NGFX - Feature Request - Page 1

Hi Blastar!

The NGFX tools kick ass!

One small observation is that "Palette > Save as" the window prompt that opens says "Open" when it should say "Save"...The functionality works perfectly just saying...

Now on to the big questions.....

Seen below is your typical NGFX GUI as a reference point.

Fichier joint :

Often when I import an image I will need to use the drag and drop feature to match the palette of the imported image to the palette I have loaded in NGFX.
1. By adjusting the the drag and drop to be vertical and a little larger it would be much easier to do manual palette matching. (It is small now and you are comparing vertical to horizontal all the time)
2. A feature called "Match to Current Palette" if checked the palette in your imported image would shuffle to best match the palette that is currently loaded in NGFX.

If you look at my example you could A) Manually drag and drop palette entries or B) Just check "Match to Current Palette" and the computer would do its best to line up palette entries using the current NGFX palette as the reference.

See a mockup for a better visualization of feature requests.

Fichier joint :

Thanks a million for creating this great tool!

done!

thanks for compliment and creating a mockup - this helped a lot!
- open/save-typo fixed
- palette is now vertical
- new option: match current palette

download here

the new 'match current palette'-option replaces the actual color with the closest color from current palette, I hope this works like expected.

when importing a photo using standard-palette it creates stylish retro-art, cga-like!

Hi Blastar

This is wicked! Thanks so much for making the change and enhancing the functionality!
My goal is to make a project that you would be proud of and actually get to see! (I am in a good spot I do not think we are talking about a pipe dream here)

I got a slam dunk! As soon as I loaded the image with the disorganized palette entries the match feature lined the disorganized palette entries up.

Fichier joint :

I noticed when I turned off "Match to Current Palette" several of my Palette entries disappeared....

Fichier joint :

Now bottom line you went above and beyond and I couldn't be more happy but...If the functionality worked like...

1) "Match to Current Palette" (Neatly organizes entries to match the current palette that is loaded....more times than not this will be all you need)
2) If you toggle "Match to Current Palette" OFF the reorganized palette entries remain exactly where they are but the bad ass "drag and drop" feature is re-enabled to give you an additional layer of control.

With the technique described above you could combine the two features to get a specific result.

From an aesthetic point of view you could align the buttons if you felt so inclined.... just saying

1) Way one is no hassle.

Fichier joint :

2) Way two requires the font of the "Palette - sort by Drag & Drop" to be adjusted.

Fichier joint :

I noticed when I turned off "Match to Current Palette" several of my Palette entries disappeared....

that's correct, if you uncheck the 'match..'-option the palette will be recreated. when you modify the 'matched' palette you will also change the current palette... because of this I disabled the drag'n'drop-feature.

I think you need this for some kind of color-swaps!?

Hi Blastar,

Ideally both of these scenarios would produce the same result.

1) "Drag and Drop" gives the desired result. Please see annotation in the image.

Fichier joint :

2) "Match to Current Colour Palette" does not give the desired result. Please see annotation in the image.

Fichier joint :

I am starting to see that you are creating a new palette. Although very cool I do not need to import images with an incorrect number of colours or generate palettes for images based on the NGFX palette.

I am looking for an alternative to "sort by drag and drop" to help automate the process of sorting an imported image's colour placements to match the NGFX palette.

I guess maybe a more proper title might be...
"Auto Sort Palette (Best Guess)".....I am very sorry Blastar I used a poor choice of words when describing the feature initially.

This feature would be a great start then the "sort by drag and drop" could be used for clean up / discrepancies.
If the program mismatched the palette orders I could then resort to "sorting by dragging and dropping" palette entries to correct the issue.

Please check again: download here

- Calculation of color-distance is now done via Euclidean distance, this should work better with sprites.
- I also changed the 'Match..'-option, I believe a Button works better than a Checkbox.
- Palette Drag'n'Drop is now always enabled.
- Only used colors from 'current palette' will by copied to import-window... BUT all colors (also empty entries) will be copied back! <- I'm not sure about this!

Hi Blastar!

Thanks so much for listening to my ramblings and for taking the time to incorporate these new features!

My findings....

Scenario 1: All colours in the imported image match the NGFX palette

The image you import has the exact same 15 colour palette as your NGFX palette. "Match to current Palette" seems to work perfectly!
I have not tested extensively but as it stands I cannot see any degradation to the imported image!!!
Side Note: More often than not this will be the ideal way I work. "Match to current Palette" will definitely help stream line the process! THANK YOU! Blastar!

Scenario 2: All colours in the imported image match the NGFX palette

The image you import matches the colours in your NGFX palette but only contains a fraction of the 15 colors.
"Match to current Palette" identifies the exact matches and leaves the other entries as blank entries.
Very useful because the imported image will have the correct sort upon import.
Side Note: This is a very common occurrence that is forced on you from time to time. This is the jigsaw aspect of what we are up to.
"Match to current Palette" will definitely help stream line the process! THANKS AGAIN! Blastar!

Scenario 3: Some colours in the imported image match the NGFX palette

The image you import has some of the colours in your NGFX palette as well as a few others.
Side Note: This can happen...generally operating in the space of Scenario 1 and 2 is ideal but accidental colours sneak in from time to time. Random GFX edits, colour tweaks etc..
These colours are not noticeable to the naked eye but are indeed different than the NGFX palette.

I purposely adjusted one colour in an image not to match the NGFX palette to replicate this scenario. I then imported the image.
"Match to current Palette" identifies the exact matches and leaves the other entry that did not match as blank. Good so far...
Upon importing the image the new palette with the blank entry was imported into NGFX. Good so far...
I figured all I need to do is load the previous palette and the blank palette entry will be corrected. I did load the previous palette and the proper colour was loaded into the blank spot. Good so far...
Upon reviewing the graphic, the colour that was loaded in from the new palette was not inserted into the graphic! This is is where things fall apart.

If the blank palette entry still represented the colour that did not match it would just be a simple palette load to remedy the problem.
Better yet instead of putting blank entries when a palette entry does not match it would be ideal if the entries that don't match still remain in the import window's colour list.
At this stage "sort palette by drag and drop" could be used to better organize the palette entries that are not recognized as matching.

I realize you have purposely made it very obvious to users what colours match and the blanks represent how many colour's don't.
In my case I always need all colours that I am importing so blanking out colours and assigning new designations does not help me.
This is why I was always big on the "sort by drag and drop" being enabled because of situations like these.
*Ideally if 1 or more colours do not match the user still has access to the non-matching colours and can manually correct the sort order before the import is processed.

If you were to tackle this issue a suggestion would be to give the unmatched colours a light red outline to help the user implicate the discrepancies.
Alternatively, if the outline does not exist the user will still be able to compare the NGFX palette against the import palette visually so the identifier is not the biggest deal.

**Edit - Here is an example of a highlight of some obvious unmatched colours...Typically the unmatched colours wouldn't be as obvious because they would generally be slightly different shades of the existing NGFX palette but this is just a quick visualization to demonstrate what an outline might look like...1 pixel black, 1 pixel red, 1 pixel black - If done in this way black and reds would still read clearly as unmatched.

Fichier joint :

Scenario 3 is fixable....but it would be really slick if the process described below could be avoided with process described above.

1) Cancel an import as soon as you notice there are blank palette entries generated by "Match to current Palette"
2) Re-import the same image but use the manual method "sort palette by drag and drop"
3) Upon import save the newly imported palette and use it moving forward.

Conclusion

There you have it! Blastar has done some really cool feature enhancements and you have all 3 described scenarios covered. Is there more to this story? Only time will tell. Many thanks Blastar for the Awesome NGFX Tool set!
You are making dreams come true!

good job

Hi Blastar!

After gaining more experience with NGFX I have found a repetitive task I was hoping you might consider incorporating into the program.

Steps used to identify a palette

In NGFX
1. To identify palettes I always manually draw a single vertical strip that matches the exact palette order. (I must carefully plot every palette entry on a tile)

In the Emulator
2. I take screenshot when the modified tile appears.

In Photoshop
3. I blow up the screenshot and can clearly see the exact order of the palette colours.

Feature Request

"Line Palette Tool" (for lack of a better description)

The tool would reduce step 1. of the case described above to a single click.
The idea is.....

hello,
sorry, but i can't understand your question. you draw the colors 0-15 to identify the matching palette entry? there are easier ways.
1. use the dropper tool.
2. press the CTRL key while clicking on a pixel (left or right) to get the matching palette entry (instant dropper - psp-feature, not documented)

Hi Blastar,

Thanks for the tip it is cool that you have that feature!

In this case I am using the technique to replace the original palette of any sprite with my own custom palette.

1. I must draw the colours vertically 0-15 in NGFX.
2. Save the c files.
3. Launch the game in an emulator.
4. Play the game until the tile with my 0-15 strip appears.
5. Take a screenshot of the scene with the tile in it.
6. Blow the screenshot up in photoshop so the 0-15 pixels are enlarged so I can clearly see the order of the colours in the original palette. Now I know exactly what palette I am replacing and I can track it down.

At this stage I have drawn countless 0-15 vertical strips hoping a macro of sorts could be added to NGFX.

oh, now I understand the idea behind it.
I didn't intend to add more complicated graphics functions, it's out of proportion to the use. if it helps I can adjust the fill function so that you can switch between full-color (opaque) and different gradients.
but that takes a few days because I am very busy with other things.

I really appreciate the help but if you are busy I don't want to put you out. I only need the feature for the strips. I can continue drawing them. Just thought I would share my current work flow.

Since I have your attention I wanted to see if you might consider incorperating a tile bookmark feature? If someone is working exclusively on a particular rom they are able document the rom by bookmarking important tiles.

Ex:
Player 1 Idle tiles
Player 1 super move tiles
Level 1 Boss tiles
Etc...

People could make an archive of

Game_X_Bookmarks.txt

After loading the file in NGFX the user could use a drop down menu to select tile entries that were saved in the .txt file.

This will be helpful for new people wishing to edit the game in the future as well as for people that are constantley returning to the same set of tiles to modify them.

You do not need to make the bookmark.txt files from NGFX you just have to provide a format and people can make their own .txt files manually and load them in to NGFX to be inteurpted.

This would be sweet...just a suggestion thanks for hearing me out.

I played around with this idea months ago when I was working with the graphic data of cps1-roms, it is not complicated but not easy to add to the existing version of NGFX.
on the other hand, I am not a friend of rom hacks (unless it changes the gameplay), I hate simple colorchanges and characterswaps so I fear a program what could do such things would only lead to hundreds of romshacks without any depth of creation.

If you want to edit existing games you should probably just convert gfx data using a fixed palette you know and work from there.

Ex, Blue's Journey data: https://nsa39.casimages.com/img/2018/08/17/180817120931203606.png

Wow this topic just got really interesting!

Blastar you have made an excellent program to HPMAN's point it is cool how your suggestion could be a solution but once you play with NGFX you see just how useful the tool is.
With it you can adjust offsets and sometimes get some amazing results that reveals an assembled graphic that can be easily replaced.
In the GFX dump you provided their are alot of questions that need to be answered when you start playing scramble replacing various tiles.

If someone loves a game and is interested in it's GFX data a bookmark system would be very useful in my opinion.
It would also move the community forward for people to share their work. The original games will always be preserved
so I don't see harm in allowing people to have some fun exploring a roms GFX composition and trying their hand at some modifications.

Blastar I thought you would be proud that your program is so cool and definitely brings so many opportunities to its users.
I have been having fun with NGFX and I always think twice before posting but after working so closely with the rom data
I found the vertical strip was repetitious and so was finding my place and offset in the data, time and time again.
Assumptions are definitely wrong but I believed possibly you would add palette editing directly on the P1 rom as a feature
some day to NGFX. Everyone dislikes weak hacks. lol

There are tons of hacks already and only the ones that are done well are noted the rest seem to fall by the way side.
At this point I have invested years (part time) and as we all know anything good takes time to come to fruition.
Replacing GFX in a rom is very time consuming and tedious I would compare it to my perception of knitting.
When someone knits something it can be a very cool looking quilt but does not seem overly enjoyable from my perspective.
That said elbow grease is required and it is not for the faint of heart otherwise there won't be any solid results.
This thing takes effort if you want to do it properly.

I have to rebut on Character Swaps Doki Doki Panic VS Super Mario Bros USA aka Super Mario Bros 2.
Both are great although the gameplay is pretty much identical.
What if such and such a game had a different license?
A game some might view as shit gfx could be re-skinned with what some might consider as hype graphics.
Yes the game plays the same but the licensing is able to get the games tight programming the attention it deserves.
It boils down to what is the intention of the "gfx hacker" and 1st's. Who will go down in history as effectively
re-skinning such and such a game? Who will be the first to do a Neo Geo game front to back top to bottom?
The answer to me is MANY because people like Blastar make tools that people like me can use and then possibly I can
reach out to others in the community and make a properly polished release that some may like to play possibly more than the original.

Just some thoughts on what I see as hot topic lol