Displaying Fonts in XNA?!

Question

Hi everyone,

Just got started on this but already running into a heap of trouble... How do I display fonts?

I already got the bitmapfont.cs from Gary Kacmarcik on http://blogs.msdn.com/garykac/archive/2006/08/30/728521.aspx

but the class won't build due to all sorts of weird errors. Am I doing something wrong or is it simply because the class was written voor Beta 1 or 2?

How do you display fonts using XNA? And why is it not easily accessible in the first place? Seems like an enormous oversight to me.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

It's not an oversight, it's a matter of how much they could do given the rapid development and release. Font support is on the list of things for a future release. Check here for some help with font rendering.

Answer 2

Ok thanks, but when I tried to build this project it gave me numerous errors.

I had to change the old references to Microsoft.Xna FrameWork to the new ones.

Then I ran into a new problem.

The program worked but after trying to render the texture it gave me this error

Texture resources can only be created with the following ResourceUsage options: AutoGenerateMipMap, Dynamic, ResolveTarget.
Parameter name: usage

at this line:

Texture2D t = new Texture2D(graphicsDevice, iSize, iSize, 1, ResourceUsage.SoftwareProcessing, SurfaceFormat.Color, ResourceManagementMode.Automatic);

Anyone know what to do?

 

Answer 3

If you have found Gary's blog already, why do you still use the incompatible Beta1 version? Check this one:
http://blogs.msdn.com/garykac/archive/2006/11.aspx
The final (up to now) are BitmapFont ver.061118 with BMFontGen ver.1119. You'd save the helpfile BMFontGen.html from first release though.

Answer 4

As an exercise, I converted Gary's BitmapFont stuff over to using the ContentPipeline.

http://seattle.servegame.org/XNAExtras.zip

Answer 5

Thank you Aaron!

That's just great.

I can load BitmapFont files very very easily in XNA 1.0 as well as texture files. I think many developers should know your XNAExtras.

Answer 6

I found a nice way of displaying text here

VB.NET XNA Extra Tutorial - Display Text on Screen - www.alanphipps.com

I ported it over to C#, and here is the result

public class TextDrawer
    {
        public static Texture2D CreateTextTexture(string text, Font textFont, Brush colour, Game game, GraphicsDevice device)
        {
            //Measure the font dimensions
            Graphics myDrawing = Graphics.FromHwnd(game.Window.Handle);

            SizeF stringSize = myDrawing.MeasureString(text, textFont);
            Bitmap theBMP = new Bitmap((int)stringSize.Width, (int)stringSize.Height);
            myDrawing.Dispose();
            myDrawing = null;

            myDrawing = Graphics.FromImage(theBMP);
            myDrawing.TextRenderingHint = System.Drawing.Text.TextRenderingHint.AntiAliasGridFit;
            //Now write the text on
            myDrawing.DrawString(text, textFont, colour, new PointF(0, 0));

            //Create a memory stream and dump the drawing into it
            MemoryStream strm = new MemoryStream();
            theBMP.Save(strm, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Png);
            //Reset the stream position back to 0
            strm.Position = 0;
            Texture2D theTex = Texture2D.FromFile(device, strm);

            //Clean up
            strm.Close();
            strm.Dispose();
            strm = null;

            myDrawing.Dispose();
            myDrawing = null;

            theBMP.Dispose();
            theBMP = null;

            return theTex;
        }
    }


And just call it like this in LoadGraphicsContent()
sprite = TextDrawer.CreateTextTexture("Hello World", new System.Drawing.Font("Arial", 12, System.Drawing.FontStyle.Bold), System.Drawing.Brushes.Blue, this, graphics.GraphicsDevice);

Answer 7

slugonamission wrote:

I found a nice way of displaying text here

This method can be used for Windows target only.  Personaly for me, it is of interest as an  example of possible implementation. I'll never use it due  to performance sake. 

Answer 8

I was using the Beta 1 :(

I did look for an updated version, but I couldn't find one.

Thanks for the tip man! Awesome help!