This is an unofficial forum I have made for FontStruct tutorials and educational materials. Want to know how to do something, or how to make a certain style or effect? This is the place to ask. I am not part of staff, and am far from being the most advanced user on here, but will pass on whatever I can.
I have been writing an FS video series for some time, but it has proven very time-consuming to make the series as comprehensive (and as high-quality) as I would like. It has also occurred to me that I can teach a lot through simple text and graphics. This is my attempt to create a knowledge hub for FS where all the good stuff is in one place. If you make a tutorial or expand on mine in some way, you're welcome to post those here as well.
Please keep the discussion topical. This page is about tutorials, requests and discussions for them, etc. Idea Soup is more of a free-for-all and anything FS-related is accepted there. Idea Soup is also a good place to discuss tutorial ideas, since we can work out exactly what needs to be taught there without clogging the comment section here. (There is a limit on the number of comments this page can have, right?)
This page is open to users of all languages, but we may have to use Google Translate to answer you. Sorry in advance for any bad translations :D
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Related Forum:FontStruct Idea Soup
The font used for these forums is Tangereen 2.
A pixel font made to look like fire! Now you can answer (and ask!) your burning questions...
Drawing and editing these takes more time and effort than most other forms of pixel art. Don't expect them to look perfect without some time and effort from YOU, as well. An effect like this requires hand adjustment of every part at every stage.
The coloring, infill color, and effects you use with this font make a drastic difference as to what looks are evoked by its shapes! Scroll down for lots of examples. :^)
Alternates on lowercase!
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TODO: Alternates for .,?!@_*#$%&()+/:;<=>[\]^`[|]~†123456890
Original size: 18pt (use multiples of this value for pixel perfection)
A place to post your FS-related ideas.
The more I use FS, the more I generate ideas. Some of them don't get published, and some of them are useful enough to pass on. This page is a home for those kinds of ideas. I'll probably be posting FS art and alternative glyph designs here... you may post whatever you like, as long as it's FS-related.
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Related Forum:FontStruct Tutorials
The font used for these forums is Tangereen 2.
I designed this 16x16 pixel font to facilitate texturing and dithering for pixel artists. Not every piece of art software has tools designed for texturing/dithering, and loading lots of custom brushes for the purpose can slow one's software way down as well. This font was made to attempt to solve these problems. Now you can dither, shade, and texture by typing! Every glyph repeats as a seamless texture both horizontally and vertically.
The name comes from my emulator/game, "Virtua Gremlin". Although these patterns weren't in the game (it used 9x9 tiles, not 16x16), many of the patterns here are based on that earlier work. "Skins" is a reference to graphical skins, of course. :D
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USAGE GUIDE
A-Z = textures
a-z = dithering/shading patterns
0-9 = scanlines
The rest is sort of a mishmash... I'll organize it better once I have enough glyphs to warrant a good classification system...
Have an idea for a pattern? Want to see a particular sprite or aesthetic included? Let me know :D
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Original size: 12pt (use multiples of this value for pixel perfection)
Tip: View this in the Character Map so you can more easily grab and paste glyphs when designing!
See also: Gremlin Skins HD
A vertical take on Morse code. These glyphs are read left-to-right from the bottom up and spaced so that 1 pixel = 1 unit of time, whether moving horizontally or vertically. Letters have 3 spaces between them and words have 7 spaces.
The result is a concise design that can easily be fed to tone-generation or image-to-audio software (e.g., AudioPaint) to produce accurately encoded & timed Morse code, no matter the frequency (speed) of the transmission. You can use this principle to create and place messages into music or games, make messages match a tempo or beat, arpeggiate words and turn them into music or sound effects, and much more.
The name is a pun. :P
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21NOV2018: I've recently learned that many radio stations use an expanded version of the International Morse Code, adding many symbols and punctuation to it. Though these new glyphs are not part of the standard, they are commonly used and agreed on, so I will keep adding them as I find them.
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Original size: 4pt (use multiples of this size for pixel perfection)
A simple 16x16 terrain tileset. This is designed to work in color AND in monochrome.
In making this, I condensed all known biomes (terrestrial, aquatic, air, space, manmade, transitional) into 26 tiles. This allows a given tile to define multiple different types of areas/terrain, and it allows you to come up with your own meanings for these tiles, rather than having to memorize a legend. Some of the tiles are obvious and some are not; this is by design.
A-Z, a-z = terrain
0-9, 0-9+SHIFT = map borders/frame
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Original size: 12pt
Map Template:
.0123456789
!,,,,,,,,,,
@,,,,,,,,,,
#,,,,,,,,,,
$,,,,,,,,,,
%,,,,,,,,,,
^,,,,,,,,,,
&,,,,,,,,,,
*,,,,,,,,,,
(,,,,,,,,,,
),,,,,,,,,,
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See also:Donjon 16, Gremlin Skins
Lincoln Log-inspired font with a custom set of composite bricks. Feel free to clone this and make new creations from the composites!
B/8, S/Z, and 2/5 are exactly the same... still brainstorming on how to deal with it while adhering to the design rules...
Original size: 20pt
149 custom bricks for your perusal! Only custom bricks are in the palette, so you can clone this and easily start drawing right away.
I'll definitely be adding more with time. I love this sort of experimentation!
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Another experimental font for texturing work. This one uses only an 8x8 grid, but since it isn't pixel art, a much greater variety of patterns is possible. Every glyph in the font repeats as a seamless texture in both directions.
See also:Gremlin Skins (pixel version)
This tileset was developed specifically for use with GBStudio, where graphics are stored in the system as 8x8 tiles. By using these tiles, one can incorporate a greater variety of tiles into a map without running into the 192-tile limit which Game Boy hardware has.
Well, before making this I already found ways to break that limit (and to use larger tiles), and the resulting games compile fine and even work on real hardware. I made this anyway for those who wish to never exceed 192 tiles, thus keeping their games small in filesize and reducing the likelihood of compiling problems.
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Original size: 6pt (use multiples of this size for pixel perfection)
A design for Perler bead and other fused bead artists.
These letters are designed to use a small(ish) amount of of beads while still being sturdy enough to make into charms, keychains and such. The letters are on a 7x7 grid and require an average of about 44 beads to make.
I recommend filling in the negative spaces with more beads, but if you fuse both sides, these designs should work fine on their own. I'll test some myself and post images eventually...
Original size: 5.25pt
This is a basic font for building words, each letter is one block made of a 3x5 composite, somtimes with stacking. Wish this were not a clone, since it is a root clonable from which clones can be made. Some letters need nudging when building words: Nudge left: filt, Nudge right: mvw. The numbers need to be nudged down. The lower case letters are designed to not touch either the top or the bottom of the edge of the brick (except the g).
This is a clone of DungeoneerEver since I saw jonrgrover's "Heavy Chain", I wondered what forms of Celtic knotwork and chainmail weave could be created on a small grid. This design contains all the ones I have found so far. Feel free to clone this or make suggestions!
All these designs are 1x1 or 2x2; I made larger swatches to show how they tessellate and can form even larger shapes.
If you clone this, I recommend opening another new FontStruction at the same time, then copy-pasting the knots you want from the cloned project over to the new one. This will help reduce the chance that your creation gets corrupted.