ppm - yet another tile/map editor for gtk written by ville
helin <[email protected]> in 2000-2003. ppm is totally free.

nico kugler ported this to cmake and gtk 2!

that was v2.7 back in the day. in 2021 this project moved
to github, and the development continues there...

building...

to compile the executable, run make, to install the binary, run make install. 
you can override the installation dir by setting the PREFIX variable in your environment

about the name...

initially i had a good name of which ppm is an acronym. the next day
i had started project ppm i couldn't remember it anymore, but until
the day i recall the full name the program is still called ppm. ;)


about the requirements...

to compile ppm you'll need a good c-compiler (like gcc), gtk,
zlib and libpng. ppm compiles like a dream under redhat 9.0,
but should even compile under windows as there seems to be a port
of gtk for it as well. if you want to port ppm to a platform of
your like please send me the alternations and makefiles. i even
managed to compile ppm under univ's irix, and thanks to ben
campbell it compiles under windows as well (just remember to
define WIN32). ;)

ppm requires quite a big screen to be usable. that's because my
resolution is 1600x1200 and i'm not going to shrink it. you can
always edit the sources if you need smaller windows.


about the functionality...

ppm is gpl software. if you want new features, please feel free to
code them yourself. i've provided you with the core code. currently,
i'm writing ppm for myself, to fulfill my needs and requirements.
project ppm was lauched because there were no usable tile editors
for linux. if you make any enhancements, please send them to me,
and better still, before you code anything, contact me.

the need for a new tile editor rised as i was about to start to
write a small game for game boy, but god damn i didn't want to boot
to windows to draw the graphics for it. i use linux after all...


about the usage...

you should be able to use the editor without any documents. if not,
please feel free to write one. all three mouse buttons draw with their
own color, tiles use palettes (in CGB mode), ppm has 4/8/12/16KB of
graphics memory for tiles, you can export part of the memory, etc...

here are the key shortcuts for edit and memory windows:

x - flip x
y - flip y
u - shift up
d - shift down
l - shift left
r - shift right
cursor left  - move to the block on the left
cursor right - move to the block on the right
cursor up    - move to the block above
cursow down  - move to the block below


about drawing...

you can paint pixels with all the three mouse buttons you have. you can
also flood fill by holding shift down and clicking a pixel. that's the
two drawing modes in ppm at the moment.


about map editing...

the left mouse button moves the pointer, the right one draws the current
tile and the middle one erases a tile.

draw the map starting from (0, 0) and make it a rectangle one as otherwise
the save/export mechanism will fail.

when the map window is active and a tile is selected you can press the
following keys to achieve some nice things (all go into map tile property
data in cgb format):

key
1-8  - change the tile palette.
 x   - x flip the tile.
 y   - y flip the tile.

also the following keys work under map window:

 p           - draw the current tile (mouse button three)
 o           - erase the current tile (mouse button two)
cursor left  - move to the block on the left
cursor right - move to the block on the right
cursor up    - move to the block above
cursow down  - move to the block below


about color modes...

there are three color modes in ppm. you can choose your pick in the
palette window. here are the explanations:

pc           - 15bit colors from your video card.
cgb rusty    - cgb color emulation mode using rusty wagner's formula.
cgb jedediah - cgb color emulation mode using jedediah smith's formula.

if you are serious about drawing graphics for the gameboy color, you
should choose one of the two cgb color emulation modes as they do their
best to show cgb colors on your pc monitor.


about the palettes...

here's how the palettes are arranged in the palette window:

 0  4
 1  5
 2  6
 3  7

the colors from left to right are 0, 1, 2 and 3.


about the preferences file...

all sorts of information including window positions, zoom modes,
palettes, etc. are saved to ~/.ppm/config -file when you select
prefs->save found under ppm memory window. the prefs file is in
text format and is quite readable, i guess.

under windows the prefs file is called "ppmconfig" and it's placed
into the current working directory.


about importing gmb files...

notice that when you import gmb files the tileset doesn't get loaded.
you'll have to import it as well and manually. when you import a
gmb file make sure your tile view size equals to the gmb file's tile
size as it's not saved in the gmb file.


about exporting map data...

you can export all data in raw binary, gbdk .c, wla .asm, isas .asm,
tasm .asm or rgbds .asm formats. tile property data is 100% colour
gameboy compatible (supports up to 512 distinct tiles, eight palettes
and x and y flipping). note that if you choose to export metatiles,
tile property data will hold metatile data, and map data indexes
to metatile data.

you can export plain tile index data, fixed metatile map (F), dynamic
metatile map (D) or metatile library map (L). fixed means that
16x16 tiles in tile memory are used as metatiles, so you
can't use x/y flipping and different palettes. dynamic export
creates as many metatiles as there are different 16x16 blocks on
the map. metatile library exporting means that the map data is
exported using the metatiles you have in your metatile editor
window. if there are more metatiles in the map than you have
previously defined using the editor, the export function will fail.

remember to export the tile data in 8x8 blocks if you want to use
the tile data with your metatile maps. Here's explained the
metatile property format:

  ab
  cd

- a, b, c and d are 8x8 tiles.
- every eight (or 12, if tile indexes are words) bytes describe
  a metatile:

.db a, b, c, d      ;indexes to 8x8 tiles
.db pa, pb, pc, pd  ;colour gameboy tile properties

when you export gbdk .c files the arrays get named after the file
names. ppm also adds an extension to the array name depending on
the data type. here's what you get:

data type:                 array name:
map data                   *_md
map property data          *_mpd
metatile map data          *_mmd
metatile map property data *_mmpd

where '*' is the file name without the suffix (eg. when file name is
"merman.bin" '*' becomes "merman").


about exporting tile data...

you can export all data in raw binary, gbdk .c, wla .asm, isas .asm,
tasm .asm or rgbds .asm formats. palettes can be exported in 16bit or
24bit rgb formats. tile data can be exported in 2bit planar (low
byte first, gameboy (color) compatible) or 8bit chunky (one byte
is one pixel and can have a value from 0 to 15).

when you export gbdk .c files the arrays get named after the file
names. ppm also adds an extension to the array name depending on
the data type. here's what you get:

data type:          array name:
tile data           *_td
tile palette data   *_tpd
palette data        *_pd

where '*' is the file name without the suffix (eg. when file name is
"merman.bin" '*' becomes "merman").

24bit palette format is where you'll get one byte per one color
component (0-31). 16bit palette format gives you two bytes per color
and is colour gameboy compatible. here's the 16bit format explained:

lo byte  hi byte
gggrrrrr 0bbbbbgg

you can also select the tile size and end x and y for the data. this
is the order in which the 8x8 core tiles (and tile palette data as
well) are exported. one character illustrates one 8x8 core tile.

8x8:

12345...x
6789a
.
.
.
y

8x16:

13579...x
2468a
bdf
ce
.
.
.
y

16x16 H:

12569a..x
3478bc
de
fg
.
.
.
y

16x16 V:

1357...x
2468
9bdf
ace
.
.
.
y


about few general things...

here's explained the colour gameboy tile property byte:

 bit 76543210
     dvhxbppp

  x  not used
  d  display priority
  v  vertical flip
  h  horizontal flip
  b  character bank
  p  palette (0-7)

and here are explained the 2bit planar interleaved and non
interleaved tile data formats:

   tile:

  .33333..
  22...22.
  11...11.
  2222222. <-- digits
  33...33.     represent
  22...22.     color
  11...11.     numbers
  ........

interleaved (gameboy) output:

.db $7c, $7c, $00, $c6, $c6, $00, $00, $fe, $c6, $c6, $00,
    $c6, $c6, $00, $00, $00

non interleaved (eg. nes) output:

.db $7c, $00, $c6, $00, $c6, $00, $c6, $00 ; first plane 0.
.db $7c, $c6, $00, $fe, $c6, $c6, $00, $00 ; then plane 1.


about the helping hands...

thanks to chyrpis for usable ideas, tailgunner/rrr for tar tea and
rusty wagner and jedediah smith for the cgb color emulation formulas.
thanks go also to aleksi eeben for good ideas, tips and general help and
windows-thanks go to ben campbell for windows related help and code.
thank you mattias wadman and joshua neal for bug reporting!


about the rights...

ppm is written under gpl v2 license. please read LICENSE file coming with
the source code for more information.


about compiling...

issue "cmake ." and you should get makefiles. then just "make".