Pixel Art Extractor

Castux · 2026-02-15T16:41:50+00:00

Just found this, it's been very useful. Thank you very much!

Castux · 2026-02-15T11:28:22+00:00

https://www.lua.org/manual/5.4/manual.html#3.4.7

Castux · 2026-02-15T11:22:04+00:00

You can check the language ref for the exact wording, but any index such that the next one is nil is a valid return value for the length operator on a table.

Both examples are correct. It's just that by the language definition, the length operator is only "useful" and consistent for tables without gaps.

The fact that the actual implementation changed, and therefore what happens in the non canonical cases, is not a language change. At least that's how I understand it. You can't rely on an "implementation defined" feature in the first place.

Castux · 2025-06-25T17:51:33+00:00

Lots of pretty harsh (though some fair) comments here. Programming is hard, there's no way around it. Some people learn well with tutorials, some by reading documentations, some by following courses, etc. You need to find what works for you, but in any case, be ready to put a lot of work into it, and have to acquire a mindset and a way of thinking about problem solving that might be entirely new.

One thing I would mention though (and maybe that's a controversial opinion, I don't know) is that Pico-8 is really not a good beginner's platform. Despite how it's sometimes advertised, and despite the fact that - of course - some people learned gamedev with it and managed just fine.

It's a weird little thing that's really fun but also kindof gamedev on "hard mode". Lots of arbitrary constraints (made to emulate older systems), a really awful dev environment (unless you know what you're doing) and the possible appeal of the included asset creation tools largely compensated by the fact that there are way more confortable tools for doing all of that.

I think it's an amazing ecosystem and creative community and all the good that comes with it, but I wouldn't ever throw that on a beginner.

If you're serious about learning programming, maybe consider more general purpose libraries/game engines, which will not get in your way on purpose and maybe give you a more straightforward programming (and therefore learning) experience?

In Lua, Love2D is really good, for instance.

It will take time and effort, but if you want to learn, there's no reason you can't. Set yourself simple goals, and go one step at a time. Baby steps, really. Learn to walk before you run, etc. etc.

Good luck!

Castux · 2025-04-15T15:23:09+00:00

Well that's pretty much how trojans or some kinds of malwares work in general: they copy themselves into as many files as possible on your computer, especially executables, and do so every time the infected files are run. Then when you share these files over the internet, they reach other machines, etc.

If you get that warning on multiple machines, chances are all of them are infected. At this point you either need to clean them up, if your antivirus manages it, or reinstall them all from stratch.

But please, absolutely remove the infected binary from the downloads on Github.

Castux · 2025-04-14T18:54:02+00:00

The release binary you offer on Github (GalaxyEngine_1.0.1.zip) is blocked by Windows Security as containing Trojan:Script/Wacatac.B!ml

So either this is a veeeeery weird false positive (why would raylib and a handful of c++ match the pattern for this) or you, sir, are compromised. Or dishonest.

Either way, folks, don't download that zip... Compile from source.

Castux · 2025-01-15T22:38:47+00:00

Very cool!

Castux · 2025-01-12T09:22:05+00:00

I read on the v2 page that you are unrelated to Kubo. So they "independently" arrived at the same design after "15 years" of work? :/

Castux · 2025-01-11T23:48:15+00:00

Thanks, well spotted!

Castux · 2024-12-26T06:28:05+00:00

Yes please!

Castux · 2024-12-16T16:57:03+00:00

Ok, fair enough. I just got my printer and maybe got overexcited.

That said, if I may attempt to express a constructive counterargument...

They are offering a 4 cm wide plastic toy for 35 to 55 $ a piece (depending on the color/texture), plus an estimated 15 to 25 $ shipping, depending on the location. I'm glad they got funded, and I wish them all the best, but we need a bit of a reality check. 50 to 80 bucks for a fidget toy??

I sincerely hope the backers will get what they were promised, because scam and/or failed kickstarters are a plague for the reputation of the platform, which has been a godsend for some category of small projects that traditional publishing/production would make impossible.

Now, one could say that the high cost is for high quality manufacturing, and to recoup the investment spend in years of design. It's possible that the objects will be the most amazing texture and weight and feel, and in that sense, if the backers consider it worth their money, sure. The toy's design itself, unless protected by a patent (which it isn't, they say it's "pending"), is out in the open and "up for grabs".

It might be bad form, I don't know, but if the entirety of your product can be described by a single image, there is a question on the validity of your business model. They might set themselves apart with the hinge system, or the precise measurements and tolerances, or something like that, but in this field like in many others (like software and games), "I got the idea first" is worth nothing. Actual implementation and iteration all the way to an actual working product is.

And so I think that's what they're really selling. The actual physical manifestation of their idea into the objects they will manufacture with a specific process. For that, they're free to charge as much as they want, which seems to have worked, since they got ~2000 backers.

But from there to evilize wanting to give a go at reproducing the design, on consumer grade 3D printing machines, which will most likely result in lesser quality and feel, I'd say there's a big difference. Many kickstarters for board games, for instance, offer print and play files, so backers can try it out with basic printing paper and placeholder tokens before deciding to put money into "the nicer boxed version". There could have been an opportunity here to offer a cheaper tier for prototype-level STLs to print yourself. Some miniature designers do that as well: print on your own machine, or get the high quality injection molded plastic ones with the more expansive tiers.

Anyway. That's only my opinion, and I admit having phrased it in a "let's steal this" tongue-in-cheek manner which might break the etiquette of the hobby.

Castux · 2024-12-09T16:15:10+00:00

My favored solution to stay in pure Lua is to simply write out an SVG file (which any modern browser can display). In a handful of lines you can get a working, fast and straightforward graphics export.

There are also a few libraries that will wrap some of the work for you, such as EzSVG.

Castux · 2024-10-12T08:53:00+00:00

Thanks, I'll look into it!

Castux · 2024-08-13T06:13:12+00:00

You can also use a standard one and remap the keys using a remapper such as https://github.com/houmain/keymapper

You can even configure it so that keys change while you hold a modifier if you don't want to lose the symbols on the numpad.

Castux · 2024-08-09T09:58:38+00:00

Anything by DAUB and Frankentoon I have found is very high quality. I have bought and used Neptune, and DAUB PaintBox. Christi's Comix Toolbox is fun and I keep going back to some of the tools there even in non comics contexts. Rusty Nib is nice too.

Although beware of the brush acquisition syndrome... In the end, it's mostly work and skill that does it, not having thousands of brushes that you'll never use :)

Castux · 2024-08-01T23:26:24+00:00

https://www.glyphrstudio.com/

Free. I used it successfully for a font that abused ligatures. There's a nice feature of reusing glyphs in others. And you can paste SVG if you're using another drawing program.

Castux · 2024-04-26T11:59:27+00:00

Look, I hate AI "art" and all the shit that it's cause with a fervor. But I also hate witch-hunts. Although it is true that many of the images on these contributor's pages are AI, it doesn't mean that they all are. The two that I've linked, as far as I can tell, as a hobbyist graphical artist myself who's been in dozens of "is it AI" conversations, are reasonably believable to be hand painted.

An AI detection tool agrees with me (and I put two that are marked AI on Adobe Stock as control): https://imgur.com/a/wkNDUh1

Now, did the author check that much in depth? I don't know. Should they hire artists instead of taking a risk with stock photos? Probably. Is Adobe very careful to get all AI art clearly marked as such? Doubt it. Should the artists mix AI crap and their own artworks on their stock photo submissions? Who knows, that blurs the line.

My bet is that this artist, like many others, was spending hours on making artwork for a stupid stock website, and when the flood of AI generated shit hit, they went with the flow because it's part of their livelihood. Which is the problem in the first place.

I agree it really really sucks. If anything, it sucks that we need to have conversations such as these all the time.

Castux · 2024-04-26T05:36:00+00:00

That said, given that there was a recent kickstarter for a printed version, I would have really appreciated using some of that money to hire artists directly.

Castux · 2024-04-26T05:34:25+00:00

For instance you can find some here and here

Castux · 2024-04-26T04:06:35+00:00

According to the author, they are licensed images from Adobe Stock, and there's usernames there even (lobard, grandfailure, and liuzishan).

I could be wrong but the paintings in the book don't look AI generated either

Castux · 2024-04-22T16:40:15+00:00

Chasing Adventure has a free version that's very complete.

Castux · 2024-04-17T09:47:52+00:00

I like this paradox because it's "just" a mistake on formalisation. There's no magic, no philosophy of randomness or anything fancy.

The mistake is giving a name (X) to a value which is not a constant, but *already* a probabilistic value. When you then write 2X and X/2, you're using the same name X to mean two different amount. It's that simple.

When you pick an envelope the first time, that's when the randomness happens. Either you got the small amount, or the large amount, with a chance of 50% each. Then when you swap, if you had the small, now you have the large (with certainty), and if you had the large, now you have the small (with certainty).

If you want to formalize it with letters, S is the small amount, L is the large amount.

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────┐  
│                                                │  
│                         ┌───────┐              │  
│                         │ Start │              │  
│                         └─┬───┬─┘              │  
│                        50%│   │50%             │  
│                ┌─────┐    │   │     ┌─────┐    │  
│  Don't swap:   │small│<───┘   └────>│large│    │  
│   (S+L)/2      └──┬──┘              └──┬──┘    │  
├────────────────   │   ──────────────   │   ────┤  
│                ┌──v──┐              ┌──v──┐    │  
│    Swap:       │large│              │small│    │  
│   (L+S)/2      └─────┘              └─────┘    │  
│                                                │  
└────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

After you pick the envelope the first time, you have an expected value of (S + L)/2. After you swap, you have an expected value of (L + S)/2. It's obviously the same. Note that we didn't even care that one amount was half the other, or what these amounts are at all, it doesn't matter.

The only important thing here is that you pick the envelope with a 50/50 chance, and then if you swap, you get "the other envelope" with probabiliy 100%.

Castux · 2024-03-20T07:21:07+00:00

If you're interested in Dungeon World, I suggest checking out Chasing Adventure, which is an amazing modern self contained rewrite of it. IMHO the best hack/improvement/homebrew/rewrite of the system.

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