Preliminary Notes
[Dive Into AGMaker] Using Custom Images as Fonts
Please ensure that you have read the contents of the above notes.
Introduction
In AGM, we can use custom character images as fonts. In the previous note, we only introduced ASCII characters. In fact, non-English regions, including CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean), have a vast number of other characters (thousands). This note will introduce how to use similar techniques from the previous note to use scattered Chinese character images (or special characters from other languages) to create fonts.
Software Version Reference
I am using Action Game Maker 1.0.21.
Preparations
- Prepare a font texture. You can use the word “Start” in a non-English language as an example.
- For example, I prepared the characters “开始” (Start).
- Ensure that each character in the drawn material occupies the same size, such as 32x12 or 32x24. There are no specific size restrictions.
- Stitch all characters into a single image and save it in PNG format.
- Use Unicode lookup software or websites to find the Unicode number for the corresponding character, which can be an integer or a hexadecimal number.
Chinese Characters “开始”
This text segment contains the Chinese characters “开始” (Start). It will be used in our upcoming tests. You can directly copy and use it.
开始
Unicode Number Lookup
Example Image
As an example, here is a sample image I just doodled of the characters “开始” (Start).
Example Project
For reference, I will upload my completed demonstration project files here.
sample_painting_custom_font_unicode.zip (931.4 KB)
Steps
Please refer completely to the preliminary notes.
Only step 3.1 is different.
Method 1: Specify Multiple Independent Range Entries
Since the character images we provide are not consecutive in Unicode, you can add multiple range specifications. Each range only fills in one number. Here, I filled in 24320 (or 0x5F00) representing the character “开” (Open), and 22987 (or 0x59CB) representing the character “始” (Begin). You can refer to the screenshot below.
After completing all the steps in the preliminary notes, we can input the characters “开始” (Start) anywhere text input is needed and use this PNG image as a font.
