OHR Pal (Tool)

So I had this sitting around, slightly unfinished since I discovered the joys of GrafX2 which make it slightly (but not entirely) irrelevant. Then I realized you guys may also find it useful! So I finished up the current features:

Preview hero/walkabout/attack animations.
Edit the master palette (swatch by swatch)

I figure it will be very useful for those who do all of their pixelling in the OHR. (I don't blame you, its how I still do a fair chunk of mine)

Frame orders and stuff are somewhat customizable, especially for heroes.

It was also a fun little adventure in interface design.

Get it here:

http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewgame.php?p=99619#99619

If enough people find it useful, I may go back and add it the rest of the planned features:

Previewing border graphics, with adjustably sized rects to check for odd artifacts.
Tile previews, with a few different modes.
Brightness/Saturation control for Swatch editor.
A way to close it.

In action:



EDIT: I probably ought to mention, its a plotscript, designed to be run in Test Game mode while you use Custom's editors. Esc out of an editor and spacebar back in to update.

sounds handy.
Does it work with screens? And can it work with the keyboard?

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dOn'T MiNd mE! i'M jUsT CoNtAgIoUs!!!
Play Orbs CCG: http://orbsccg.com/r/4r6x

No and no.

Backdrop support would be fairly trivial to add, compared to other features I had in mind. What sort of interface would be useful? I imagine instead of animating live, you'd put in some parameters (start frame, end frame, wait time) and then click a button to play the animation. But I'll admit I do not really see a use for this-- backdrops can't be edited in Custom anyway... Are you trying to make backdrop animations in a graphics editor that doesn't have animation?! That sounds awful. Do yourself a favor and get GrafX2 or GraphicsGale! Export any .bmp of your game and open it, and you will have a file loaded with your game's palette.

Keyboard support seems unintuitive, since there is no visual indicator of what window is "on-top." It would be also be a bit more work. I also don't see the utility--you have to switch to the mouse to leave custom anyway, and I think you'll find if you start to use OHR Pal you don't actually have it in focus for very long.

Although, most numbers, if clicked, can be typed in. So if that is what you meant, then yes.

Wow, this is awesome! You've clearly put a lot of work into this. It's still definitely useful even if you use an external graphics editor with animation support, if just for the attack animations. I expect to use it in future; thanks!

The GUI is very well done, and I think you have a first here. Looking only briefly through your scripts, they seem somewhat reusable.

Is there any reason you copy pasted scancode.hsi in the script file instead of including it?

(Just ignore Meow, he wants a backdrop editor in the engine and is pulling your leg.)

Only a little bit :p
But yeah, I had to ask, as I really do want some way to edit backdrop screens in-editor. Having a keyboard to use to draw and edit graphics just feels great to me, as my other options are a mouse and mousepad. My old mousepad worked well, but this one on me new lappy kinda, oh, what's the word, oh yeah, fails miserably.

Typically I use MS Paint for backdrops and hope that nothing gets distorted since MS Paint's standard pallet and the OHRRPGCE standard pallet hate one another So yeah, no animations. Though currently the only thing I've used animations for would be in AR-PUH-GUH!, where the stone dungeon background animates the torches. Not like you really can see that since health bars consume that part >_>
Okay okay, I'll stop now before I go into a long speech about why I want a in-editor backdrop editor.

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dOn'T MiNd mE! i'M jUsT CoNtAgIoUs!!!
Play Orbs CCG: http://orbsccg.com/r/4r6x

Meow: This might help you a little bit: http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/neatmouse-control-your-mouse-with-custom-mapped-keyboard-buttons/

It's not a perfect solution, but it might be what you're looking for as far as drawing graphics with a keyboard.

That sounds like a good idea too. Shakeyair linked me to GraphX, some cryptic program from years past, but since that post is now gone forever....
I'll look at that article.

edit: ha ha, this thing is so neat! I'm totally gonna try playing minecraft with this./

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dOn'T MiNd mE! i'M jUsT CoNtAgIoUs!!!
Play Orbs CCG: http://orbsccg.com/r/4r6x

If you're willing to draw with an emulated mouse you might just as well use GrafX2, since its keyboard support is at least as good as that. Much more complex than MS Paint; admittedly scary at first (but you can press F1 for help anywhere)

The sprite editor is slated for a rewrite for Cacodemomania so a backdrop editor may turn out to become simple to implement, but I really don't want to prioritise it over hundreds of other worthwhile things.