LUA Guide: True Type Fonts - PSP3D.com - Sony PlayStation Portable News, Homebrew, Hacks, Reviews, Videos, Mods, Forums

Merick · #1 (**permalink**) 02-25-2007, 02:09 AM

Now this may be old news to some of you, but since I just spent some time doing google searches and couldn't find any guides specifically about this I decided to write one.

Step one: find a ttf font to use (I got several nice ones from Download Free Fonts @ 1001 Fonts .com)

load the font into your program with this:

Code:

myfont = Font.load("fontname.ttf")

you can replace "myfont" with whatever name you want

then, you need to use either one of these to set the font size(if you don't, you won't be able to see anyting printed with the font):

Code:

myfont:setCharSize(width, height, Dx, Dy)
myfont:setPixelSizes(width, height)

*edit* I didn't realize this before because I was using the variable name "font" for the fonts in my test program, but when setting the font size you need to use the variable name that you used to load the font - I.E., if you load a font into the variable verdana you set the size with verdana:setCharSize or verdana:setPixelSizes

the first goes by "point size", the second goes by actual pixels. Dx and Dy are the display resolution, not sure exactly how that part works

the following will print text using the font, then wait for input before ending the program:

Code:

green = Color.new(0,255,0)

screen:clear()

screen:fontPrint(myfont, 50, 100, "Font Test", green)

screen.flip()

while true do
	pad = Controls.read()
	if pad:start() then break
	end
end

pj1115 · #2 (**permalink**) 02-25-2007, 04:17 AM

Nice, but I don't code in Lua.

Would be nice to see one for C.

FreeJ · #3 (**permalink**) 02-25-2007, 04:18 AM

lol ur mood is currently "freej"
loving it

sikheadtom · #4 (**permalink**) 02-25-2007, 04:58 AM

Great work!

Merick · #5 (**permalink**) 02-25-2007, 06:05 PM

Some more info:

when setting the font size, if you use zero for the width, then the width will be calculated proportionally to the height.

Also, when using screen:fontPrint you need to remember that the x/y coordinates are used for the bottom left corner of the first letter, not the top as with other screen drawing commands

wilhel1812 · #6 (**permalink**) 02-25-2007, 06:17 PM

will it become anti aliased?

Merick · #7 (**permalink**) 02-25-2007, 07:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wilhel1812

will it become anti aliased?

LOL, I'm just figuring this stuff out as I go along, and I have no idea what you mean by that

Another function I just figured out is getTextSize, used as:

Code:

myfont:getTextSize("text")["width"] --returns what the width of the text would be if
                                                             printed with the named font

or

myfont:getTextSize(text)["height"]  --returns the height

as an example of its use, here is a bit of code that will use a ttf and print text centered on the screen

Code:

myfont = Font.load("fontname.ttf")

myfont:setPixelSizes(0, 20)

function printCentered(font, y, text, color)
     screen:fontPrint(font, 240 - ((font:getTextSize(text)["width"])/2), y, text, color)
end

screen:clear()

printCentered(myfont, 100, "Centered Text", blue)

screen.flip()

while true do
	pad = Controls.read()
	if pad:start() then break
	end
end

Doubleposted Message Below:
hmm..

setCharSize(width, height, Dx, Dy) makes the font size smaller than setPixelSizes(width, height) even if you use the same numbers for width and height. Anyone know why is works out that way?

jcoolkatzerg · #8 (**permalink**) 02-25-2007, 08:50 PM

Dx and Dy are the number of pixels per [unit of mesurment]. The question is, which one? Is it pixels per point size or pixels per cm or inch?

Merick · #9 (**permalink**) 02-25-2007, 09:24 PM

well, the page that I found the functions on only has this basic info about them:

Font Font:setCharSize(number width, number height, number dpiX, number dpiY)

Changes the size of the current font to the specified point size height and width (if width is 0, it will be calculated proportional to the height for every character). dpiX and dpiY is the resolution of the display (see the Freetype documentation for details).

Font Font:setPixelSizes(number width, number height)

Changes the size of the current font to the specified pixel size height and width (if width is 0, it will be calculated proportional to the height for every character). (see the Freetype documentation for details).

that page has no detailed instructions on how to actually use them, I've only been able to learn this much by looking through a number of different pieces of code from various sites

the page where I found them:
psp:lua_player:functions [psDevWiki]

I did do a short search for the freetype docs they mentioned, but I got tired of that and wanted to get back to my game engine

wilhel1812 · #10 (**permalink**) 02-26-2007, 12:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Merick

LOL, I'm just figuring this stuff out as I go along, and I have no idea what you mean by that

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tut...#anti-aliasing