken, the LBM format is simply that of old Deluxe Paint. That format was widely in use back in the Amiga days.
I don't know nawt about the mentioned CHR format or even what format(s) you convert from ->CHR. IIRC, LBM and PCX are easily convertible against eachother.

dr_sloppy wrote:Unless I'm absolutely mistaken, the LBM format is simply that of old Deluxe Paint. That format was widely in use back in the Amiga days.
I don't know nawt about the mentioned CHR format or even what format(s) you convert from ->CHR. IIRC, LBM and PCX are easily convertible against eachother.

As far as I know .CHR format is used by most of the Nes emulators and tile\level editors to keep the background and sprite tileset.

Anyways, tUME apparantly does not have a feature to create tiles\tilesets. Is there a tool( other than deluxe paint) which can handle .LBM file and have facilities to convert between common image formats like .bmp, .lbm .iff etc.
My system has windows Vista and I face a lot of problems running primitive DOS applications on it. So what I am looking for is a windows based application.

Nadia wrote:My system has windows Vista and I face a lot of problems running primitive DOS applications on it.

If you can't find Windows programs, you can always run DOS programs using DOSBox.

tokumaru wrote:

Nadia wrote:My system has windows Vista and I face a lot of problems running primitive DOS applications on it.

If you can't find Windows programs, you can always run DOS programs using DOSBox.

I am using YY Chr for updating tileset(s). If there's a windows based level editor then it will be easier to switch between yy chr and it. Also copy pasting from yy chr will become easier.

I have tried MappyWin32 but it stores the level-map in its own format. I will have to write custom programs to convert the output files from Mappywin32 to the format I want.

Nadia wrote:I have tried MappyWin32 but it stores the level-map in its own format. I will have to write custom programs to convert the output files from Mappywin32 to the format I want.

Doesn't every generic level editor work like that though?

Nadia wrote:Is there a tool( other than deluxe paint) which can handle .LBM file and have facilities to convert between common image formats like .bmp, .lbm .iff etc.

Paintshop Pro (version 4.x at least); Just open the source image and save as a new file in the desired format. Without checking, I'm fairly sure that Gimp suffice also.

Nadia wrote:Is there a tool( other than deluxe paint) which can handle .LBM file and have facilities to convert between common image formats like .bmp, .lbm .iff etc.

I believe any Allegro-based can convert IFF/LBM. But nowadays I'm using PNG with a Python-based PNG to CHR converter.

My system has windows Vista and I face a lot of problems running primitive DOS applications on it. So what I am looking for is a windows based application.

This includes Windows-based command-line apps, correct? If so, I have a couple programs that you might be able to use, but you will probably have to install Python 2.6 first.

tokumaru wrote:

Nadia wrote:I have tried MappyWin32 but it stores the level-map in its own format. I will have to write custom programs to convert the output files from Mappywin32 to the format I want.

Doesn't every generic level editor work like that though?

I have created a 16x16 metatile level with only 1 room(i.e. 256 tiles). The whole room is filled only with 1 type of tile.
The resultant .map file has the below contents:

10 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 0b 00 00 00 0b 00 00 00 0b 00 00 00 0b 00 00 00 0b 00 00 00 0b 00 00 00 0b 00 00 00 0b 00 00 00 0b 00 00 00 0b 00 00 00 0b 00 00 00 0b 00 00 00 0b 00 00 00 0b 00 00 00
.......
and so on
.......
.......
.......


$0b is the tile index of the tile I have filled the room with. I was expecting the .map file to have only tile index $0b but as we can see there are a number of $00 bytes also. I have no idea what they are for.

The editor is probably using 32-bit values for everything (first the dimensions of the map - $10 x $10 - and then the metatiles), even though you only want 8 bits. The 0s are probably the 24 bits you are not using.

An existing editor will hardly output data in a format that's ready to be included in the ROM, most of the time you have to code a converter/plugin/whatever. Or maybe somewhere in the program you can configure it to use 8-bit values?

tokumaru wrote:The editor is probably using 32-bit values for everything (first the dimensions of the map - $10 x $10 - and then the metatiles), even though you only want 8 bits. The 0s are probably the 24 bits you are not using.

An existing editor will hardly output data in a format that's ready to be included in the ROM, most of the time you have to code a converter/plugin/whatever. Or maybe somewhere in the program you can configure it to use 8-bit values?

Thanks for the hint.
I will now write a routine that will convert the 32 bit values into 1 byte ones.

Tile studio!

Apparantly, it can do everything I need: like tileset design, level map, collision map and attributes\pallettes.

I now look for a compression decompression routine.