Title Graphics for Non Artists

Ever wanted a title Graphic for your game? Something cool, and polished, and amazing? Only to realize you can't do it a pixel at a time?! YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

This is the kind of graphic we'll end up with: push-em-menu

You can play push-em here: https://tic80.com/play?cart=251

For this tutorial (I'm using android) you'll need: 8-bit Photo Lap (free app) Image Converter (free app) a hi-res graphic

I did a quick google "free graphic generator" and found a ton of websites to great web graphics, or small business logos. I used https://cooltext.com

Generated Graphic

push-em-image

Here's the logo I decided on.

8-bit Photo Lab

8-bit-photo

Load the image into 8-bit Photo Lab and go crazy making it look exactly like you want! make sure to set the resolution to 128 width max...otherwise it'll never fit on TIC-80's sprite sheet. Also remember that when it's imported, TIC will convert the colors to the closest equivelant in the palette.

Save the image, and it'll be a .png at 1660 pixels wide!! That's like a million times bigger than the size we need!!

Image Converter

image-converter

load the image into Image Converter and hit next, it'll ask for the size percentage for the output. if you used 8-bit Lab then just use 7% to get 127 pixels wide. otherwise do the following math to get the percentage you need:

take the hi-res image width: hi-res-width take the desired image width: final-width

final-width X 100 / hi-res-width = required-percentage

for my image that would be:

128 X 100 / 1660 = 7.7108433735

ditch the decimal to end up with 7%

The Output Image

push-em-final

Now we have something like this...it looks 8-bit and will fit on a sprite sheet. The next step is importing it. If you haven't drawn any sprites yet then just load your cart, and type:

>import sprites

navigate to your image and import it. It's now on your sprite sheet.

but what if you've already got sprites?!

load a new cart:

>new

import your image:

>import sprites

save as a temp:

>save temp

go into the cart and look at the sprite sheet. sprite-sheet

cut a piece of the image to the clipboard... save temp cart... load your game cart... go to you're sprite sheet and paste the chunk... save your game cart... load the temp cart... repeat until the entire graphic is copied to your game cart. game-cart .