wLaunchELF font creation

this guide was recovered from web archive and it was made by Polo35

Any file mentioned to be attached is found here in case archive fails

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Here a basic tuto on how to create/import/modify font file with Raster font Editor.

Please read carefuly before asking for something.

A little preview of RFE which can be found attached to this post:

ULE font are 8x16 pixels font.

There are several ways to load a font in RFE.

1

open a font file (.fnt) found attached to this post.

I submit the original ULE font to show you how to obtain a readable font.

So i recommand to open ULE.fnt file first, to show a good font.

When you see what ULE font look like you can start modifying it or create/import a new font.

2

import font from BMP, for that you need a bitmap font builder software, i recommend here Bitmap font builder from LMNO. Bitmap Font Builder (BFB) can be found attached to this post.

Start BFB, select a font, select bold, white background, black foreground, size 9 - 11 depending of font, left alligned, texture size 256x256, and save as BMP file, like this:

Now, in RFE, choose import from BMP, select your freshly created BMP file, set 16 in all size selector, and push OK, like this:

Font is now imported, but don't have the requested size, so you need to set char width to 8, and other requirement for ULE is to set first and default chars to 32 like this:

Push Apply Changes every time you modify a value in Font Details window.

Now you have the body of your new font, you certainly need to modify some chars, because ULE font drawing have some font requirements to obtain a readable font.

Here some important requirements:

Chars must have a minimum of 2 pixels at side ( drawn or not ), verticaly and horizontaly ( not really a need if there is not enough space horizontaly ).

Height of chars must be aproximatly 12 pixels for capital, and 10 pixels for tiny.

If chars use 8 pixels in width, there wont have any space between chars, so readability will be very bad. Like that (Red pixels are drawn, yelow pixels are not):

3

import from .ttf The problem here is the font height is very small, so you need to modify all chars after import.

4

import from dos font, which can be found on the net.

This font have a special format, and must always be a matrix of 16 bytes by 256 chars, so 4096 bytes. Search for Dos 8x16 font on the net.

5

Create a font from scratch, good luck.

Remember to always set first and default chars to 32 in Font Details window like explained above, that's an ULE restriction, if you don't do that you wont be able to load your font in ULE, and worth wont be able to reload your font in RFE.

Remember too, to respect as possible 2 pixels at side to obtain a readable font, but best way is to make your own experience for that.

Tip: There is a button to 'prepare latin set', that mean, pushing this button when all 'normal' chars finish (0x41 - 0x7A), will copy all needed chars into national place (0x0C - 0xFF).

That way you just need to add 'accents' on copied chars, instead of create/modify chars one by one.

To finish, when you have done all you wanted to do, save font as .fnt file and enjoy.