-snip-
This so needs to be able to be run in the background...
I sense a *hint hint nudge nudge*. Sorry buddy, but I can't foresee this eventuating any time soon, - my "talent" doesn't cater for it
Anyway, this project isn't dead. It's just moving at an ultra slow pace given recent stresses, my old keyboard dying, and a lack of motivation. I figured a small update would motivate me through peer pressure... *ahem*
A few problems. The program scans for images whilst ignoring magenta so as to discern the foreground from the background. Why is this an issue you ask? Well, fair chaps (and chips), I present to you exhibit A:
Rather than scanning through a range of characters, I have to prioritize the order in which everything is scanned and even after this, a few tilesets might pose problems. If I scan "e" before "c", all goes well.
This, in turn, explains the following:
...turns into...
...yes, my program is currently dyslexic
Whilst not being too much of a hassle as far as numbers and text go, all 256 characters are a bit of a chore.
This, however is not _too_ big a deal as I have the program working in the following way (gross oversimplification):
scanColour(tileX,tileY)
if nothing registers, return " ".
else
scanTile(characterGroup, in subDirectory scanColour)
Where characterGroup is either "numbers", "letters", "symbols", "all" etc. This obviously doesn't work in the instance of the character having a coloured background, however, since this is primarily for gathering world gen information, this won't pose an issue.
Outputting a whole screen of text takes a bit of time with the code completely unoptimized (I initially aimed primarily at getting tangible results so as to motivate me), though I can see plenty of room for improvement. Also, typically I won't be converting the entire screen to text, just portions of it, aimed at specifically letters or numbers (which requires checking against considerably less tiles).
Also, the dll I'm using to convert tilesets also seems to HATE non-square tilesets. It outputs them at the right resolution; just flipped vertically, and completely uncoloured. I've tried forcing a vertical flip, but it still refuses to colour the tiles. I have an idea of how to counter this, though it seems like a lot of work for something that should technically be rather straight forward. Square tilesets are fine.
Anyway, thats that for now. Cheers to those who still tune in