Glyph Designer 1.5 – Released
This evening we have released Glyph Designer 1.5. This release see’s some frequently requested features added to Glyph Designer.
Glyph Padding
This allows padding to be applied around each glyph image on the texture atlas being produced. This now means that it’s much easier for the texture atlas to be edited externally from Glyph Designer allowing designers to add their own effects as necessary. When using in conjunction with the outlined texture atlas that can be selected during export, it’s now much easier to perform post processing
Fixed Width Fonts
One issue that can arise when using bitmap fonts is when using them within a HUD. For scores and timers it is often not easy to get a font to render correctly as the proportional spacing causes the glyphs in the font to jumped left and right as they are rendered due to the different glyph sizes. This new feature in Glyph Designer now means it’s possible to use ANY font you wish and turn it into a fixed width font removing this problem. It’s also possible to carefully adjust the width you want to use so you get exactly the results you need.
Outline Font Metrics
In an earlier release of Glyph Designer where we enhanced the outline feature, we also started adjusting the font metrics based on the outline so that glyphs did not hit each other. We had a number of people ask for this to be optional, so in this release it’s not possible to choose if you want the font metrics to be changed. By default the metrics WILL NOT be changed unless you tick the Outline Metrics option in the outline tool panel.
Lion Full Screen App Support
Only a small item but Glyph Designer looks great full screen :o)
Fixes
We also re-fixed a problem where XML output was chopping the tops off of some characters.
We believe that these new features will really help developers using bitmap fonts in their games. Adding padding and fixed width fonts will allow you to really go so much further with your fonts.
We are now hard at work on Glyph Designer 2.0 which will introduce a completely new architecture to the app allowing for some really really cool new stuff to be added. We wanted to add it to this release but the changes would make the code base flaky and hard to manage, so we decided that a 2.0 release is needed which will give us way more flexibility going forward.
Thanks to everyone who is using Glyph Designer for your support, it really means a lot to us and we are more excited than ever about the future of Glyph Designer.
Mike & Tom
P.S. We will also be launching a set of 11 new tutorial videos over the next couple of days that will help you get the most out of Glyph Designer
11 Comments
RogerDoger on November 27th, 2011
Do not down this new version!!!
There are some save and export issue with this version. On several occasions I’ve opened a file saved with this new version and had it lose the font. Everything else is right, just not the font. Double clicking on a .GylphProject file also opens up a default window in addition to the font I double click on, so that might be causing some issues.
And most frustrating of all, when I choose export and then click on a file to use that name, the SAVE button is disabled. I have no idea how I can export a font now.
I’m completely stuck.
ScottYelich on November 28th, 2011
Is there a link somewhere on this page on where to get Glyph Designer (let alone v 1.5)?
nexus6 on November 28th, 2011
Hi Mike,
I have the same issue as RogerDoger. When you save the project like Bauhaus93 font and click on the saved project it defaults back to arial not the one you saved.
The .png .fnt files were fine.
nexus6 on November 28th, 2011
Follow Up.
Found out what’s seems to be going on. If you quit Glyph Designer and click on the project file it loads Arial instead of what was saved.
If you launch Glyph Designer first the click on the project file it loads the right font.
PS:
thanks for the GREAT!! tools. I use Particle Designer and Glyph Designer a lot.
mike on November 28th, 2011
Thanks for the feedback guys, I’m looking into the problem and will get back to you ASAP.
Mike
mike on November 28th, 2011
If you need to drop back to an older version while I look into this follow the link below.
http://glyphdesigner.71squared....._1.4.2.zip
Mike
mike on November 28th, 2011
Glyph Designer 1.5.1 now released which fixes the issue of not being able to open a project file.
Let me know if you guys see any other issues.
Thanks
Mike
mike on November 29th, 2011
Glyph Designer 1.5.2 has now been released. This fixes an issue that was causing spacing to be incorrect for some font sizes, outline and shadow configurations.
This had been hanging around for a while and is a good one to nail down. This should provide MUCH better accuracy regardless of the effects you apply to the glyphs.
This release also fixes a issue with the XML export which was constantly using the fixed width output.
Mike
headkaze on December 4th, 2011
Thanks Mike I’m a big fan of Glyph Designer. One quick request.. I actually have multiple fonts generated using Glyph Designer packed into a texture atlas. It would be great to be able to set arbituary texture sizes instead of power of two only. That way I can size fonts more to my liking and then pack them into a final texture.
mike on December 4th, 2011
Thanks for the feedback headkaze. That is a great suggestion and I’ll put that on the list :)
Mike
untested on November 27th, 2011
thanks for the update… fixed width is a very nice touch… the range of mono spaced fonts is very limited.
Cheers
Chris