I made this font generator for a project I'm working on in Java. I needed a custom font I could use... So instead of trying to figure out how to make an actual font (.ttf), I used a sprite sheet.
SIDE NOTE: I'd still like to learn how to make fonts properly. Not only w/ a tool, but also understand how it works/is done. Recommendations (books, articles, ...) welcome!
If you have recommendations or questions, let me know. I'm pretty sure the code isn't written that well, so there is a lot of room for improvements and additional features.
When you plan to improve the project on your own, I'd like to ask to open source it as well (the reason I added a license). Because I would like to check it out and learn from it as well. Thanks.
NOTE: Work in progress!
How to run it from the terminal:
javac xiangsu.Crisp.java
java xiangsu.Crisp
- Generate all possible sprites (font and size)
- Fine-tune offset and width characters
- Layout
- Preview the sprite
This is how I use(d) the generated sprite.
fontImage: used to store the sprite;
int[] offset: position in sprite (x-axis)
int[] widths: width of every character
public class Font {
private Image fontImage;
private int[] offset;
private int[] widths;
public Font(String path) {
fontImage = new Image(path);
offset = new int[256];
widths = new int[256];
int unicode = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < fontImage.getW(); i++) {
if (fontImage.getP()[i] == 0xffff0000) offset[unicode] = i;
if (fontImage.getP()[i] == 0xffffff00) widths[unicode] = i - offset[unicode++];
}
}
public Image getFontImage() {
return fontImage;
}
public int[] getOffset() {
return offset;
}
public int[] getWidths() {
return widths;
}
}
public void drawText(String text, int offX, int offY) {
int offset = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < text.length(); i++) {
int unicode = text.codePointAt(i);
for (int y = 1; y < font.getFontImage().getH(); y++) {
for (int x = 0; x < font.getWidths()[unicode]; x++) {
setPixel(x + offX + offset, y + offY, color);
}
} offset += font.getWidths()[unicode];
}
}