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 Atari 8-Bit Computers

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ilmenit 11 Jun 2012

'emkay', on 10 Jun 2012 - 07:28 AM, said:

It's odd. Why is the converter doing this?

You have a picture with 11 colours at the 160x240 resolution.... indexed colour BMP . Everything should go like drinking a good beer in the desert.
But the picture gets 23 colours there... 5 greys instead of 3 greys, 6 browns instead of 3 browns... 5 reds instead of 3...

Atari and C64 have different graphics possibilities. The converter is not able to set the exact colors at exactly the same places.
Therefore it chooses other color to cover some area that minimizes error.

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ilmenit 11 Jun 2012

Btw, here is a little tutorial how do I preconvert pictures when the standard preprocessing and dithering implemented in RastaConverted gives bad results.

This tutorial uses two freeware tools: Timanthes and IrfanView.

Let's say that we have a picture:

Preprocessed by RastaConverter gives a destination picture that looks bad - it is too gray and large background areas are not dithered correctly:

First we have to set Timanthes to use Atari palettes. To do it open the Palettes Folder:

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and copy *.txt from TimanthesPalettes.zip 45.15KB 103 downloads there.
Those are 128 color palettes that RastaConverter is using (You can convert other .act palette to .txt files with the tool from the archive).

Then you have to make sure that the input picture is 24 bit - if it's only 8bit then the color remapping process will not work correctly.
To do it use IrfanView:

We should also resize the picture to 320x240 pixels (or different height if needed) - it's usually good to "apply the sharpen after Resample" to make contours
more visible.

Save the picture.

Now we should have it in proper size and in 24bit:

Open the file in Timanthes and choose the desired palette file:

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Then choose from the menu Layer->Reduce Colors:

Set the palette to 'Current' - it will use chosen Atari palette. Use "Wide Pixels". Set method to 'Exact' (you may try other options).
Then experiment with the brightness dithering and saturation for the best result.

The output picture should look much better now:

vs previous

Use the picture in RastaConverter with /filter=box parameter to import it without resampling:
RastaConverter.exe tut9.png /filter=box /pal=laoo /distance=ciede

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emkay 11 Jun 2012

'ilmenit', on 11 Jun 2012 - 5:57 PM, said:

'emkay', on 10 Jun 2012 - 07:28 AM, said:

It's odd. Why is the converter doing this?

You have a picture with 11 colours at the 160x240 resolution.... indexed colour BMP . Everything should go like drinking a good beer
in the desert.
But the picture gets 23 colours there... 5 greys instead of 3 greys, 6 browns instead of 3 browns... 5 reds instead of 3...

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 Atari and C64 have different graphics possibilities. The converter is not able to set the exact colors at exactly the same places.
Therefore it chooses other color to cover some area that minimizes error.

Sorry, but that's not what it is doing. As the import picture already has the exact palette values. The colours are imported by some "dither" that isn't obvious
where it turns in.

And, btw. C64 has LESS colours than the A8, particular here, you find a fitting colour everytime.

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ilmenit 11 Jun 2012

'emkay', on 11 Jun 2012 - 6:36 PM, said:

The colours are imported by some "dither" that isn't obvious where it turns in.
And, btw. C64 has LESS colours than the A8, particular here, you find a fitting colour everytime.

1. Maybe Wrathchild forgot to use the /filter=box parameter? Without it resampling will add additional colors.
2. On C64 colours can be placed on different places on screen than on Atari.
3. RastaConverter is not limited to use only the palette from the original picture, but the whole Atari palette to minimize error. Emkay, you should understand
finally how the optimization process works. It is well described in first posts about RastaConverter...
Edited by ilmenit, Mon Jun 11, 2012 11:56 AM.

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emkay 11 Jun 2012

Too explain it with this image....

Originally less than 16 colours, it now has almost 30 colours. This progress happens everytime.

Look at the red marks...

1. There is clearly a "gold" with an approximated different brightness. This colour is not in the import picture. Now it stands there and won't be removed.

2. The colour is wrong, the converter leaves it untouched, because it's "close enough" ?!?

3. The dark red will never leave... same as point 2.

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emkay 11 Jun 2012

A direct comparision....

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ilmenit 11 Jun 2012

If RastaConverter never removes this kind of line, then maybe some register (X,Y,A) is used for both sprite position and color value?
I will add in the next version and option to limit output palette to input palette only. It will help with the low color pictures.

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analmux 11 Jun 2012

'ilmenit', on 11 Jun 2012 - 6:27 PM, said:

... ...

WTF!!! Is this still Atari 8bit GFX???

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ilmenit 11 Jun 2012

'analmux', on 11 Jun 2012 - 7:38 PM, said:

WTF!!! Is this still Atari 8bit GFX???

nope. It's just a preprocessed picture to be converted to Atari 8bit. It will look worse for sure.
How much worse we will see tomorrow (the picture is under conversion now).
Edited by ilmenit, Mon Jun 11, 2012 12:46 PM.

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Wrathchild 11 Jun 2012

'ilmenit', on 11 Jun 2012 - 6:55 PM, said:

1. Maybe Wrathchild forgot to use the /filter=box parameter? Without it resampling will add additional colors.

No, I do use 'box'.

Emkay I take it from the QueDex that you've used the c64.act file AND set the palette in your source picture accordingly?

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I'm looking at some other C64 pics and their RGB values for the 16 (or less) colours are quite various!

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emkay 11 Jun 2012

'Wrathchild', on 11 Jun 2012 - 9:06 PM, said:

'ilmenit', on 11 Jun 2012 - 6:55 PM, said:

1. Maybe Wrathchild forgot to use the /filter=box parameter? Without it resampling will add additional colors.

No, I do use 'box'.

Emkay I take it from the QueDex that you've used the c64.act file AND set the palette in your source picture accordingly?
I'm looking at some other C64 pics and their RGB values for the 16 (or less) colours are quite various!

Que-Dex at 70K evals... with adjusted colours...

quedex70K.xex 18.63KB 84 downloads

(mean 70KK ... 70Million )

It's no prob to finish it, when the generator keeps the colours stable.
Edited by emkay, Mon Jun 11, 2012 2:43 PM.

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emkay 11 Jun 2012

'Wrathchild', on 11 Jun 2012 - 9:06 PM, said:

I'm looking at some other C64 pics and their RGB values for the 16 (or less) colours are quite various!

That's why we shouldn't take a look at the source colours that much , if they were indexed already.
Real colours, yes, Atari-Palette colours, ofcourse.

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emkay 11 Jun 2012

'Wrathchild', on 11 Jun 2012 - 9:06 PM, said:

Emkay I take it from the QueDex that you've used the c64.act file AND set the palette in your source picture accordingly?

It took a while to understand this sentence

I'm not using the C64.ACT, because it doesn't work here. I'm adjusting the colours of the pictures by hand, getting the palette values from the palette (read from
G2F), and save the picture as a 4 bit bitmap.

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 Wrathchild 11 Jun 2012
Which is what I was saying by providing the rgb values used in the palette, but QueDex seemed odd as the browns were different in it's palette and so if we come
up with a definitive C64 rgb set, then an act file can be made from that and pictures adjusted up front accordingly.

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xlent 11 Jun 2012

'Wrathchild', on 11 Jun 2012 - 3:37 PM, said:

I think this nice C64 image will be beyond the A8, here I've flipped the image horizontally to try and encourage the face to be concentrated upon but
still no joy Others screens that also struggle... QueDex loader & Ballistix

This images using 3 different color palettes.

BALLISTIX_1.gif using C64HQ palette.
Prowler.png using PEPTO palette (probably most faithful color palette C64).
Que-Dex-C64.gif using CCS64 palette.

Your images vs the same images with PEPTO palette:

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emkay 12 Jun 2012

I only can propose that it is irreleavant, what RGB values the C64 colours have. Just use a colour of the RGB range.... and good....

Here some other "C64 screenshots"...

http://www.mobygames...eShotId,183126/

https://www.google.d...nNszptQbz18G6Dw

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Wrathchild 12 Jun 2012

'xlent', on 11 Jun 2012 - 10:58 PM, said:

Your images vs the same images with PEPTO palette

So here you have just updated the image with the RGB values from a more common palette and these are not the RastaConverted outputs? How is that new from
what I proposed in posts 510/514?

Do you have a PEPTO act file for RastaConverter to use? Where are the 16 C64 RGB colours positioned in that file? If they fill the first 16 entries then although
RasterConverter will show you the correct colours whilst producing the image... once converted to an xex you then see a grey scale image under emulation / on a
real machine.

Maybe sometime this week I'll have a stab at dynamically making the target palette from the imported picture's palette (allowing the user to specify the usual A8
act palettes).

Even so, sometimes the 'seemingly' most simple things aren't picked up by the application, for example with this World Class Leaderboard screen, the vertical
grey/white bars take an age to resolve... this is after 160M evaluations.

Attached Thumbnails

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Wrathchild 12 Jun 2012

'emkay', on 12 Jun 2012 - 07:32 AM, said:

it is irreleavant what RGB values the C64 colours have

That is correct, ultimately they are going to be displayed using an Atari palette

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Heaven/TQA 12 Jun 2012

I mean honestly. How can a computer program work better than the human brain? this is an automatic tool. so actually there should be the possibilities to import
in G2F or in a GUI where you can adjust all you guys have discussed?

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Wrathchild 12 Jun 2012

Granted... converting C64 screens is a miniscule subset of the more better things that the RastaConverter will do for you (and was designed for )

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emkay 12 Jun 2012

'Heaven/TQA', on 12 Jun 2012 - 12:58 PM, said:

I mean honestly. How can a computer program work better than the human brain? this is an automatic tool. so actually there should be the
possibilities to import in G2F or in a GUI where you can adjust all you guys have discussed?

We're just trying to help producing the tool. If it was a bad thing, no one was using it.
But it has some problems which would be useful to solve them.

alpha.xex 18.87KB 81 downloads

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Heaven/TQA 12 Jun 2012

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yup. pushing stuff is good so let's see where we can bring RastaConverter. Btw. Interesting thing is while watching the hungarian demo scene video on youtube.
Converters seem to be even be used on c64 scene as pixel artists want to use their Windows/Mac painting tools without thinking all the times about the
limitations of the hardware. so maybe RastaConverter goes the same way.

Not sure what is the best approach. Setting pixels by hand and knowing all limitations of the hardware (and all possible things like with G2F) or do it on painting
program and then run converters and simply optimise the output here and there.

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emkay 12 Jun 2012

A question to the "code-generator" .... how exactly works that evaluation check?
Does it handle the full image everytime?
Isn't it useful to mark lines that were 100% already and to concentrate on the lines where changes has to be done?

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snicklin 13 Jun 2012

New RedHat Linux version, 64 bit x86: https://github.com/l...erter/downloads

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ilmenit 15 Jun 2012

'analmux', on 11 Jun 2012 - 7:38 PM, said:

'ilmenit', on 11 Jun 2012 - 6:27 PM, said:

... ...

WTF!!! Is this still Atari 8bit GFX???

Check yourself :-)

RastaConverted:

HangMan.xex 22.14KB 85 downloads

Some other pics that I recently converted (most of the are in the Laoo palette):

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DemonGirl.xex 22.07KB 95 downloads

Pulse.xex 22.1KB 75 downloads

clown.xex 18.77KB 79 downloads

manga1.xex 22.18KB 75 downloads

C64.xex 18.64KB 74 downloads

elmore.xex 22.09KB 81 downloads

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 Flower.xex 22.31KB 76 downloads

C64-pig.xex 18.71KB 78 downloads

Edited by ilmenit, Fri Jun 15, 2012 6:09 AM.
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