Photoshop workspace for pixel creating

[Arkhan]

I used to use Grafx2.  That's what all the Insanity art was done in, lol

[Nando]

C'mon, guys, get Win(Mac/*nix)UAE, Dpaint, Brilliance, and PPaint and end the agony!

Or at least Grafx2.

Will have to look into those as well.

THANKS!

[Arkhan]

Don't use the Win32f*ckup of Grafx2

use the DOS one, in DOSBox, for maximum painting.

I stopped using Grafx2 because I basically stopped doing art for my games. 

It was for the best.  (I used grafx2 for years though, even for fun.)

[Nando]

What Spectrum, MSX game(s) (sprites) do you all recommend looking at?

ccovell: what is UAE? didn't know the Emirates made sprites as well as playgrounds for the rich and famous

Looking into GrafX2.

You guys kick ass, thank you!

[Nando]

Don't use the Win32f*ckup of Grafx2

use the DOS one, in DOSBox, for maximum painting.

What's wrong with the Win version?

[Arkhan]

It butchered my palettes from the DOS ones, so I refuse to use it ever again.  The Win32 one, AFAIK is some after-the-fact port taken on by someone after the original team stopped.

But, that was over 3 years ago dude.  Give it a shot lol.  They may have bettered it up by now.

Grafx2, when I used to use it, was a great paint program for me only because I f*cking suck at painting, and the interface is simple.  WYSIWYG.  Photoshops got too many goddamn buttons and menus and doodads.

NeoPaint is a pretty solid program too.  I suggest people check it out when they can.  It's worth getting, IMO.  Supports 16 color PCX properly.

[fragmare]

I have always and still do use Photoshop for my all pixeling.  For colors, i just manually type the 9bit-compliant RBG values into the color picker as I need them.  Turning off anti-aliasing on all the tools helps too (selection tools especially).  I also set up a 16x16 grid with subdivisions set at 2 so i can toggle that on/off as needed with CTRL+'.  Setting all increments to 'px' in the options also is nice, instead of the default 'inches' or whatever it is.

[Nando]

On a side note, looking at a Dpaint videos made me think of illustrator and I found this.

http://creativefusion.se/?p=43


I'll take a look at neo paint as well, thanks ArkFace!


fragmare: have you thought about creating custom color swatches/palettes in PS? I have Pauls PCE color palette guide, it could obviously be done, even it if would be a tad painful.

[Arkhan]

i also used PC Paintbrush for awhile.  like, DOS style, lol

[Bonknuts]

I used PC Paintbrush back in the Windows 3.1 days. It was the windows version and I loved it.

 I use photoshop for almost everything pixel related for the PCE. I've even use it to make maps like a map editor. I wrote a converter that takes raw palette data from a pce game (I dump it using an emulator) and converts it to ACT format (and vice verse). Photoshop's 'posterize' is good tool for snapping colors into the PCE legal range too (set to steps of .

 The other app I've uses is Pro Motion 6.5. It's pretty decent and more support for console systems, where as PS doesn't. ProM even has support for pic-> tilemap+tile format. You can set the color depth and number of subpalettes and even colors per tile. It's automated results are some times good and some times bad. But it great for making a reference plate and then edit the original by hand, for pic conversions.

[Nando]

 I wrote a converter that takes raw palette data from a pce game (I dump it using an emulator) and converts it to ACT format (and vice verse). Photoshop's 'posterize' is good tool for snapping colors into the PCE legal range too (set to steps of .

That's f*cking cool. NICE!

Photoshop's 'posterize' is good tool for snapping colors into the PCE legal range too (set to steps of .

Writing that one down.
Thanks!

[Nando]

Tell you what, that spline tool looks like it could be a TIME saver.

[spenoza]

Anyone use Paint .NET?

[Bonknuts]

I use to have some custom color maps that I made, but this is the only one I could find: www.pcedev.net/pce_gfx/color_maps/color_grid_336colors.bmp

 The idea was the draw a line from one color to another, and all colors that fall within that line you can use for the gradient. I don't think I ever end up doing that, though.

 I used to also go through PCE and MD games (since it's 9bit palette too) looking for color layouts that looked like what I could use. Browns, greens, etc. The problem you have to watch out for is the relative range. That is to say, the current perception of what color range you're using (because the perception of color or hue is always effected and relative to what other colors add or subtract from it). What might look like brown could end up looking like green-brown if you get a hue that subtracts too much the range, making one or the other stick out. You can compress the color range via the luma range too, but never using black (using lowest grey or a dark color). Same difference for mixing cool and warm color swatches, etc. I always had problems with earth tones (browns and related colors) on the PCE's palette. Especially if there's a lot of it in a scene or pic. So I usually end up seeing what other games do for similar.

[ccovell]

Colourcubes are not always the most useful things, but anyway...

Here's one small pic that has all 512 PCE colours:

And - for more inbetween colours -- you can always choose your path through the colour cube using wider straight lines, or even curve through the cube: