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Author Topic: REXPaint, the ASCII art editor  (Read 28786 times)

Kyzrati

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REXPaint, the ASCII art editor
« on: September 02, 2013, 05:23:48 pm »

Just released a new version of my ASCII art editor, and had the surprising realization yesterday that I never created a thread for this program on Bay 12 :o

Surely the creative types on Bay 12 (everyone? ;p) would enjoy something like this.

REXPaint home

REXPaint was originally created a few months back as a tool to aid work on my roguelike games, and I released it as a free ASCII art editor / roguelike mockup program. Since then it's found use in various corners of the web. Several forum games on Bay 12 have also picked it up as an easy way to draw maps/updates. My favorite is Energy Quest, but you'll find a wider variety of art in DarkDXZ's games like You are a Skeletal Dragon. More recently (Aug 2015) there's Deadly Dungeon Crawl.

Other art:
Spoiler: Robot by ShroomArts (click to show/hide)
That last one was recently posted anonymously to an image board, and while I can't confirm that it was made with REXPaint, it certainly *could* have been (chances are high, since there are only two programs in the wild that would enable you to make something like this without pulling your hair out, and one is REXPaint--maybe someone on Bay 12 knows who created this? And two years later, Gatleos shows up to claim his work :P).

To anyone who's using REXPaint: Feel free to post about it in this thread. I like to hear/see what people do with it!

Features:
* Edit characters, foreground, and background colors separately
* Draw shapes and text
* Copy/cut/paste areas
* Undo/redo changes (unlimited)
* Preview effects simply by hovering the cursor over the canvas
* Palette manipulation
* Image-wide color tweaking and palette swaps
* True-color RGB/HSV color picker
* Create multi-layered images
* Zooming: Scale an image by changing font size on the fly
* Browse art assets and begin editing at the press of a button
* Images highly compressed
* Export PNGs for use in other programs or on the web
* Export .ANS files for ANSI art
* Other exportable formats: TXT, CSV, XML, XPM, BBCode
* Import .TXT files
* Skinnable interface
« Last Edit: May 02, 2016, 12:09:30 am by Kyzrati »
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Anvilfolk

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Re: REXPaint, the ASCII art editor
« Reply #1 on: September 04, 2013, 03:26:02 am »

Aw man, that's totally awesome :) Kind of wish I was doing ASCII stuff now ;)

acetech09

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Re: REXPaint, the ASCII art editor
« Reply #2 on: September 04, 2013, 06:52:42 pm »

Aw man, that's totally awesome :) Kind of wish I was doing ASCII stuff now ;)

^
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Kyzrati

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Re: REXPaint, the ASCII art editor
« Reply #3 on: September 05, 2013, 06:55:20 am »

It's never too late to start! =p

Heh, that's the way it is, though, always so many interesting things to do and not enough time to do them. I recently read the history of Boatmurdered, and now I so want to spend a lot of time playing Dwarf Fortress, and then even more time building my own simulationist game... Like I have the time for all that :'(

In any case, better to stick with one thing long enough to produce something of value rather than bounce around from project to project and have little to show for it.
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Aklyon

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Re: REXPaint, the ASCII art editor
« Reply #4 on: September 05, 2013, 11:56:12 am »

Speaking of Energy Quest, I need to update it >.>
I've been busy doing too many things at once to remember it was there.
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Crystalline (SG)
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It's known as the Oppai-Kaiju effect. The islands of Japan generate a sort anti-gravity field, which allows breasts to behave as if in microgravity. It's also what allows Godzilla and friends to become 50 stories tall, and lets ninjas run up the side of a skyscraper.

Aqizzar

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Re: REXPaint, the ASCII art editor
« Reply #5 on: September 07, 2013, 04:30:21 pm »

This is definitely the most user-friendly ascii-painter I've seen.  The only features I could think to add to it are a draw-from-center circle tool, and a transparency function for pasting.  That aside, I've already gotten a lot of use out of it, so thanks for the post Kyzrati.

Speaking of which, are there any rights on using the tilesets?
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Kyzrati

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Re: REXPaint, the ASCII art editor
« Reply #6 on: September 07, 2013, 05:00:16 pm »

Glad you're finding it useful. I created it as a tool for my own frequent use and I'm a real stickler for efficiency so the intent was to make it possible for the workflow to be as fast as possible.

I'll add a center-drawn circle tool to the next release (though I don't know when that will be).

By "transparency for pasting" are you referring to merging colors? Can you describe something specific you'd like to do with it? As I'm imagining it, that feature doesn't seem general-purpose enough to warrant cluttering the UI for, but it could possibly be added as a special feature depending on what you're thinking.

About the tilesets, they are open for any use.
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Aqizzar

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Re: REXPaint, the ASCII art editor
« Reply #7 on: September 07, 2013, 05:13:25 pm »

By "transparency for pasting" are you referring to merging colors? Can you describe something specific you'd like to do with it? As I'm imagining it, that feature doesn't seem general-purpose enough to warrant cluttering the UI for, but it could possibly be added as a special feature depending on what you're thinking.

What I mean is, selecting a cell combination (glyph, foreground and background) like you do when you right-click, and then when you paste a selection, that tile combination is omitted from the paste.  I know I can basically do the same thing with the layering, but being able to transparent-paste a selection on the same layer would be a nice feature.

Also, how does the Alternate mode on the Cell drawing actually work?  There doesn't seem to be any pattern to which types of cells it decides to change.
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And here is where my beef pops up like a looming awkward boner.
Please amplify your relaxed states.
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The ancients built these quote pyramids to forever store vast quantities of rage.

Kyzrati

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Re: REXPaint, the ASCII art editor
« Reply #8 on: September 07, 2013, 05:25:44 pm »

Ah, paste omition--REXPaint already does it. When you copy, it actually copies *all* data, then the glyph/fgd/bkg settings are checked only when you paste, so you can change them and paste fewer/more components if you like. (The copy-all/paste-some method is better than having it copy only what you have selected, since it gives you more flexibility.)

The alternate mode for cell drawing connects lines/walls for you automatically; good for drawing boxes/map walls.

For these and other features, you might want to skim the manual, since there are other possibilities you might not be aware of (if anything, the manual's command list is much longer than the one shown in REXPaint). One of the things on the to-do list was to add popup/context help, but I didn't get around to it.
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timotheus

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Re: REXPaint, the ASCII art editor
« Reply #9 on: September 10, 2013, 12:04:50 pm »

This is awesome, and I can't wait to try it out. Thanks for creating/sharing it!
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Kyzrati

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Re: REXPaint, the ASCII art editor
« Reply #10 on: September 12, 2013, 02:30:59 am »

Happy to have provided a tool others can use to create something!

Anyone who's using REXPaint feel free to post about it in this thread. I like to hear/see what people do with it.
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Kyzrati

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Re: REXPaint, the ASCII art editor
« Reply #11 on: February 07, 2014, 06:32:23 pm »

Just released a new version of REXPaint with a fair number of new features. Check it out here (along with some sample art by myself and ShroomArts).

Among the changes are your draw-from-center behavior for circles, Aqizzar. That's the default now, since I think it makes a bit more sense--you can still switch to corner-based drawing via Alt-o (or change the default in the .cfg file).

REXPaint beta v0.97r7 (140206)

* NEW: Export pure text (Ctrl-t)
* NEW: Export to CSV (Ctrl-k)
* NEW: Export to XML (Ctrl-m)
* NEW: Export to XPM (Ctrl-p)
* NEW: Image-wide swapping of glyphs (Ctrl-LMB in font window)
* NEW: Toggle highlighting of already-used glyphs ('u')
* NEW: Multiple paste modes, added to support flipping/rotation of clipboard contents
* NEW: Set the grid glyph manually via config file
* NEW: Change grid resolution in program (Shift-Wheel)
* NEW: Hold Alt key while hovering over a glyph in font selection window to highlight all uses in current layer
* NEW: Grid can by set to appear under image (i.e. in undrawn areas only) (Alt-g)
* NEW: Text tool supports multiple lines (Ctrl-Enter), started directly below current line
* NEW: Text tool can recall any previously entered text for later use (Up/Down to cycle through history)
* NEW: Additional command for viewing previous/next image in browser (Shift-Wheel)
* NEW: Non-filled rects drawn with a single/double line glyph automatically draw a properly oriented ASCII box
* MOD: Ovals drawn from centerpoint by default (switch to corner mode via Alt-o)
* MOD: "File" menu renamed to "Image"
* FIX: Alt-key commands no longer cause system beeps (Windows)

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Aklyon

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Re: REXPaint, the ASCII art editor
« Reply #12 on: February 07, 2014, 06:37:29 pm »

Those are some pretty cool ascii guns.
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Crystalline (SG)
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It's known as the Oppai-Kaiju effect. The islands of Japan generate a sort anti-gravity field, which allows breasts to behave as if in microgravity. It's also what allows Godzilla and friends to become 50 stories tall, and lets ninjas run up the side of a skyscraper.

Kyzrati

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Re: REXPaint, the ASCII art editor
« Reply #13 on: February 07, 2014, 08:10:02 pm »

Thanks, I'll be doing hundreds of Cogmind components over the next few months... :o
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Aklyon

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Re: REXPaint, the ASCII art editor
« Reply #14 on: February 07, 2014, 08:15:03 pm »

As a side note, the .txt export is a bit odd, to say the least. In rex, this is a 10x10 rectangle of a's surrounding a horizontal line rect, which itself is surrounding the rect of b's. In export it looks like this:
Code: [Select]
AAAAAAAAAA
A矬闡闡醴A
A處BBBBB莧
A處    B莧
A處    B莧
A處    B莧
A處    B莧
A處BBBBB莧
A斂闡闡囁A
AAAAAAAAAA

The letters are intact, but the horizontal line has warped into some odd alt-key characters.
« Last Edit: February 07, 2014, 08:17:39 pm by Aklyon »
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Crystalline (SG)
Sigtext
Quote from: RedKing
It's known as the Oppai-Kaiju effect. The islands of Japan generate a sort anti-gravity field, which allows breasts to behave as if in microgravity. It's also what allows Godzilla and friends to become 50 stories tall, and lets ninjas run up the side of a skyscraper.
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