Libgdx Font Generator Software
Libgdx Font Generator Software
There are certain problems with displaying fonts, especially when you have different mobile devices with different resolution. Of coures the priority is that it should look nice on every device so you have to make a custom one that will be held in the bitmap spritesheet. You can create them relatively easily using specific software.
Still you have to create many sizes of fonts and know when to use them (according to screen size).
- Does anyone know how I can use a TTF font in libGDX? I have looked around and have seen things about StbTrueTypeFont but it doesn't seem to be in the latest release. BitmapFont font12 = generator.generateFont(parameter); // font size 12 pixels generator.dispose; // don't forget to dispose to avoid memory leaks! And put myfont.ttf in core.
- Select the extensions you want included in your project. The LibGDX maintained extensions area shown on the main page, they include: Bullet: 3D Collision Detection and Rigid Body Dynamics Library. FreeType Scallable font. Great to manipulate font size dynamically.
- I'm trying to figure out how to realize the HUD interface for my brand new game. I wanted to create it by using the scene2d.ui set of widgets because I've heard that it's more suitable for a respon.
Cisdem pdf compressor 3 4 0. In this article I will try to show how to use simple methods to create a custom font and use it in your LibGdx project.
First of all we need to create a sprite font. I found some software for that but actually none of them was fully compatible with LibGdx.
Tutorial Objectives: Showcase Label using BitmapFont, the 'Gdx FreeType' extension and Skin Introduction A Label is one of the components available out of the box with LibGDX through the Scene2D Library. The Label's font can be: Gdx FreeType: Extension that allow you to generate your BitmapFont on the fly. This is the most flexible to programatically. LibGDX Project Generator Tool. Setting up all those projects can be pretty annoying, so libGDX offers a tool that does all of the setup for you. Download the tool from here. Run that program. If double-clicking it doesn't work, try running it manually via the command line using this command.
1) LibGdx users wiki recommend Hiero. It has really nice graphic user interface where you can choose any font installed on your OS (or upload one from the file), change it's size and position of the signs in sprtesheet and even add some effects to it (definitely an advantage). You have a nice preview of the font visible all the time and it's capable of saving the font into the most libGdx friendly format *.fnt + *.png.
But still – it sometimes divides *.png spritesheed into many files and LibGdx wasn't able to read the text properly.
I've read that Hiero is „old fashioned' and that we should find something else. So since I couldn't get this font to work I found something else.
2) Someone from LibGdx community recommended SpriteFont 2. It also has pretty nice GUI and can preview your font. Actually is has ever more options than Hiero and also more effects with easy gui. The only disadvantage is it saves font into *.xml + *.png. It's nice for XNA programmers but I couldn't get it to work on my version of LibGdx.
3) The software I found the most useful was Bitmap Font Generator. Unfortunately it's interface wasn't clear at first and it requires a little bit of knowledge to operate but it's nothing you can't learn in 5mins. Bitmap Font Generator can save in many formats ike *.png, *tga, *xml, *fnt, and you can specify the size of the file (remember for LibGdx width and height have to be the power of 2). Of course there were some problems with it too. I couldn't get outline effet to display properly. I ended up adding it in photoshop and it works perfectly.
When you have your font prepared and it looks the way you want it, time to import it to your project. I assume you are building Android application, so I will be writing everything as for Android.
So first of all, you need to import your font into Eclipse. For some unknown for me reason your font files have to be in assets folder in your android project and also in data folder in your main project. To get this to work I just link assets folder to the main project and put data folder inside it. Of course it's not enough so I have to store a copy of my font inside both data and assets folder. If someone know better solution, please let my know in comments.
Libgdx Font Generator App
Time to code!
All you have to do is to initialize your BitmapFont variable and you are ready to go.
Then to print it on the screen (put it in your Render method):
There is also nice tutorial I've heard of but didn't try: HERE
Libgdx Font Generator Minecraft
And if you want to read some more about how to load fonts from files, try THIS
