NOTE: The following matrix is based on the following texture file: https://github.com/vircon32/ConsoleSoftware/blob/main/Games/BasicPlatformer/textures/TextureTextFont.png

Notice how the letters in the file are laid out in a grid pattern. This indicates that using a matrix is the best option and will make it way easier to create our custom font.

Start off by defining our texture and regions in our texture file.

// Texture in Cartridge
#define TextureTextFont 0
// Region definition
#define FirstRegionTextFont 1

In your main loop you will want to select the texture and instead of using define_region use define_region_matrix.

Vircon gives the following description of define_region_matrix “Defines a set of same-sized regions within the selected texture that are laid out as a rectangular matrix. Consecutive IDs will be defined from left to right, and top to bottom. All regions will have the same relative hotspot position.”

Here is the format for define_region_matrix:

define_region_matrix(RegionID, TopleftX, TopleftY, BottomrightX, BottomrightY, HotspotX, HotspotY, columns, rows);
//These will be for the first region as the others will be automaticly created in sequence.

For the specific texture font in this case this is what it should look like in your main:

    // Selecting texture in cartridge
    select_texture( TextureTextFont );
 
    // Creating matrix for texture file
    define_region_matrix( FirstRegionTextFont,  0,0,  21,31,  0,31,  16,8,  0 );

After calling select_texture() , all texture functions will apply to that texture from that moment. If you’re using multiple textures, you may need to call select_texture again depending on the order of things in your program to make sure the correct texture is being referenced.

There are a few different functions in vircon32 that can help change the things you display to a better size. one of those being to scale the image on the x and y. This can be very helpful if the numbers or images you have are too big or small. To change the size of the image; you have to first set the drawing scale, you can think of this as the number you want to multiply the size of the image by. It takes two floats as inputs so you can change the size of the image to your preference. Then instead of using the draw_region_at(); function you would use the draw_region_zoomed_at(x,y); to draw your new bigger/smaller image on the screen.

  float scale = 3;
  set_drawing_scale(scale,scale);
  //select_texture();
  //select_region();
  draw_region_zoomed_at(x,y);

This is the png file that will contain the numbers you will be using to print to the screen. The numbers can be arranged depending on functionality you use to print the numbers to the screen, as well as how you would like to define the regions. One way to go about this is to have the numbers arranged in symmetrical tiles and define them using the “define_region_matrix” function. With this you can assign an int value to each tile/number and call that value to print your texture region to the screen.

Creating a custom font is a very similar process to creating a Vircon32 texture sheet, simply scaled up depending on how many characters are being included.

After drawing up the font sheet .png file with every character, use Vircon32's functions of #define and define_region_matrix() to establish sequential IDs for each character. To keep the program code neat, the code regarding the font definitions and functions will be stored in a header file.

Note: Since our font texture sheet is in a separate file from our main texture file for the game, our .xml file will need to be updated to account for both files. When using select_texture(), the number that gets input directly correlates to the order of the files in the .xml. (ie, 0 = first file, 1 = second file, etc. )

In order to draw a given integer in any base, we'll need to make a function. Our function will be given the parameters of the input number, the base to convert to, and X/Y positional data.

First, we'll need to declare some local variables. A check integer will be used to test how many digits long the output number will be, and a print integer will show which number to print out at any given position.

Second, run through a loop so that the check variable is at the same order of magnitude as the number while still being less than or equal to. Now we're ready to print out our converted number.

Lastly, we run a while loop until check is zero. print gets assigned to the number divided by the check. Then, the number gets assigned to the remainder of that division. print is used to get the texture region ID for the number digit in our custom font, and that character gets printed at the given location. Lastly the positional data is updated so that the digits aren't all in the same position.

Vircon32 stores string values as an array of integers containing the ASCII value for the given character. Since our font sheet uses a different ID system to the ASCII standard, they'll need to be converted. This involves a new function to return an int with the proper value. (it involves too many if statements)

The main while loop for printing out strings is roughly the same as our function for printing integers. Once the proper texture region ID is selected, it prints out and the positional data is adjusted.