# convgeneric

convgeneric is a simple COMMAND LINE tool designed to transcode PNG files in almost any CPC format

here is a VERY short doc, i advise you to use it and read the command line options (or send mail)

## What this tool cannot do

convgeneric cannot reduce colors in an image, you may those tools instead:
- Martine https://github.com/jeromelesaux/martine
- ConvIMGCpc https://github.com/DemoniakLudo/ConvImgCpc

## Multimode support

For screen or soft-sprite transcoding, you must set the mode resolution with the option -m <mode>

## Software sprite conversion

Default output is a progressive output of any size.

If you specify a size to extract then convgeneric will crop the image and transcode it. That's it.

If you want to transcode more than one sprite, you need to set the sprite number to extract with -c <nb> option. Then convgeneric will run trough the image, until it cannot extract that size anymore or until it reaches the count.

For multiple sprite output, you may appreciate a flat output for the binary file, instead of many files.

As convgeneric can handle transparency, you may export up to 16 colors software sprite + transparency map, so forget those lame coder limitations of one color reserved for transparency ;)

## Tile extraction

As software sprite extraction, you can submit an image, a tile size and convgeneric will extract a map, the tiles and some source code

### Tiled screens mode

You set the dimensions of the screen in pixels then the global tilemap is splitted in a list of tilemaps prefixed with LZX0 crunch. Any transparent screen in the map wont be exported. That said, it means you can merge 2 big maps if you wanna use 2 tilesets, 2 palettes, ...

### Metatile mode

You can specify the width of a square to agregate tiles in metatiles. Then the tilemap will refer to metatiles

## Screen conversion

with the -scr command line option, you tell convgeneric that you want a "ready for use" screen data.

For overscan or non standard screen, there is a lot of options to define the screen (see the integrated help)

## Hardware sprite extraction

with the -hsp option, you tell convgeneric to extract 1 pixel/1 pixel hardware sprite of 16x16 size. convgeneric can handle real transparency, so i advise to use it!