Has anyone had any luck with NES Screen Tool?

Bucket Mouse

Active member
I attempted making my title screen last night, following the instructions of Joe's video to the letter. What he didn't mention was how BAD the program is at detecting colors, even when you use the EXACT colors from the NES palette. He dodged the issue by using a monochrome image.

What you actually have to do is recolor everything in the image the way you color the sprites and backgrounds -- red, blue, green, and only then does it separate them properly. Only problem is it does them IN THE WRONG ORDER.

WHY does this thing NOT recognize black as the background color? WHY? Why would you build it like that??

is there a better way to transfer pixel art to the title screen?
 

Kasumi

New member
Try my program, I-CHR: https://kasumi.itch.io/ichr It outputs the same files as NES Screen Tool and is smarter as far as detecting colors. Let me know if you have issues with it, but it should be as simple as dragging the file to the exe if your art conforms to NES restrictions. If it doesn't, and the documentation doesn't help you figure out why, I can try to help. (Note that it wants a PNG, while NES Screen Tool wants a BMP, though.)

And if you want to learn how to make NES Screen Tool behave, you can read my post here: https://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?p=179302#p179302

But being annoyed with that process is exactly why I wrote I-CHR.

Edit: As for why NES Screen Tool doesn't recognize black as the background color, that's because black doesn't have to be the background color. Any color can be, and assuming black should be the background color will break things that use black when it's not.
 
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