Question about visual style (mostly fonts)

[Karl G.]

So I'm working on the item system, and I've found that it's a huge pain in the bum to get everything to fit on the screen with the blocky font Xenimus uses. I'm not saying it's impossible to do, it's just annoying. How upset would people be if I modernized PV so that it actually uses an Ariel-esque font?

[ziggman]

its not a big issue with me.

[lawn gnome]

go for it, sounds good.

[Karl G.]

Ok I have the code already written for a past project that I did, so it shouldn't be a big deal to integrate it.

I ask mostly because the visual style of Xenimus's font is part of my fond memory of the early game...and I hate to give it up. I just wanted to see if others would be OK with changing it if it is necessary to do so.

[Nenitus]

Why not use a 'real' font?
(it sounds like its images, like xen used)
Seems highly inefficient to me

[Richard. UK]

I think that is what Karl's intention is, personally I don't have a problem with the text. It always seemed like you could never say enough in one sentence in xenimus lol, maybe smaller font would improve that. Or just alot better programming! :)

[9sam1]

Doing that

Would not stop

Me from typing

like this

lol after playing xen so long it's something ill probobly still do in volucris even if you could type a whole paragraph lol.

[Ratiotile]

Query: Have you thought about turning the Xenimus 'font' into a real font?

example on how to make personal font: http://chank.com/howto/

I believe the process is to first vectorize each letter, then find some font-making software and import the vectors.

[Karl G.]

I've thought about that, but it seems like such a hassle. I might do it eventually but for now I'm using the new stuff.

[Ratiotile]

I think I've figured out how to convert the font. If you are currently using an Arial-like font, what is the format? If I can make a Xenimus-like font in the same format as the one you are currently using, it should be easy to switch over, right?

More questions - font1 or font2? Do you need all the strange characters that are in the bitmap, or only standard punctuation, letters, numbers? I think that the colored circles and bars are not going to be able to convert to truetype.

[Karl G.]

I just need the punctuation, really--but the biggest issue isn't that I don't have a TT font for it. The issue is that the font is so big that it's impossible to fit a reasonable amount of text on the screen. That's the primary reason I switched over. If you feel like spending the effort, I could try using a TT xenimus font and see what happens but it might just be wasted...

[Ratiotile]

I agree that it is very bulky as well. However, the Xenimus font does give text a certain character, and gives the game that unique feeling. With that said, it's more important to come out with an alpha of the game with the interface working than to worry about how it looks at this stage. If you are using a TT font, then it should be relatively painless to switch fonts anyways once it's converted to TT.
Isn't the problem with the font the fact that most characters, especially uppercase, are very wide? As for this problem, I'll see what I can do about it, maybe shrinking the width is enough. As the conversion process involves tracing over the bitmap to form a vector representation, the width of the strokes can be changed. But then again there is the problem of keeping the font true with its original feel.