In file_format.html:

Quote: * Version 3 removed the encoded field in the commonBlock, and added the alphaChnl, redChnl, greenChnl, blueChnl instead. The size of each block is now stored without accounting for the size field itself. The character id in the charsBlock and the kerningPairsBlock was increased to 4 bytes to support the full unicode range. Following the first four bytes is a series of blocks with information. Each block starts with a one byte block type identifier, followed by a 4 byte integer that gives the size of the block, including the 4 byte size value, but not the block type identifier.

The text in bold no longer agrees with the changes for version 3. The changes to binary format threw me a little bit. The additional fields, easy. Changing the size of the id fields, easy. Changing the meaning of the size field, that took 95% of the time to fix my loader code.

I could have sworn that I had updated that statement. I'll fix it for the next version. Thanks for notifying me.

I decided to change the value that was stored in the size block, because I got quite a lot of e-mails about people calculating it incorrectly. It also means that the loader has to do one less subtraction for each block. :)

Manu also notified me that the 'select chars from file' functionality seems to stop when it encounters the first newline character, which it shouldn't. I'll look into that as well.

Regards,
Andreas

Thanks for great tool. It just keeps getting better.

Two more things:

- I noticed on my font originally created with 1.9c and re-saved using 1.10 that the outline is now about 0.5 alpha when saved as a 32-bit unpacked image. It used to be 1.0 alpha. This was after setting the channels to be glyph for R, G and B and glyph+outline for A.

- Trying to gather some more information about the above, I installed 1.10 on my new Windows Vista install and BMFont fails because it cannot find MSVCP71.DLL. It also requires MSVCR71.DLL. Perhaps it should be included in the install and installed in the BMFont directory to avoid conflicts with any other applications? The other alternative is to static link to the C runtime.

And a suggestion:

- Similar to your Texture Generator that allows AS plug-ins, expand BMFont to allow AS plug-ins that modify the image. For example, a blur or embossing effect could be written in AS and applied to the font image within BMFont.

When using "glyph+outline" the outline will be encoded in the below 128 values, while the glyph is encoded in the above 128 values. This is what previously was known as "encode character and outline in 8bits".

To get the outline with full alpha, you should use only "outline".

I'll have to describe this better in the documentation.

-

I look into the problem with the dependency on the DLLs, that should definitely be removed. I didn't notice this myself because on my Vista machine I have Visual C++ 7.1 installed.

-

BMFont should definitely have more effects for the font, other than the current outline. In a future version I may implement scripting support as well, but this will have to wait a while yet.

Thanks for the suggestion though.

I've uploaded version 1.10a that fixes the problems you mentioned as well as a couple of others.

Thanks for the fix. I'll test it out when I get to work tomorrow.

BMFont runs on stock Vista without the external runtime DLLs now. What I did get this time was Vista showing me the Program Compatibility Assistant, to which I said the program is working fine.

I'll have to research what is needed to stop Windows Vista from complaining.

Anyway, I have a few more bug fixes coming out later today.

Regards,
Andreas

Update: Just uploaded version 1.10b

[Edited by - WitchLord on June 15, 2008 11:23:20 AM]