xbin/adf artists?

acheron.org % discussions: ANSI Discussion: xbin/adf artists?
By
God among Lice on Wednesday, December 23, 1998 - 03:52 am:

I'm just wondering how many ansi artists plan to try their hand at creating some xbin/adf artwork once skaboy finishes his new drawing program, Empathy.

I believe it's the first editor to fully support these formats, which allow custom palettes and custom character sets, and Empathy will let you edit all the characters and the palette on the fly. Imagine all the crazy shit you could do with this!

I'm personally really excited about it, and I plan to try doing some stuff myself. It would be nice if we could all come up with a few standard character sets, to make it easier for other people to try it out too.

Who's with me? :)


By Inazone on Wednesday, December 23, 1998 - 08:04 am:

I tried it once back in `96. A new version of ArtWorx had just come out supporting XBIN/ADF, and Radman was on a big kick for everyone in Acid to draw with it. I gave it a whirl, but the program was so radically different from conventional ansi editors that it was more of a headache than it was worth.

If Empathy is more usable, I might be tempted to give it a shot.


By Argon on Wednesday, December 23, 1998 - 07:32 pm:

I'm planning on using the format.. Its much more flexible, innovative, etc.

Argon


By RaD Man on Wednesday, December 23, 1998 - 07:36 pm:

I feel your excitement baby.

There are a couple editors out there right now supporting full ADF, but there is no one single editor which takes full advantage of the XBIN standard.

Artworx had a severe learning curve but CiaDraw beta is a very decent ADF editor -- It does great with binary formats (BIN, ADF) but unreliable doesn't go far enough to describe how unstable it's ANSI save routines are.

Anyways to answer your question I'm very excited to see someone implementing full support for XBIN - These formats (ADF&XB) are great for people still programming emags and interfaces for DOS/Textmode applications. I just wish we could have done it sooner. =)

-r


By Filth on Thursday, December 24, 1998 - 12:26 am:

i've seen other editors that support shit, er i mean xbin/adf. and well, ADF IS THE DUMBEST FUCKING THING EVER to happen to the ansi scene. it totally takes away from what ansi is about. and it makes me wanna fucking barf, shit, and piss all at the same time.

ick


By Haquisaq on Thursday, December 24, 1998 - 03:20 am:

if anything, i think xbin/adf will add to ansi a whole new dimension, IF the formats are successful in being accepted by the artists. with these formats, ansi artists are going to deal with "drawing ansi" on multiple levels: not only on the traditional "80x25 placing blocks and colors here and there" level, but right down to the pixel-by-pixel level. new character sets means that artists will need to have more skill to take full advantage of xbin/adf; therefore, others can be more impressed with a well done xbin as opposed to a well-done ansi. retired artists could come back to try their hand at this enhanced form of ansi.

if Empathy is everything it's cracked up to be, and if the majority of the scene likes it, xbin/adf could revolutionize the ansi scene as we know it.


By Gloss on Thursday, December 24, 1998 - 10:20 am:

I think that adf isnt so bad. People have to stop looking at it as another form of ansi, rather as its own separate medium. I think it could really boost the scene and that it would be really fun to do something new (lets face it, theres so very little that can be done that hasnt been done before with ansi - we've taken it to its limits and beyond). My only beef with this adf stuff is that if we actually wanted to take it to the limits and make it as good as it can be, we would have to sit down for about three weeks straight, editing every damn character and designing a really good color set. It would just be SO god damn time consuming. Ofcourse, we would really appreciate a well done adf then.. so overall Id say that this adf stuff is a good idea. Its a shame that it never really caught on in the past.


By Filth on Thursday, December 24, 1998 - 03:11 pm:

first of all, empathy won't revolutionize the ansi medium. ciadraw, and artworx both had adf support. it was a stupid idea then, and a stupid idea now. (not saying empathy will be stupid, i've seen it, and i fear.)

i really hope people don't support this stupid medium.


By Haquisaq on Thursday, December 24, 1998 - 04:51 pm:

the only reason adf wasn't successful before was because the programs were a bitch to work with.

xbin/adf will be successful, if it becomes about as easy to work with as ansi is itself. if skaboy can do that with empathy, then more power to him. if empathy doesn't do enough to make xbin/adf art easier to create, then well, whatever... adf will just have to wait for another day.


By God among Lice on Friday, December 25, 1998 - 12:46 am:

filth: I'm with gloss in that I don't think you should be worried about it revolutionizing the ansi scene or not, because it really is something different, just as ascii is different from ansi, if you ask me.

As for the problem with the complexity and time involved, I think we should really try to create some standard alternative character sets.. that would save a lot of people some time, and they could still modify them a little to suit their individual needs.

I've been thinking about the nature of text-mode art lately and have figured out what's so appealing about it to me... It's all about putting yourself within a system of creation in which you basically are constantly making choices, with a finite number of options to choose from. You're choosing the right block to put on each part of the screen. With ansi, you're making choices, but everyone else is choosing among the same 256 (or so) characters and 16 colors that you are. With adf, you can create your own set of options. You create your own limitations, instead of having them dictated by someone else. It becomes an art of self-defined limits, something that I find fascinating.

I think now may be the right time to stop thinking of ansi and text-mode art simply as screens for bbs's and begin to think of it as a legitimate artform.


By Anonymous on Friday, December 25, 1998 - 02:58 pm:

xbin/adf!=ansi


By Filth on Friday, December 25, 1998 - 04:16 pm:

i doubt it'll revolutionize anything, but i still think it's total and utter bullshit. and about the sets. i think it was ciadraw (maybe artworx) that had a charactergrab, where you could load up an adf by another artist, and you could get the set he used. (ie the pn iceview interface)

and about ansi being so great, is the fact that the simplicity sets ansi apart from many artforms. i mean you could take the best freehand artist in the world, and put him infront of adobe for the first time, and he might come up with crap, and you can take some 12 year old kid who's been mucking around on daddies computer for a while, who can pump out some filtered photomanips, and make the real artist look like a turd. but with ansi, there's no advantages. everyone has the exact same resources, plus it doesn't take a rocket scientist to use something like aciddraw.

but when you get into this adf nonsense, it just totally gives ansi a bad name.


By God among Lice on Saturday, December 26, 1998 - 01:03 am:

Well yea.. actually all you'll have to do with empathy is just load up someone else's adf, clear the screen, and you've got their char set, I'm pretty sure. So I guess the standards thing is more or less irrelevant.

So I guess you're saying adf gives ansi a bad name because it loses the simplicity of ansi? I can see how you wouldn't like to use it because of this, but how exactly does that fact give ansi a bad name? It's not meant to replace ansi or anything... it's just something different someone can use. Ansi will still be totally relevant, really.

You sound like you're making some kind of reflex reaction against something new.


By AntiAll on Saturday, December 26, 1998 - 07:52 am:

I for one kind of like ADF. I'm sure the main reason it didn't fly was because of the editors... like everyone said before, artworx wasn't anything like thedraw or aciddraw, so it took quite awhile to get used to, and ciadraw was buggy as hell. I've never been good at ansi, and i've drawn ascii for a long time, and I *have* messed with ADF, using a combination of both of those editors... I liked what a came out with. Quite possibly the most attractive thing about ADF/XB/TFX and all that stuff is it's kind of unexplored territory, just like ansi was when people first started drawing.. anything goes. I think we might see a small rise in the amount of ADFs being released when empathy comes out, but all in all, if everyone really wanted to be drawing ADF they would be. There's going to be no huge revoloution, and as far as bbsing goes, only 1 or 2 softwares support TFX, and only their terminals support dialing with it as far as I know...

I hope some all ADF groups emerge, that'd be interesting.


By Filth on Saturday, December 26, 1998 - 12:52 pm:

ok ok, maybe i jumped the gun a lil saying it'll give ansi a bad name. actually adf has been around for a while. it kinda comes and goes. like when artworx/ciadraw came out, you'd see an adf every once in a while, but after that it goes away. i know a lot of the newer guys who weren't around for artworx, and the whole adf crap thing will say "cool!@#" and release a few shitty adfs, but it'll die out. don't get me wrong, i wasn't thinking it was gonna be the downfall of ansi, becuase i know ansi'll prevail over all, like it always does. :)


By RaD Man on Saturday, December 26, 1998 - 01:49 pm:

Filth I can't quite grasp why you're taking such a negative stand against what's really nothing more than a wonderful textmode-graphics format. Not everything revolves around ANSI.

XBIN was never intended to be a fad or a replacement for ANSI's X3.64 standard. It was created to resolve many of the shortcomings of binary (.BIN) and then to continue where ADF left off. When such a format like this exists it really simplifies matters for both the coder and the artist because the tools and specifications are already in place. Years before ADF or XBIN were a twinkle in someone's eye people were playing with textmode tricks; editing the font sets and changing color palletes and animating the screen with animated raster bars. If you think using Artworx or CiaDraw is so difficult, stop for a moment and try to imagine how people managed to do the same things MANUALLY without such formats or editors.

How in your mind could this possibly interfere with or harm the ANSI scene? Do you really think it's that fragile?

-r


By Eto on Saturday, December 26, 1998 - 03:04 pm:

Well, I personally think ADF/XBIN/Soon to be ACGS (pablodraw's format) is a great way of advancing the scene, and keeping it alive. Allowing the artist to take FULL control of the features of text mode make it all the better. I see it as an extension to ansi, not a replacement or different medium.

And, with XBIN/ADF support in PabloDraw will give users some choice on which editor they want to use when making these advanced images..


By God among Lice on Saturday, December 26, 1998 - 05:05 pm:

Yea, having a choice in what editor you're using will definitely help attract more people to the format.

filth: I bet you're right about xbin/adf continuing to be a fringe format.. most people will most likely still draw ansi. I think these formats just make an option available to the more hard-core people with more time or the need to experiment more with their stuff, etc.. I think it could end up being the way rip art in packs used to be.. it was once pretty common to see rips, but there usually were only a few in a pack if you did see them. It was just sort of a treat to see them.. a nice additional variety.

eto: what's ACGS exactly? I hope it's not like a 3rd competing standard.. that'd make things unnecesarily confusing.

Radman: so when the hell will aciddraw support these formats? ;)


By Eto on Monday, December 28, 1998 - 01:46 pm:

Uhh... Unfortunately ACGS *IS* a 3rd competing standard -- only because there are some things in XBIN/ADF that I feel are left out. Though, it'll probably end up NOT being a 'standard', but rather just the format that PabloDraw users use to save their ansimations, multiple font & palettes, etc... Though, I have yet to actually ADD this functionality to PabloDraw, but in version 0.98, it will have it.


By Mass Delusion on Wednesday, December 30, 1998 - 10:10 pm:

iCEDraw supports (obviously) IDF. Which never really caught on.. a few of us did full-length IDFs, but it's so friggin' time consuming, it's a bitch.

I did a pic of Calvin in the snow once, the ENTIRE thing was IDF... *sheesh* 3-5 times longer than a normal ansi, and you can't even see it on a BBS, only in our viewer or on our website now I suppose since we wrote an IDF -> gif converter, but still. =)


By God among Lice on Saturday, January 2, 1999 - 11:39 pm:

eto: ok.. sounds pretty cool. I guess it could be compared to a Photoshop .psd file..

I'm not too familiar with all the technical specifics of the two current standards, myself. What are the things that you thought were left out in adf/xbin?


By Eto on Monday, January 4, 1999 - 11:54 am:

Well, first of all, there is no animation support. Along with this, I'd like to see use of multiple font/palettes, as well as effects, etc.
I'm going to make a command-line ACGS viewer (with C and PAS source) which will allow people to add it to their viewers easily. XBIN is a fairly complete format, just lacking ansimation, and specific functions for ansimation.

There are also some other things that i wanted to do with ACGS, which is graphics. Inline compressed images, line, circle, bezier drawing, etc. I may make a HTML->ACGS converter.. heh.. but this is just something I wanted to do for a long, LONG time... not as if it'll be done any time soon.


By Napalm on Saturday, January 9, 1999 - 02:52 pm:

You guys ALL suck! There! I said it! HA!


By Inclusive on Tuesday, January 26, 1999 - 01:10 pm:

ADF SUCKS
it takes away the joy of creating a drawing with only limited material (our BLOCKIES DAMNIT)

SAVE THE BLOCKS
ANSI WILL RULE


By Leonardo.iCE on Tuesday, January 26, 1999 - 02:36 pm:

no, there is ansi and their is xbin/adf


By God among Lice on Tuesday, January 26, 1999 - 03:00 pm:

uhm.. you're still drawing with blocks, basically.

You just create your own set of blocks. That's what makes it cool. You've still got a limited number of characters, but you're just deciding your own set of limits. Maybe you could make 250 custom blocks to create some perfect outline that would be the equivalent of a bitmap image, but that's fucking lame if you ask me.

In any case, leo's still right.. there will still always be ansi.. xbin's not about to kill it or something.


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