[Coco] Projector-3 .asm encoder driver

[Robert Gault]

Roger Taylor wrote:

> Robert,

> 

> I wrote the P-3 format driver for the .asm picture format.  It writes 

> out an .asm file full of CCASM fqb's such as "fqb $FFFCABDB" for 192 

> lines of graphics x 160 bytes.

> 

> I haven't figured out yet how to handle the color remapping (P-3 to the 

> game palette), but the game uses a Windows-similar set of colors where 8 

> are primaries and secondaries, which P-3 also uses but are probably in 

> different slots.  This should be no problem to cure shortly.  I can 

> probably just put the same palette in P-3 and add it to the menu of 

> palettes to choose from.  Dithering or not, the colors will match the 

> indices for the game.

> 

> After a bit of work, I am now LOADM'ing the Jeweled game, the backdrop 

> image of the rough diamonds is loaded into MMU blocks $30-$33 and during 

> the game a PCLS causes the backdrop to copy to the main screen, then 

> everything is overlayed.  It works like a charm.

> 

> The port.exe tool was used after I exited P-3 to call up the picture 

> disk where the backdrop.asm file is, and a copy to Windows was done real 

> quick.  A 120k file sits there in Windows that I can copy over to my 

> game folder, and a bit of typing is needed to handle the LOADM/MMU 

> segments.  The source code is already separated into 3 8k blocks and a 

> 6144 byte block.

> 

> Major milestone, here.  Porting awesome graphics into games has now 

> become a 5 minute job at the most.  I haven't done anything for breaking 

> a P-3 image into a sprite grid, but I'm sure that's coming soon.  :)  

> What does this mean?  Existing sprites found on the web can be used 

> (with optional editing), to use for games.

> 

> I'll send the P-3 driver file when I feel it's ready enough to share.  I 

> need to add more comments and such, but it's pretty straightforward.

> 

> 


Excellent work!