Graphics dumps

[guddler]

Is there an easy way these days to get a decent dump of the graphics from a Pacman board (mame maybe)? I want to copy them, pixel and colour perfect for something. I'm sure there was a tool years ago that could do it? And don't worry, just messing about with some code, I'm not about to rip off Namco artwork or anything daft like that.

I need either MacOS Mojave, Ubuntu 18.10 or W10 64bit compatible though, or Amiga OS 3.9, (however unlikely that is) because they are the only OS's I run now, I don't have any machines with old copies of Windows or anything like that.

 

[bomjac]

First person springing to mind is Jim Bagley given that he developed Pac-Manic-Miner and the Revival game. That would imply that he had some form of graphics editor to use.bomjac2019-04-03 03:22:10

 

[AnDyC]

How about https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/551/ or you can use F4 in mame and screen grab maybe?

 

[philmurr]

I use an Excel spreadsheet

 

[Macro]

F4 on mame used to bring up the various character maps and cursors cycle colours. just use a screen grab to get the image in a format you can edit.

available on many platforms ...

 

[muddymusic]

This site is an excellent resource, I think this will have what you need.

https://www.spriters-resource.com/arcade/pacman/

 

[tin]

+1 for running AmigaOS 3.9

 

[guddler]

+1 for running AmigaOS 3.9

LOL!! Well, it's not either of my main OS's, but it IS the one that I want this stuff for




Anyway, thanks guys - been on-site with a customer all day so just catching up. Should have what I was after now ta.

 

[Ace`]

Tile Layer Pro is good, it's more aimed at console roms but when it works it works very well on arcade roms too. There's also an old dos app that's even better called Turaco, it won't work on 64bit windows but it'll work through dosbox.

 

[Hurray Banana]

F4 on mame used to bring up the various character maps and cursors cycle colours. just use a screen grab to get the image in a format you can edit.

available on many platforms ...

+1 always pulled the sprites and tiles from Pacman this way

 

[guddler]

Just cycles through the colour palette for me - I don't get the sprites. No matter though the Sprites Resource link has what I need.

 

[Hurray Banana]

Just uploading a quick vid martin

but keys are

F4 for decode

Enter key to toggle palette->tiles/sprites->tilemap

when in tile/sprite use left/right cursor keys to scroll through palletes

and [ ] to cycle tiles and sprites

Use - and + to change display scale (which I think is integer)

[tube]AdTEnsvDPws[/tube]

 

[guddler]

Bit early for drinking isn’t it!!

Cheers, that’s super helpful!

 

[Hurray Banana]

End of week relax

 

[AnDyC]

Bit early for drinking isn’t it!!

Things I've learnt being in the ukvac slack chatroom

1. Coders like a drink
2. It's never too early to drink.

 

[guddler]

And I also forgot that Hurraybanana is a teacher - and today is the last day of term (at least it is here!). That's got to be worth a drink whatever way you look at it!!

Anyway, moving on.

I don't really get why mame is showing me odd colour combinations when I bring up the sprites or background characters?

I get that Pacman uses 16 colours and although it hadn't really occurred to me, I can see that those 16 can be chosen from the palette of 128 so in theory it could change the 16 colours on the fly (don't know if it actually does this or if the hardware prevents it).

So why when I view, let's say the sprites does is cycle through colours 0 through 7F and more to the point, why is the tile shown with more than one colour???!!! I can see that there is always one colour number where an entire sprite looks correct such as a fruit - is it anything to do with that?

 

[Flinnster]

Yep it's just dumping -ALL- the available bitmap pixel data together with the currently selected palette. Which is why for the majority of the time you'll see total gibberish combinations.

Try it on something more complex like Metal Slug and you'll see just how insanely clever they are with tiles and palette work. Low level loveliness for pixeljunkies

For AndyC.. I'll try to find my 'DrunkenCoders' T-shirt..

 

[Hurray Banana]

Every tile location in Pacman can specify it's own pallete (1k of ram just for storing the palettes for each tile), the pallete is only 2 bit, 4 colours, 3 effectively for sprites as colour 00 is transparent.

Need the Easter break, pressure is immense when we get back

 

[Hurray Banana]

Here's a n example of dynamically writing tile palletes

[Tube]ZIjXGfmRsng[/tube]

 

[guddler]

I’m just trying to get something on the screen for now

Note, I’m not using Pac-Man hardware!