feature request: font sprite sheet support for text tool

[ghost]

Hi

Idea:

I have read an idea below but not sure if this script was ever finished.

https://community.aseprite.org/t/text-tool-using-a-sprite-sheet/3263

I would like to request support for font sprite sheets in the text tool in aseprite, implemented in one of the 5 (or a better) ways written on the forum.

In this way we can enter text and the sprites of the sprite sheets are copied to the canvas in aseprite.
I think it's a quite unique feature which will make aseprite very interesting for using sprite fonts. I'm not sure if there's even a software today that can do this?

Implementation:

There could be made a window to choose the font sprite sheet and to enter the sprite size so aseprite can extract the squares correctly.
Also the mapping of ABC... and 123... to the correct square should be entered in that window.
As you can read on the forum, there could be made a specific file format too for this mapping.

For arcade game fonts the squares were often 8 x 8, monospaced. There are many many of them: there is written a book 'arcade game typography'

https://readonlymemory.vg/shop/book/arcade-game-typography/

Commonly used square sizes could be put in a combobox so you can select one e.g. 'arcade game 8 x 8, monospaced', ...
Or you could enter custom sizes for sprite sheets not corresponding to the given choices in the combobox.

Resources:

Here is a website with many font sprite sheets which then could be used in aseprite.

https://www.spriters-resource.com/search/?q=font

I would really LOVE this feature because we then can easily use sprite sheet fonts in our own pixel art.
It would be very cool to enter text by using the sprite sheet of pac man, galaxian, ...

Thanks for reading!

[ghost]

If this is implemented in a good way (for example a new file format for the mapping to the sprite sheet which can be loaded by the text tool in aseprite), it could become a killer feature in aseprite!

• the current text tool in aseprite just will have a new option: you could choose 'insert text from font file' (the current feature already available in aseprite) or 'insert text from font sprite sheet' (the new feature I request here).

• Fonts in pixel art can be used everywhere.

• It also will save you a lot of time if you want to work with sprite fonts (no more copy-paste since the sprite sheet is there).
  You can create your own sprite sheets for fonts in aseprite and then easily use them by saving them in the new file format made for the mappping (save once and re-use many times very easily).

• And you could adjust the size of the font just by enlarging it once it's on your canvas + applying all other tools of aseprite on it because it are just pixels on the canvas copied from the font sprite sheet.

@dacap : please let me know your thoughts about this!

[dacap]

Hi @aseprite-girl! actually there are plans to create a new text tool (as an interactive tool in the canvas) + adding support for sprite sheet fonts (Aseprite already has its own font a sprite sheet, which would be the first possible bitmap font format to support, anyway we could add new formats too).

I've done some progress in this interactive tool but it's not ready yet (maybe for the first stable v1.3.0, we'll see). The idea is to be able to select the font from the context bar, and to list bitmap/sprite sheet-based fonts too (e.g. the Aseprite font included). It's related to these issue: #28 #1517 #3131

Next week we'll release a new version of Aseprite and after that we'll be working to finish the v1.3.0 milestone so we can finally make beta the main branch and release v1.3 as the stable one.

[ghost]

Great!!!
Will it be possible to add downloaded sprite fonts into aseprite too (and entering the mapping) by end-users or will it only be a list of pre-configured sprite fonts supplied with aseprite itself?
I hope we can add fonts ourselves.