MONOPACK - FREE LIGHTWEIGHT TEXTURE PACKER

[gushh]

Hi guys (and gals),

This is a contribution to all gamedevs in the PureBasic community:
http://gushh.net/blog/monopack-atlas-generator/

From the page:

MonoPack is a simple, comprehensive and lightweight pipeline oriented sprite / texture packer for web, game and software developers alike.

Right now MonoPack is a console-only application, oriented to streamline game and website development pipelines. It’s nature allows it to be automated via batch and scripting engines very easily.

It’s “page” oriented, meaning it will iterate through a given directory, including all matching images into the final atlas. It does not take into consideration sequential images (animations) nor grouping yet.

PureBasic code:
I'm not sure whether there's support for some of the data formats MonoPack exports, if there isn't I will gladly write some routines to handle them. But needless to say the formats are all very simple and easy to understand.

Also if extra features or formats are required, please let me know and I'll add them to the to-do list!

I was sick and tired of some of the tools out there and I needed something simple and fast to deal with atlases. On the site you'll see the results of a small benchmark (over 2000 images processed) and the resulting atlas (scaled down of course), all in under one second.

A GUI is currently planned, but not officially. The internal framework / libs certainly allow for fast processing of sprites, so almost instant feedback is possible for a GUI, however we all know how much time a GUI takes to design, implement and test... So we'll see how much time I can allocate to this particular task.

I didn't want to implement artificial limitations on alpha channels or amount of sprites, I find this very distasteful. Instead if anyone finds it useful feel free to donate a small sum to help with the development of the software and it's documentation.

Currently you are allowed to use it on both non-commercial and commercial projects. Of course credit could be given, maybe a link to my site wouldn't hurt either!

Hope this ends up being useful to someone, I know it is for me. A polygon / vector outline generator is on the works for physic models and smart masking.

Cheers,
Gus

[gushh]

Beta 5 is available here: http://gushh.net/dls/monopackb5.zip

Changes: Added support for Slick2D, TreSensa and "Texture Packer" (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/116 ... Packer.exe) data formats.

The reason many formats have to be supported is simply because I don't expect anyone to switch over to a different format just because I don't support it. The idea is to streamline ie. not to complicate things.

On the next release I will most likely add the option for data format on the configuration file, instead of exporting all formats at once (currently setup as a benchmark).

Enjoy!

[luis]

So if I understand correctly just by looking at the description on your site it's a tool to do a best fit of many images into a single texture (and generate the supporting coordinates data I suppose) ?
A single texture ? Am I right ? Or it can do it on multiple ones too given a desired target size for the texture to not be exceeded ?
Sorry I didn't download it yet so I didn't look at the doc, I'm just curious, because I will probably need to do something similar.
If you don't want to reply because I should try it I instead of harassing you I understand and it's not a problem

[gushh]

Ciao!

At this moment only a single texture is generated per given directory (ie. per atlas). Multiple "pages" will be supported in the upcoming versions.

[gushh]

New beta version 6 released
You can find it here: http://gushh.net/dls/monopackb6.zip

Changelog:

27/02/2014 - Initial public beta release.
28/02/2014 - Added support for Slick2D, TreSensa and "Texture Packer" data formats.
01/03/2014 - Added "autosize" feature to automatically generate the best suitable atlas dimension.
Began the documentation process by describing the Configuration file.
02/03/2014 - Added CSS export support, plus new configuration options for data export formats.
Added Kwik2 export support for Lua users. Fixed inner fill padding bug.
04/03/2013 - AutoSize Implemented, only scales in powers of 2 at the moment. Multiple options added.

[gushh]

Beta 7 is out, fixes a small bug using AutoSize and includes new AutoSize options (BoundsCheck) among a new Packer configuration for sorting method.

Grab it here: http://gushh.net/dls/monopackb7.zip

Enjoy!

[gushh]

Beta8 is now out! Please visit http://gushh.net/blog/monopack-atlas-generator/ for more information, or get it directly from: http://gushh.net/dls/monopackb8.zip

Changelog for this version:

06/03/2014 - Multiple loader formats are allowed now, including subdirectories.
JPEG is now supported for both import and export operations with compression config.

There's a new loader option to enable or disable subdirectory scanning, JPEG can be both loaded and saved now, with compression setting (default to 8 from 0 to 10, it's in the docs).
AutoSizing is slightly better now, but still working on it.

Loader can now interpret multiple format patterns, for instance you may choose to only load PNG and BMP images, thus using the pattern: "*.png|*.bmp"
For a "catch-all" use "*.*" (not highly tested)

All sorts of other internal minor fixes and additions for better stability.

A very minimalistic GUI is in the works, but I can't promise anything at this stage. However suggestions are welcomed, as always

Thanks,
Gus

[gushh]

It's been a while, but here's the latest version for those who are interested: http://gushh.net/dls/monopackb9c.zip

Padding has been implemented, a simple edge-padding feature is also present but it's still experimental (corners missing). The "SeparateAlpha" feature has not been implemented yet, however you may use "OnlyAlphaChannel" to generate only the alpha channel.

Also heavily experimental are the MipMap options. The "ScaleLevels" option is not implemented, only one level can be generated at the moment. The other options should work fine. The rescale algorithm can be chosen. Alpha is always retained.

These new features are still experimental, therefore they are not documented at the moment since they're subject to change.

A counterpart to this tool is being developed, currently in alpha stage it's the Unpacker, which can take any sprite sheet and unpack it into separate images without any metadata. Very useful indeed.

The packer GUI is being developed, but due to the amount of work involved it may not be available for free. However the console application will always remain freeware. We're talking about a small licensing fee anyway, nothing we indies can't afford. A lite version of the GUI may be eventually available free of charge anyway.

Let me know if you find any issues or if you would like to see any specific feature, I'll try my best!

For testing purposes a small sample set of sprites made by Hyptosis are also included for the time being, these are actually royalty free as far as I'm aware, but you may want to contact the author for more information in case you want to use them in your project.

Newer versions and other relevant info may be found here: http://gushh.net/blog/monopack-atlas-generator/

Cheers,
Gus

[gushh]

It's been a while, but here's the latest version for those who are interested: http://gushh.net/dls/monopackb9c.zip

Padding has been implemented, a simple edge-padding feature is also present but it's still experimental (corners missing). The "SeparateAlpha" feature has not been implemented yet, however you may use "OnlyAlphaChannel" to generate only the alpha channel.

Also heavily experimental are the MipMap options. The "ScaleLevels" option is not implemented, only one level can be generated at the moment. The other options should work fine. The rescale algorithm can be chosen. Alpha is always retained.

These new features are still experimental, therefore they are not documented at the moment since they're subject to change.

A counterpart to this tool is being developed, currently in alpha stage it's the Unpacker, which can take any sprite sheet and unpack it into separate images without any metadata. Very useful indeed.

The packer GUI is being developed, but due to the amount of work involved it may not be available for free. However the console application will always remain freeware. We're talking about a small licensing fee anyway, nothing we indies can't afford. A lite version of the GUI may be eventually available free of charge anyway.

Let me know if you find any issues or if you would like to see any specific feature, I'll try my best!

For testing purposes a small sample set of sprites made by Hyptosis are also included for the time being, these are actually royalty free as far as I'm aware, but you may want to contact the author for more information in case you want to use them in your project.

Newer versions and other relevant info may be found here: http://gushh.net/blog/monopack-atlas-generator/

Cheers,
Gus

[gushh]

Quick update: http://gushh.net/dls/monopackb9d.zip

07/04/2014 - Added support for the Unity3D format.
08/04/2014 - Destination Path is now the second command line parameter the third parameter is Destination Name.

The docs contain a small example for the paths and names.

Currently no command line "switches" are available. However this will change in the near future to aid in readability and user friendliness.

[applePi]

thanks for this, certainly very useful, many pictures to one larger picture with a simple command "MonoPackB9d.exe sample " .

[gushh]

MonoPack just got a bit more powerful!

http://gushh.net/dls/monopackb9e.zip ( X64 and x86 binaries )

Full commandline switch support, while still being able to define all settings through the configuration file.
The configuration is first loaded, then the command line switches are parsed, if applicable they will overwrite the previous configuration settings.

Aside from the existing configuration options, a few special switches were implemented:

/padding - Defines packing X and Y padding at the same time, shorthand. example: /padding 10 - sets 10px padding on X and Y
/silent or /s - Disables the default verbose mode (no output). No parameters.
/batch or /b - Disables waiting for input and enables Silent Mode. No parameters.
/deploy - Same as /batch but it disables reports. No parameters.

This release contains no bug fixes.
Reported bugs: Possible issue with hex colors on command line switches

The next release will contain bug fixes and new features.