FontData

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Overview

Inherits

The font data (.xml file).

Used in font folders and linked by Font definitions (Fonts.sbc).

Creating a font

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This XML file can be generated by the font tools included in the game folder.

1. Navigate to your game's install folder or SDK folder, then /Tools/Fonts/.
2. There duplicate Options_dialog.txt and MakeFontDataDialog.bat with new names.
3. Edit your duplicated .bat with notepad to change the Options_dialog.txt into whatever name you gave your duplicated .txt file.
4. Edit your duplicated .txt file to change -output's value which decides the names of the files.
5. Run the duplicated .bat which will open a popup to choose the font to convert into a bitmap font.
6. Now you have an .xml file and one or more .png textures, you should convert the .png files to .dds and edit the .xml to point to them.
7. Place these files in your mod's Fonts\YourFontName\.
8. The last step is to have a Fonts.sbc in your mod's Data folder which points to the xml.

For further documentation on BMFontGen, open BMFontGen/bmfontgen.html.

Glyph data

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Visualization of the glyph chracteristics:

Baseline being the line where you write on, most characters are above this line. Some characters can stretch under it, for example: g, y, q, etc.

Example syntax

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You should not be creating this file manually, the docs and example are merely as an idea of what to expect, use the guide above to create a font.

Short example to see the overall syntax

From white font's FontDataPA.xml but trimmed to have an overview, and stripped unused attributes for clarity:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<font
	xmlns="http://xna.microsoft.com/bitmapfont"
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://xna.microsoft.com/bitmapfont bitmapfont.xsd"
	base="30" height="37">
<bitmaps>
  <bitmap id="0" name="FontDataPA-0.dds" size="1024x1024" />
  <!-- ... -->
</bitmaps>
<glyphs>
  <glyph ch=" "       bm="0" origin="0,0"   size="15x45" aw="8" lsb="-7" ho="0" />
  <glyph ch="&quot;"  bm="0" origin="39,0"  size="25x45" aw="10" lsb="-7" ho="0" />
  <!-- ... -->
</glyphs>
<kernpairs>
  <kernpair left="Ж" right="в" adjust="-1" />
  <!-- ... -->
</kernpairs>
</font>

Elements

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base base (attribute)	Type: Int32	Default: (required)
Distance from top of font to the baseline.
height height (attribute)	Type: Int32	Default: (required)
Distance from top to bottom of the font.
bitmaps <bitmaps>	Type: bitmap[]	Default: null
List of textures that can be used by the <glyph> elements. id id (attribute) Type: Int32 Default: (required) The number by which this texture is referenced by the <glyph>. name name (attribute) Type: string Default: (required) Texture file name (preferably .dds) in the same folder as this .xml file. Note: if this contains FontDataPA or the file is a "Raw RGBA format" (R8G8B8A8 and etc), then it expects the texture to already have color premultiplied by alpha. Otherwise it premultiplies on the pixel shader (which is probably slower). size size (attribute) Type: string Default: (required) Expects 2 integers separated by x, which specifies the texture's resolution (or max coordinates). Example: <bitmaps> <bitmap id="0" name="FontDataPA-0.dds" size="1024x1024" /> <!-- ... --> </bitmaps>
glyphs <glyphs>	Type: glyph[]	Default: null
List of characters supported by this font. bm bm (attribute) Type: UInt16 Default: (required) Texture bitmap id to use. Valid range 0 to 65535. ch ch (attribute) Type: char Default: (required) Text character that will be represented. Anything more than one character will be ignored. origin origin (attribute) Type: string Default: (required) X and Y pixel coordinates on the texture to start the boundingbox, from top-left corner. Values separated by , (comma). Valid range per value 0 to 65535. size size (attribute) Type: string Default: (required) Width and height in pixels of the boundingbox. Values separated by x. Valid range per value 0 to 255. lsb lsb (attribute) Type: sbyte Default: (required) Left side bearing, in pixels. Valid range -128 to 127. aw aw (attribute) Type: byte Default: (required) Advance width in pixels (see image above). Valid range 0 to 255. ho ho (attribute) Type: sbyte Default: 0 Height offset in pixels. Valid range -128 to 127. Unused or obsolete elements wo wo (attribute) Type: - Default: - Not used. code code (attribute) Type: string Default: - Not used. forcewhite forcewhite (attribute) Type: bool Default: - Not used. Example: <glyphs> <glyph bm="0" ch="+" origin="305,0" size="34x45" lsb="-7" aw="18" ho="0" /> <!-- ... --> </glyphs>
kernpairs <kernpairs>	Type: kernpair[]	Default: null
Optional list of pairs of characters to ajust spacing between them (kerning). left left (attribute) Type: char Default: (required) A single character, anything more will be ignored. right right (attribute) Type: char Default: (required) A single character, anything more will be ignored. adjust adjust (attribute) Type: sbyte Default: (required) Offsets advance width by this many pixels. Valid range -128 to 127. Example: <kernpairs> <kernpair left="Ж" right="в" adjust="-1" /> <!-- ... --> </kernpairs>

Obsolete Elements

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Elements that exist in the game code or vanilla SBC, but do nothing

Note: this list only contains root-level from this definition only, nothing from inherited ones.

name (attribute)	Type: String	Default: -
Not used.
face (attribute)	Type: String	Default: -
Not used.
size (attribute)	Type: String	Default: -
Not used.

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