This is almost certainly a false positive. Can you please be more specific? Which antimalware software are you running, which version of it, and which malware did it report?
Malwarebytes still detects the .exe as malware. I have Playscii installed via the itch app (C:\Users\Me\AppData\Roaming\itch\apps\playscii\playscii\playscii.exe). My Malwarebytes version is 4.4.0.
Hey JB, thanks so much for making Playscii - I know it must've taken a huge amount of work to get it to where it is today!
I recently upgraded my Mac to macOS 11 (Big Sur) and Playscii will no longer launch for me :( running from the commandline yields;
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "PyInstaller/loader/pyiboot01_bootstrap.py", line 144, in __init__
File "ctypes/__init__.py", line 374, in __init__
OSError: dlopen(OpenGL, 10): image not found
The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "OpenGL/platform/darwin.py", line 35, in GL
File "OpenGL/platform/ctypesloader.py", line 36, in loadLibrary
File "OpenGL/platform/ctypesloader.py", line 89, in _loadLibraryWindows
File "PyInstaller/loader/pyiboot01_bootstrap.py", line 146, in __init__
__main__.PyInstallerImportError: ("Failed to load dynlib/dll 'OpenGL'. Most probably this dynlib/dll was not found when the application was frozen.", 'OpenGL', None)
During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "playscii.py", line 32, in <module>
File "PyInstaller/loader/pyimod03_importers.py", line 531, in exec_module
File "OpenGL/GL/__init__.py", line 3, in <module>
File "PyInstaller/loader/pyimod03_importers.py", line 531, in exec_module
File "OpenGL/error.py", line 12, in <module>
File "PyInstaller/loader/pyimod03_importers.py", line 531, in exec_module
File "OpenGL/platform/__init__.py", line 36, in <module>
File "OpenGL/platform/__init__.py", line 33, in _load
File "OpenGL/platform/baseplatform.py", line 97, in install
File "OpenGL/platform/baseplatform.py", line 15, in __get__
File "OpenGL/platform/darwin.py", line 62, in GetCurrentContext
File "OpenGL/platform/baseplatform.py", line 15, in __get__
File "OpenGL/platform/darwin.py", line 45, in CGL
File "OpenGL/platform/baseplatform.py", line 15, in __get__
File "OpenGL/platform/darwin.py", line 41, in GL
ImportError: ('Unable to load OpenGL library', "Failed to load dynlib/dll 'OpenGL'. Most probably this dynlib/dll was not found when the application was frozen.", 'OpenGL', None)
[58403] Failed to execute script playscii
There might be multiple issues at work there, but one reason I can think of is that I still do Playscii Mac builds with 32-bit Python on macOS Yosemite, and 32-bit stuff stopped being supported with Catalina. I need to research what options are available to me to support newer macOSes.
hi JB, you've done an amazing job, really extraordinary.
I work with to Amstrad cpc, and some things went wrong, as the color palette, export file, i've done some output format modifications, and palette too, to had the 3 stranges text modes on cpc.
but my question is :
it's possible to put and image on a layer to draw on other layer, because import converts image to ascii allways. thanks again for your good job
Hi! is there some prerequisite that I should have installed before I can run this? I am on Windows 10, 64bit and I double click the .exe a program opens for a split second and then closes. I have pyhton 2.7 installed on my machine (if this is relevant). Is there any log or something I can provide?
Edit: I run my windows with an external GPU sometimes, I was currently not connected to that external GPU. For some reason I think that windows wanted to run the thing on the external GPU regardless of what I told it. If I uninstalled the drivers for the eGPU it started working. Sorry for the bother.
Edit 2: While I got it running now, egpu being out of the equasion, the same happens when I try to open the preferences window - just a crash. I wanted to change the location where the files are being saved and was searching for a way to do that.
Playscii v9.17.1
Loading config from C:\Users\Brin\AppData\Local\Playscii/playscii.cfg...
Config loaded.
Detecting hardware...
CPU: Intel64 Family 6 Model 142 Stepping 10, GenuineIntel
GPU: Microsoft Corporation - GDI Generic
OpenGL detected: 1.1.0
GLSL support not detected, your hardware doesn't appear to meet Playscii's requirements! Sorry ;________;
Thank you for using Playscii! <3
I'm running this on a i7-8550U processor. Does playscii not support igpus?
There are several kinds of Intel GPU that Playscii definitely supports, but it needs to be capable of at least OpenGL 2.1 and GLSL 1.30.
A reported GL version of 1.1 is extremely old, that possibly implies that it's not even finding your GPU, or that you don't have the right drivers installed. "GDI Generic" reported for the GPU further suggests that there are no GPU drivers installed on the system. I don't have your hardware obviously and I don't know how one would go about getting the right drivers, but that's a starting point if you investigate.
Hey hey! I tried to play with parallax/3d using multiple layers, but I can't seem to export them properly- all exported layer .pngs are the same (flattened document). Maybe I'm doing something wrong :D
i have problem, i recently downloaded this tool and when i unzipped it and launched the playcii.exe my computer sayed the api-ms-win-core-pathl1-1-0.dll and c:/win/temp/mei*****/python is missing. how to fix it?
Hi, I'm looking into this. I'm guessing it's because the last Windows build of Playscii was built from my Windows 10 desktop with a version of PyInstaller (the program I use to turn my Python into a runnable Windows EXE) that changed something about its compat status. I no longer have access to any machines running Windows 7. I'm going to search PyInstaller's issue tracker thoroughly and file a ticket with them if I don't find anything.
Obviously Windows 7 is no longer an officially supported-by-MS OS but I'd like to exhaust every other option before I tell everyone Playscii for Windows requires win10.
Could you provide some text info for me? Try running the program so you get that api-ms-win-blahblah.dll error, and when the dialog window is up, press Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V it into notepad and/or a text field post here.
If the error text doesn't appear in a window and you're running from a command line, pasting the same text from there here would do the same.
What happens when you try to export? Any errors in the console? If you're running from Windows, make sure it's to a directory you are allowed to write files to.
Hmm, sorry I don't think there is. However, if you want to only process the images that haven't been done yet, you could maybe move / cut-paste the source files that have already been converted to another folder?
Just tried this for the first time and its rendering with crazy flashing lines and visual issues. I'm on Windows 10, a 64 bit processor which might be the issue.
Thanks for the info. I'm not seeing any obvious problems with that... the Intel UHD 620 GPU seems like fairly recent hardware, and the driver version number seems pretty up to date (from over the summer?) Are any other 3D applications giving you rendering glitches? If you feel comfortable doing so, you might try upgrading your video drivers to the very latest version: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/product/96551/Intel-HD-Graphics-620
I was having the same issue(gtx 1650) i fixed it with this method nvidia control panel>3d settings>manage 3d settings>program settings>playscii(i had to add the program)>vsynch off
Would Raspberry Pi compatibility be a feature in future releases? All my Raspberry Pis, even my Pi 4, can't run Playscii due to GLSL apparently too old. (which I don't understand on R.Pi Foundation's part).
Windows 10 up to date. re-downloaded the zip an tried it again. I unzipped. each time I click on the playscii icon, a window pops up, as though its gonna run, but then the window immediately disappears.
Hi, sorry you're having a problem. Is there any info in your log file? On a typical Windows system it will be in a folder like C:\Users\[your user name]\AppData\Local\Playscii\console.log, you should be able to open it in Notepad.
If you don't see anything there, try running the EXE from the command line, and paste any errors you see here.
No worries! Thanks for your help. I wasn't able to do what you recommended (the file folders you mention aren't there). I have 64 bit windows... the zip says 32 bit. is there another zip that has 64 bit?
It's been happening to me too, though now with the added caveat of my Anti-Virus program popping up every minute or so to tell me it has quarantined a file.
If you got your build of Playscii from here on itch.io, it should be safe to run. It looks like Bitdefender's submission/appeals process for false positives is limited to "enterprise" customers, so I can't really do anything about the detection from my end. Try telling Bitdefender to add an exception for it: https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/answer/13427/
Try downloading the latest version (9.16.2) and making sure your Windows Defender definitions are up to date; 9.16.1 was being falsely detected and I submitted the file to MS and they updated their definitions to avoid this. If you're all up to date and still seeing this, I might ask for some info about what exactly Defender is reporting.
Hey! Playscii is one of my favorite go-to applications for relaxing and building concept stuff, so I was thrilled to see the new version up, but apparently Bitdefender flags it as "potentially malicious" again :(
Amazing app but is there any way to import an image and have it converted to a charset without any colourising? EG my charset has 4 colour tiles and I'd like it to just use those exact colours without any tint
Interesting, so the character set image data itself has colors in it? I haven't actually tested with that. If you use a custom 2-color palette with just white (ie 1:1 source colors) and black, does it behave as expected?
THanks for the quick reply :) yes the char set is 4-colour gameboy sprite sheets eg.......
.
I first tried a pure white pallette but in that case it imports the image in 1-bit black + white before processing the characters, and the final comes out overly light....
...and with a black and white pallette as you suggest, half the tiles are tinted black :(
..... and if I use the same 4 colour pallette as the charset uses, the image imports in 4 colours + the ascii comes out better but it's then tinted different shades of the 4 green colours on top of the charset's original colours, whereas I need the pure un-tinted colours of the charset tiles. (I'm experimenting with making graphics for GB Studio games - https://www.gbstudio.dev ).....
Hmm, interesting. This is definitely not something I thought of when designing the image conversion feature - support for multi-color character sets didn't exist back then. It seems like what the program should do here, to get the result you want, is reduce the image to the *character set's* palette instead. I'll put this on the TODO list (trello), but I'm not sure how much work is involved and can't offer any ETA on when it might happen. Thanks for raising this issue, sorry I didn't have a ready answer.
I'm on Linux and I can't move my mouse cursor when the picker is open so I can't do anything with it... Any idea what's happening? I've read through your website and installed the python packages you mention, am I missing something else?
I was initially using a laptop trackpad, then following your message I tried plugging a USB mouse into my laptop. It works with the mouse, not with the trackpad.
Here is the output:
Playscii v0.9.12 Loading config from /home/myname/.config/Playscii/playscii.cfg... Config loaded. Detecting hardware... CPU: x86_64 OS: Linux-5.2.2-arch1-1-ARCH-x86_64-with-arch Python: 3.7.3 (default, Jun 24 2019, 04:54:02) [GCC 9.1.0] (64bit) Modules: PySDL2: 0.9.6, numpy: 1.16.4, PyOpenGL: 3.1.0, appdirs: 1.4.3, PIL: 6.1.0 SDL: 2.0.6 hg-12373:8feb5da6f2fb, SDLmixer: 2.0.0 Detected screen resolution: 1280 x 800, window: 1024 x 640 GPU: Intel Open Source Technology Center - Mesa DRI Intel(R) Ivybridge Mobile OpenGL detected: 3.0 Mesa 19.1.3 GLSL detected: 1.30 Vertex Array Object support found. Maximum supported texture size: 16384 x 16384 Loaded key binds from /home/myname/.config/Playscii/binds.cfg init done. Thank you for using Playscii! <3
Are you invoking the picker by pressing the space bar, or holding it? Both should be valid and you can toggle that behavior in the Tool menu, but I've noticed some laptops lock out the trackpad when typing is happening (eg a key is being held). If you open a text editor and hold spacebar, does the trackpad work? If not it might be a hardware/OS level issue. Let me know if the behavior only happens with Playscii; it might be due to a quirk of SDL2 for example.
You're right, the trackpad stops working when I hold the space bar in general, not just in Playscii. As for the picker, if I press the space bar and don't hold it, it disappears. Is there a way around that?
Yes, in the Tool menu select "Picker toggle key: hold" and it will change to "Picker toggle key: press". Now you can invoke and dismiss the picker by tapping space bar, which should free the trackpad up for what you need.
I've released a new build, Playscii 0.9.12, which doesn't seem to trigger the false positive on my (Windows 10 64-bit) machine. I've added a note to the front page in case this occurs in future builds. Changing a few bytes seems to be all that's needed. I wish I knew how to avoid this!
in playscii.py since pySDL2 will search the same thing. You's set
os.environ['PYSDL2_DLL_PATH'] = '.'
let me puzzled and used some time to find why I can `import sdl2` but playascii complains that `could not find any library for SDL2 (PYSDL2_DLL_PATH: .)`
Traceback (most recent call last): File "site-packages\sdl2\dll.py", line 113, in <module> File "site-packages\sdl2\dll.py", line 54, in __init__ RuntimeError: could not find any library for SDL2 (PYSDL2_DLL_PATH: .)
During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:
Traceback (most recent call last): File "playscii.py", line 25, in <module> File "c:\python34\lib\site-packages\PyInstaller\loader\pyimod03_importers.py", line 631, in exec_module File "site-packages\sdl2\__init__.py", line 2, in <module> File "c:\python34\lib\site-packages\PyInstaller\loader\pyimod03_importers.py", line 631, in exec_module File "site-packages\sdl2\dll.py", line 115, in <module> ImportError: could not find any library for SDL2 (PYSDL2_DLL_PATH: .) [95952] Failed to execute script playscii
You can distribute your game alongside Playscii, using the Windows EXE / a modified Mac app bundle / Python source, by including your game in the games/ subfolder, so there's no export process per se.
On one side it is playscii on the other rexpaint I put two crosses to demonstrate the error in the specific character in the playscii that is not only in the dos charset (the same charset of the rexpaint) also the most charsets have errors in their characters, I was trying to replicate the banner I made in rexpaint at playscii and it was almost impossible, can you fix the charsets? I loved your program ;-;
Is there a way to save a project which is in C64 Petscii format as a compatible file? (As in, I should be able to take said file and put it on a C64 as SEQ and it would be displayable like standard C64 C/G files)
Hi there, sorry for the late response. I've been researching how to do C64 SEQ file export (and maybe import as well) and was having trouble finding info about the file format. I'm making some progress though. It will be available as an import "plugin" like the DOS ANSI file export etc. I'll either post the plugin file here or make it the main part of the 0.9.11 update. No ETA.
SEQ files themselves is just simply SEQuential data, nothing special there. For the C/G formatting, I don't think there should be anything special. It should just be each character to represent a C64 PETSCII character (space, cursor key, graphics, etc). Since you already have the PETSCII character set, the only thing I would figure is to see if those characters actually map up with the character codes.
Beyond that, I can't imagine much more difficulty. Just would need to make sure when you export that it actually does blank spaces. Since Playscii is a static image, you might need to recognize cursor keys for importing. However, exporting this shouldn't be needed. This should only be needed for the animated (movie) C/G SEQ movie files.
If it will help, I can see about tossing you a few files from my BBS collection your way to inspect. I can include both static and animated.
Inside, you will find a few C/G pic files (that on a C64 or in DirMaster, are correctly viewable). In addition, I made BMP images of each, so you can see what they should look like when viewed properly. I also included one C/G animated movie, just in case you find that interesting or useful (prob not as much for Playscii, but whatever).
Zero? I don't understand why I'd sue anyone?! I made Playscii so that people could make things with it, the code is open source and there's no license whatsoever regarding the art you create with it. Do whatever you like!
Is there any way to change the folder you save documents to? I prefer to save documents on a different disk than the C drive, which in my case is an SSD (I just have program files and whatnot on there)
But it seems like that doesn't properly detect when the user has a non-default Documents dir location? That's frustrating, sorry. It looks like there's a module (called winshell) I could use to detect this. I'll add that to my TODO list.
In the meantime, if you're running Win7 or later and don't mind a bit of command line fiddling you could make a symbolic link between your default Documents dir's Playscii/ subdir and your desired Documents dir. https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753194(WS.10).aspx
Neat and technically possible, but unlikely to be worth the massive effort - probably 9-12 months of full-time work. Playscii's UI is mouse and keyboard centric, it's coded in Python which isn't easy to get running on Android, and it uses regular OpenGL instead of OpenGL ES (the mobile flavor).
Well I think that $5 would be a great price for a portable version and hopefully make the development time worth it. Few other developers I really like do that. Desktop versions free, mobile costs. Either way hopefully you decide to, would enjoy doing this to and from work on public transportation.
Edit: Also, if you could port it as is, with the ability to zoom in and out that would be awesome. Though I would use this on my phone, on my tablet as is would be fine. Check out SunVox if you get a chance. Has one of the best interfaces for this sort of thing on mobile.
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Thank you for restoring Windows 7 support in 9.17.1b!
there was a malware packaged within it.........
This is almost certainly a false positive. Can you please be more specific? Which antimalware software are you running, which version of it, and which malware did it report?
malwarebytes, it reported simply as "malware"
BitDefender picked up the false positive, too. Newest version, detected that playscii.exe was infected with Gen:Varient.Mikey.123106.
Malwarebytes still detects the .exe as malware. I have Playscii installed via the itch app (C:\Users\Me\AppData\Roaming\itch\apps\playscii\playscii\playscii.exe). My Malwarebytes version is 4.4.0.
Hey JB, thanks so much for making Playscii - I know it must've taken a huge amount of work to get it to where it is today!
I recently upgraded my Mac to macOS 11 (Big Sur) and Playscii will no longer launch for me :( running from the commandline yields;
Traceback (most recent call last): File "PyInstaller/loader/pyiboot01_bootstrap.py", line 144, in __init__ File "ctypes/__init__.py", line 374, in __init__ OSError: dlopen(OpenGL, 10): image not found The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception: Traceback (most recent call last): File "OpenGL/platform/darwin.py", line 35, in GL File "OpenGL/platform/ctypesloader.py", line 36, in loadLibrary File "OpenGL/platform/ctypesloader.py", line 89, in _loadLibraryWindows File "PyInstaller/loader/pyiboot01_bootstrap.py", line 146, in __init__ __main__.PyInstallerImportError: ("Failed to load dynlib/dll 'OpenGL'. Most probably this dynlib/dll was not found when the application was frozen.", 'OpenGL', None) During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred: Traceback (most recent call last): File "playscii.py", line 32, in <module> File "PyInstaller/loader/pyimod03_importers.py", line 531, in exec_module File "OpenGL/GL/__init__.py", line 3, in <module> File "PyInstaller/loader/pyimod03_importers.py", line 531, in exec_module File "OpenGL/error.py", line 12, in <module> File "PyInstaller/loader/pyimod03_importers.py", line 531, in exec_module File "OpenGL/platform/__init__.py", line 36, in <module> File "OpenGL/platform/__init__.py", line 33, in _load File "OpenGL/platform/baseplatform.py", line 97, in install File "OpenGL/platform/baseplatform.py", line 15, in __get__ File "OpenGL/platform/darwin.py", line 62, in GetCurrentContext File "OpenGL/platform/baseplatform.py", line 15, in __get__ File "OpenGL/platform/darwin.py", line 45, in CGL File "OpenGL/platform/baseplatform.py", line 15, in __get__ File "OpenGL/platform/darwin.py", line 41, in GL ImportError: ('Unable to load OpenGL library', "Failed to load dynlib/dll 'OpenGL'. Most probably this dynlib/dll was not found when the application was frozen.", 'OpenGL', None) [58403] Failed to execute script playsciiLooks like there might be some clues here: https://github.com/pyinstaller/pyinstaller/issues/5107, appears macOS changed how loading dylibs works slightly in Big Sur?
Would be eternally grateful if you could patch this, currently I'm using another computer just for Playscii haha
There might be multiple issues at work there, but one reason I can think of is that I still do Playscii Mac builds with 32-bit Python on macOS Yosemite, and 32-bit stuff stopped being supported with Catalina. I need to research what options are available to me to support newer macOSes.
Will there possibly be any work on this? I'm on m1/big sur and would love to be able use this!
Same. Hand up for M1 Mac version over here.
Hey, did you get a chance to look into this? I'd really love to be able to use this but I'm getting the same error.
Update: no actual progress on this, but here's an issue I have open with the PyInstaller project, which I use to create the Mac builds: https://twitter.com/playscii/status/1470155468395847683
I will let people know in this thread when I get it resolved - no ETA on when that will be unfortunately.
hi JB, you've done an amazing job, really extraordinary.
I work with to Amstrad cpc, and some things went wrong, as the color palette, export file, i've done some output format modifications, and palette too, to had the 3 stranges text modes on cpc.
but my question is :
it's possible to put and image on a layer to draw on other layer, because import converts image to ascii allways. thanks again for your good job
Hi! is there some prerequisite that I should have installed before I can run this? I am on Windows 10, 64bit and I double click the .exe a program opens for a split second and then closes. I have pyhton 2.7 installed on my machine (if this is relevant). Is there any log or something I can provide?
Edit: I run my windows with an external GPU sometimes, I was currently not connected to that external GPU. For some reason I think that windows wanted to run the thing on the external GPU regardless of what I told it. If I uninstalled the drivers for the eGPU it started working. Sorry for the bother.
Edit 2: While I got it running now, egpu being out of the equasion, the same happens when I try to open the preferences window - just a crash. I wanted to change the location where the files are being saved and was searching for a way to do that.
Woop, ok I found the log files:
I'm running this on a i7-8550U processor. Does playscii not support igpus?
There are several kinds of Intel GPU that Playscii definitely supports, but it needs to be capable of at least OpenGL 2.1 and GLSL 1.30.
A reported GL version of 1.1 is extremely old, that possibly implies that it's not even finding your GPU, or that you don't have the right drivers installed. "GDI Generic" reported for the GPU further suggests that there are no GPU drivers installed on the system. I don't have your hardware obviously and I don't know how one would go about getting the right drivers, but that's a starting point if you investigate.
Hey hey! I tried to play with parallax/3d using multiple layers, but I can't seem to export them properly- all exported layer .pngs are the same (flattened document). Maybe I'm doing something wrong :D
Ah, I see. Something must have broken with the way layers are rendered for export. I'll look into this, sorry for the trouble!
No problem and thanks! I've managed to export stuff manually by copying and pasting layers into a new document, a bit tedious but worked fine :)
i have problem, i recently downloaded this tool and when i unzipped it and launched the playcii.exe my computer sayed the api-ms-win-core-pathl1-1-0.dll and c:/win/temp/mei*****/python is missing. how to fix it?
I'm having the same issue. Running Win7 64bit
im running widows 7 ultimate 32 bit
Hi, I'm looking into this. I'm guessing it's because the last Windows build of Playscii was built from my Windows 10 desktop with a version of PyInstaller (the program I use to turn my Python into a runnable Windows EXE) that changed something about its compat status. I no longer have access to any machines running Windows 7. I'm going to search PyInstaller's issue tracker thoroughly and file a ticket with them if I don't find anything.
Obviously Windows 7 is no longer an officially supported-by-MS OS but I'd like to exhaust every other option before I tell everyone Playscii for Windows requires win10.
thnx that you told us, bcuz i thought i will have to download some unknown stuff that may be viruses
i have to ask, can you import custom palettes and fonts?
Sure, see these two sections from the documentation, which is also accessible from within Playscii if you press F1: http://vectorpoem.com/playscii/howto_art.html#customcharsets
Creating a custom character set is a bit trickier than creating a custom palette, but that should explain what's needed.
Could you provide some text info for me? Try running the program so you get that api-ms-win-blahblah.dll error, and when the dialog window is up, press Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V it into notepad and/or a text field post here.
If the error text doesn't appear in a window and you're running from a command line, pasting the same text from there here would do the same.
Thanks!
---------------------------
playscii.exe - System Error
---------------------------
The program can't start because api-ms-win-core-path-l1-1-0.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem.
---------------------------
OK
---------------------------
This is from Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit.
Oh, and a second error after I hit okay on the first one.
---------------------------
Fatal error detected
---------------------------
Error loading Python DLL 'C:\Users\Joe\AppData\Local\Temp\_MEI365282\python39.dll'.
LoadLibrary: The specified module could not be found.
---------------------------
OK
---------------------------
Okay, I'm not sure this will fix the issue, but try this build:
http://vectorpoem.com/playscii/playscii_win32-9.17.1_20210419.zip
It's using the latest version of Python, PyInstaller, etc; I want to make sure I'm using the latest before I file a bug with the PyInstaller project.
If it gives you an error and the error is any different, let me know.
You might also try running playscii.exe from the Windows command line, and see if any meaningful error text results.
Thanks for your patience!
I got the same set of errors. Nothing new from running in the command line either.
FWIW I have both version 9.16.1 AND 9.17.1, and this error only occurs when I try to run 9.17.1. The older version still runs fine.
Error text same as that posted by EspritDeCorpse38.
Running win7 ultimate 64 bit
What happens when you try to export? Any errors in the console? If you're running from Windows, make sure it's to a directory you are allowed to write files to.
Press the tilde key, which on US keyboard layouts has the ` and ~ symbols on it.
Hey, thanks so much for developing such an awesome tool!!!!
Quick question: I somehow seem to have interrupted the importation process on an bitmap image folder.
Seeing as how it takes some time to import, I was wondering if their is some way to resume the process. Or do i have to start over?
Hmm, sorry I don't think there is. However, if you want to only process the images that haven't been done yet, you could maybe move / cut-paste the source files that have already been converted to another folder?
All right, I'll do that next time. Thanks for the quick response. Cheers.
Just tried this for the first time and its rendering with crazy flashing lines and visual issues. I'm on Windows 10, a 64 bit processor which might be the issue.
Running 32 bit from 64 bit Windows shouldn't be an issue. What's your hardware, as reported by Playscii's startup log?
where can i find that?
On Windows, it'll be in a subfolder of your user folder, such as:
c:\Users\[myusername]\AppData\Local\Playscii\
(where [myusername] is your windows user name)
The file is called console.log. I'm specifically interested in the sections that read "Detecting hardware..." and "Detecting software environment...
Here you go!
Detecting hardware...
CPU: Intel64 Family 6 Model 142 Stepping 10, GenuineIntel
GPU: Intel - Intel(R) UHD Graphics 620
OpenGL detected: 4.6.0 - Build 27.20.100.8337
GLSL detected: 4.60 - Build 27.20.100.8337
Vertex Array Object support found.
Maximum supported texture size: 16384 x 16384
Detected screen resolution: 1920 x 1080, window: 1280 x 720
Detecting software environment...
OS: Windows-10-10.0.19041
Python: 3.7.9 (tags/v3.7.9:13c94747c7, Aug 17 2020, 18:01:55) [MSC v.1900 32 bit (Intel)] (32bit)
Modules: PySDL2 0.9.7, numpy 1.19.3, PyOpenGL 3.1.5, appdirs 1.4.4, PIL 8.0.1
SDL: 2.0.10 hg-12952:bc90ce38f1e2, SDLmixer: 2.0.4
Thanks for the info. I'm not seeing any obvious problems with that... the Intel UHD 620 GPU seems like fairly recent hardware, and the driver version number seems pretty up to date (from over the summer?) Are any other 3D applications giving you rendering glitches? If you feel comfortable doing so, you might try upgrading your video drivers to the very latest version: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/product/96551/Intel-HD-Graphics-620
did you ever work around this problem?
No, I never got answers to my questions above, and don't have that specific Intel GPU to test on, and haven't seen it on any hardware I own.
I was having the same issue(gtx 1650) i fixed it with this method nvidia control panel>3d settings>manage 3d settings>program settings>playscii(i had to add the program)>vsynch off
hope it helps someone else.
Thanks for your work JP great program!
Oh interesting, thanks for sharing that info, I hope it's useful to others!
Would be pretty cool to have a hotkey to quickly swap the foreground/background colors for the current tool :D
Try the W key.
Thank you! :D
Hello, emailed you supporting you via some gift purchases.
Would Raspberry Pi compatibility be a feature in future releases? All my Raspberry Pis, even my Pi 4, can't run Playscii due to GLSL apparently too old. (which I don't understand on R.Pi Foundation's part).
I tried getting it running on a Pi 3 a few years ago, and ran into a total lack of documentation or knowledge on the PyOpenGL (the module I use for GL) side: https://sourceforge.net/p/pyopengl/mailman/pyopengl-users/thread/CAEBBUWhEXds5N7...
If anyone can point me to some working example code that creates an OpenGL context on Pi with the GL feature set I need, I could look into it again.
БРАВИСИМО
it's awasome but how do i write plugins?
Check out the documentation: http://vectorpoem.com/playscii/howto_main.html
The Art Mode page has some info on Import/Export plugins for getting art in and out of Playscii.
The Game Mode page has info on writing games using Python code.
when I run the .exe in windows, nothing happens!
Hm, make sure your Windows 10 is fully up to date - Playscii should be whitelisted in the virus definitions as of 9.16.2's release.
After that, if you're running from the itch.io app, trying reinstalling Playscii from there. If you're not, try re-downloading the ZIP and running.
Windows 10 up to date. re-downloaded the zip an tried it again. I unzipped. each time I click on the playscii icon, a window pops up, as though its gonna run, but then the window immediately disappears.
Hi, sorry you're having a problem. Is there any info in your log file? On a typical Windows system it will be in a folder like C:\Users\[your user name]\AppData\Local\Playscii\console.log, you should be able to open it in Notepad.
If you don't see anything there, try running the EXE from the command line, and paste any errors you see here.
No worries! Thanks for your help. I wasn't able to do what you recommended (the file folders you mention aren't there). I have 64 bit windows... the zip says 32 bit. is there another zip that has 64 bit?
I don't offer a 64 bit Windows build, but the 32 bit version should work fine on any 64 bit system.
Try running the EXE from the command line, that will probably at least print some sort of error to clarify what's happening.
It's been happening to me too, though now with the added caveat of my Anti-Virus program popping up every minute or so to tell me it has quarantined a file.
Which anti-virus program? I got 9.17 officially allow-listed with Windows Defender so that shouldn't be flagging it.
Bitdefender
If you got your build of Playscii from here on itch.io, it should be safe to run. It looks like Bitdefender's submission/appeals process for false positives is limited to "enterprise" customers, so I can't really do anything about the detection from my end. Try telling Bitdefender to add an exception for it: https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/answer/13427/
Windows Defender says this program contains a trojan virus called Wacatac.
Try downloading the latest version (9.16.2) and making sure your Windows Defender definitions are up to date; 9.16.1 was being falsely detected and I submitted the file to MS and they updated their definitions to avoid this. If you're all up to date and still seeing this, I might ask for some info about what exactly Defender is reporting.
Hey! Playscii is one of my favorite go-to applications for relaxing and building concept stuff, so I was thrilled to see the new version up, but apparently Bitdefender flags it as "potentially malicious" again :(
Thanks for the heads up, I'll see if there's anything I can do on my end.
Same with Windows Security
Amazing app but is there any way to import an image and have it converted to a charset without any colourising? EG my charset has 4 colour tiles and I'd like it to just use those exact colours without any tint
Interesting, so the character set image data itself has colors in it? I haven't actually tested with that. If you use a custom 2-color palette with just white (ie 1:1 source colors) and black, does it behave as expected?
THanks for the quick reply :) yes the char set is 4-colour gameboy sprite sheets eg.......
.
I first tried a pure white pallette but in that case it imports the image in 1-bit black + white before processing the characters, and the final comes out overly light....
...and with a black and white pallette as you suggest, half the tiles are tinted black :(
..... and if I use the same 4 colour pallette as the charset uses, the image imports in 4 colours + the ascii comes out better but it's then tinted different shades of the 4 green colours on top of the charset's original colours, whereas I need the pure un-tinted colours of the charset tiles. (I'm experimenting with making graphics for GB Studio games - https://www.gbstudio.dev ).....
Hmm, interesting. This is definitely not something I thought of when designing the image conversion feature - support for multi-color character sets didn't exist back then. It seems like what the program should do here, to get the result you want, is reduce the image to the *character set's* palette instead. I'll put this on the TODO list (trello), but I'm not sure how much work is involved and can't offer any ETA on when it might happen. Thanks for raising this issue, sorry I didn't have a ready answer.
Makes sense.. Yes, reducing it to the char set's palette would work perfectly I think. Appreciated, and totally understand. Thanks!
I just managed to run Playscii on my (too old) hardware (GLSL 2.0) on Linux. Just start it like so:
LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1 ./playscii_linux.sh
Performance is still ok, as long as you don’t enable CRT Filter.
I'm on Linux and I can't move my mouse cursor when the picker is open so I can't do anything with it... Any idea what's happening? I've read through your website and installed the python packages you mention, am I missing something else?
Very strange, I've never seen that issue before. Would you mind posting your log file? Are you running with a laptop trackpad or a mouse?
I was initially using a laptop trackpad, then following your message I tried plugging a USB mouse into my laptop. It works with the mouse, not with the trackpad.
Here is the output:
Playscii v0.9.12
Loading config from /home/myname/.config/Playscii/playscii.cfg...
Config loaded.
Detecting hardware...
CPU: x86_64
OS: Linux-5.2.2-arch1-1-ARCH-x86_64-with-arch
Python: 3.7.3 (default, Jun 24 2019, 04:54:02) [GCC 9.1.0] (64bit)
Modules: PySDL2: 0.9.6, numpy: 1.16.4, PyOpenGL: 3.1.0, appdirs: 1.4.3, PIL: 6.1.0
SDL: 2.0.6 hg-12373:8feb5da6f2fb, SDLmixer: 2.0.0
Detected screen resolution: 1280 x 800, window: 1024 x 640
GPU: Intel Open Source Technology Center - Mesa DRI Intel(R) Ivybridge Mobile
OpenGL detected: 3.0 Mesa 19.1.3
GLSL detected: 1.30
Vertex Array Object support found.
Maximum supported texture size: 16384 x 16384
Loaded key binds from /home/myname/.config/Playscii/binds.cfg
init done.
Thank you for using Playscii! <3
Are you invoking the picker by pressing the space bar, or holding it? Both should be valid and you can toggle that behavior in the Tool menu, but I've noticed some laptops lock out the trackpad when typing is happening (eg a key is being held). If you open a text editor and hold spacebar, does the trackpad work? If not it might be a hardware/OS level issue. Let me know if the behavior only happens with Playscii; it might be due to a quirk of SDL2 for example.
You're right, the trackpad stops working when I hold the space bar in general, not just in Playscii. As for the picker, if I press the space bar and don't hold it, it disappears. Is there a way around that?
Yes, in the Tool menu select "Picker toggle key: hold" and it will change to "Picker toggle key: press". Now you can invoke and dismiss the picker by tapping space bar, which should free the trackpad up for what you need.
Same issue here, got a report that playscii.exe contains Trojan:Win32/Zpevdo.B
Yeah, I'm seeing that Trojan too. No response from dev. Bit of a shame, wanted to give this tool a try, looks good.
I've released a new build, Playscii 0.9.12, which doesn't seem to trigger the false positive on my (Windows 10 64-bit) machine. I've added a note to the front page in case this occurs in future builds. Changing a few bytes seems to be all that's needed. I wish I knew how to avoid this!
Looks awesome!
Didn't work in my office PC which has an Intel Graphics Chip though.
The command prompt reads: "GLSL 1.30 or higher is required."
I will try it on my gaming PC.
I love Playscii, I've used it for a while. I cant wait for it to gain some traction.
it is bad to set
in playscii.py since pySDL2 will search the same thing. You's set
let me puzzled and used some time to find why I can `import sdl2` but playascii complains that `could not find any library for SDL2 (PYSDL2_DLL_PATH: .)`
I'm not sure I understand what you're asking or suggesting. Is there a small code change I should make?
Can't run
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages\sdl2\dll.py", line 113, in <module>
File "site-packages\sdl2\dll.py", line 54, in __init__
RuntimeError: could not find any library for SDL2 (PYSDL2_DLL_PATH: .)
During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "playscii.py", line 25, in <module>
File "c:\python34\lib\site-packages\PyInstaller\loader\pyimod03_importers.py", line
631, in exec_module
File "site-packages\sdl2\__init__.py", line 2, in <module>
File "c:\python34\lib\site-packages\PyInstaller\loader\pyimod03_importers.py", line
631, in exec_module
File "site-packages\sdl2\dll.py", line 115, in <module>
ImportError: could not find any library for SDL2 (PYSDL2_DLL_PATH: .)
[95952] Failed to execute script playscii
Is the file SDL2.dll missing from the program directory? I think it's included in the right spot with the Windows build.
Is there any way to export games made using playscii
You can distribute your game alongside Playscii, using the Windows EXE / a modified Mac app bundle / Python source, by including your game in the games/ subfolder, so there's no export process per se.
Another thing you see is on the character set
On one side it is playscii on the other rexpaint I put two crosses to demonstrate the error in the specific character in the playscii that is not only in the dos charset (the same charset of the rexpaint) also the most charsets have errors in their characters, I was trying to replicate the banner I made in rexpaint at playscii and it was almost impossible, can you fix the charsets? I loved your program ;-;
Is there a way to save a project which is in C64 Petscii format as a compatible file? (As in, I should be able to take said file and put it on a C64 as SEQ and it would be displayable like standard C64 C/G files)
Hi there, sorry for the late response. I've been researching how to do C64 SEQ file export (and maybe import as well) and was having trouble finding info about the file format. I'm making some progress though. It will be available as an import "plugin" like the DOS ANSI file export etc. I'll either post the plugin file here or make it the main part of the 0.9.11 update. No ETA.
SEQ files themselves is just simply SEQuential data, nothing special there. For the C/G formatting, I don't think there should be anything special. It should just be each character to represent a C64 PETSCII character (space, cursor key, graphics, etc). Since you already have the PETSCII character set, the only thing I would figure is to see if those characters actually map up with the character codes.
C64 Petscii codes and Symbols
Beyond that, I can't imagine much more difficulty. Just would need to make sure when you export that it actually does blank spaces. Since Playscii is a static image, you might need to recognize cursor keys for importing. However, exporting this shouldn't be needed. This should only be needed for the animated (movie) C/G SEQ movie files.
If it will help, I can see about tossing you a few files from my BBS collection your way to inspect. I can include both static and animated.
Some samples would be great actually, thanks!
I can't seem to find a way to post files here (suspect you can't), so here is a link to download a small collection.
C64 C/G Picture collection
Inside, you will find a few C/G pic files (that on a C64 or in DirMaster, are correctly viewable). In addition, I made BMP images of each, so you can see what they should look like when viewed properly. I also included one C/G animated movie, just in case you find that interesting or useful (prob not as much for Playscii, but whatever).
Hope this helps!
Zero? I don't understand why I'd sue anyone?! I made Playscii so that people could make things with it, the code is open source and there's no license whatsoever regarding the art you create with it. Do whatever you like!
This is the coolest thing I've seen since TheDraw 4.63 for DOS :)
Is there any way to change the folder you save documents to? I prefer to save documents on a different disk than the C drive, which in my case is an SSD (I just have program files and whatnot on there)
I'm using this code to detect the user's Documents dir: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6227590/finding-the-users-my-documents-path/...
But it seems like that doesn't properly detect when the user has a non-default Documents dir location? That's frustrating, sorry. It looks like there's a module (called winshell) I could use to detect this. I'll add that to my TODO list.
In the meantime, if you're running Win7 or later and don't mind a bit of command line fiddling you could make a symbolic link between your default Documents dir's Playscii/ subdir and your desired Documents dir. https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753194(WS.10).aspx
What about an android port?
Neat and technically possible, but unlikely to be worth the massive effort - probably 9-12 months of full-time work. Playscii's UI is mouse and keyboard centric, it's coded in Python which isn't easy to get running on Android, and it uses regular OpenGL instead of OpenGL ES (the mobile flavor).
Well I think that $5 would be a great price for a portable version and hopefully make the development time worth it. Few other developers I really like do that. Desktop versions free, mobile costs. Either way hopefully you decide to, would enjoy doing this to and from work on public transportation.
Edit: Also, if you could port it as is, with the ability to zoom in and out that would be awesome. Though I would use this on my phone, on my tablet as is would be fine. Check out SunVox if you get a chance. Has one of the best interfaces for this sort of thing on mobile.
Hey know this is free/nyop, but I gave up my last $0.50 to show you some support ;).
As ever, thanks for this. It's lovely, and makes me wish I sucked less at ASCII art.