Creating Bitmap Fonts using bmfontgen

Creating and using bitmap fonts in XNA

XNA Diaries — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 06:00:31 GMT

As mentioned in a&nbsp;previous post, there is a clear need for a bitmap font generator that provides...

re: Creating Bitmap Fonts using bmfontgen

Anonymous — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 12:00:20 GMT

The reason that antialiased text looks so much darker may be that you're not performing gamma correction correctly when antialiasing.

re: Creating Bitmap Fonts using bmfontgen

David Wyand — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 09:40:48 GMT

Thank-you for this resource. When I found out I'd have to write a bitmap font display class for XNA I was dismayed. Your work has saved me a big chunk of time.

Something that I changed in your BitmapFont class was the ability to pass in a file path for the fonts. This allows the fonts to reside in some content directory rather than with the executable:

public BitmapFont(string strFilePath, string strFontFilename)
{
m_strFilePath = strFilePath;
...

...
xd.Load(strFilePath+strFontFilename);
...
}

public void Reset(GraphicsDevice device)
{
m_sb = new SpriteBatch(device);
foreach (KeyValuePair<int, BitmapInfo> kv in m_dictBitmapID2BitmapInfo)
m_dictBitmapID2Texture[kv.Key] = Texture2D.FromFile(device, m_strFilePath + kv.Value.strFilename, kv.Value.nX, kv.Value.nY);
}

Thanks again!
- Dave

re: Creating Bitmap Fonts using bmfontgen

Matt — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 10:23:25 GMT

Thank you for this tool Gary ! It works perfectly !

XNA - Working with Fonts

Mykre's Space — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 08:30:56 GMT

As with most systems we have to have a way to display text to the screen, over the last few hours I have

re: Creating Bitmap Fonts using bmfontgen

Gloei — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 22:14:13 GMT

Great tool! Ohw and I experienced the same problem as Dave (from above :)), but I fixed it a little bit different. Instead of giving BitmapFont's constructor another parameter, I retrieve the fontfilepath like this:

m_strFilePath = System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(strFontFilename)+"\\";

Less flexible than Dave's solution, but true in most cases... I guess :)

Anyway, thanks!

re: Creating Bitmap Fonts using bmfontgen

garykac — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 23:44:45 GMT

Thanks David and Thijs (Gloei) for the comments and feedback. I'll be fixing the directory problem in the next release (which should be in a day or two).

re: Creating Bitmap Fonts using bmfontgen

Dirk — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 02:50:15 GMT

System.Xml apparently doesn't exist. I have only installed C# Express and GSE.

Is this something that comes with VS 2005 and not C# Express?

How do I get System.Xml installed?

[System.Xml is part of the .Net Framework but you need to add a reference to it in your project to get things to compile.

To add a reference to it, right-click on the "References" folder in your project and select "Add Reference". From the .NET tab, find and select System.Xml and click the "OK" button to add it.

I'll be updating the docs to include this information.

-GaryKac]

re: Creating Bitmap Fonts using bmfontgen

Matt Moore — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 07:30:39 GMT

How does one dispose of an instance of this class before a GraphicsDevice.Reset() call?

I'm getting ***[4036] Direct3D9: (ERROR) :All user created D3DPOOL_DEFAULT surfaces must be freed before Reset can succeed. Reset Fails. *** when I try to reset the device for a resolution change.

If I remove "MyFont.drawString(...)" from my Draw() routine the exception goes away so I'm guessing that the surface created can't be disposed if MyFont hasn't been disposed yet.

TIA,

Matt

[I just answered this at http://blogs.msdn.com/garykac/archive/2006/08/30/728521.aspx#comments.

Basically, you need to dispose of the SpriteBatch and the Textures before resetting. Actually, what I should say is that "I should have provided a Dispose method that disposes of the SpriteBatch and the Textures for you".

I'll fix this for the next version, but in the meantime you can write a Dispose method for BitmapFont that cleans things up properly. The code to do this is given at the post linked to above. Sorry!

-GaryKac]

XNA Diaries : XNAExtras

XNA Diaries : XNAExtras — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 20:00:12 GMT

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