JP Arts Software of the 80s & 90s

[Lightwarrior11]

(Maybe a long shot?, but...)

Does anyone know where I can find info (ideally encyclopedic and comprehensive) on Japanese arts software that would have been used by game developers of the 80s and 90s? For example, I assume there were digital arts programs published on the PC-88 and PC-98 which were Japanese-developed and (probably) never saw overseas release?

A Japanese-fluent person who can sort through their Wikipedia better than I can with just Google Translate could probably help me a lot with this...

I'd also be interested in information on Japanese music creation software of the same era. Same of any game-creation suites (like what Unity is today) or project management suites from the time period.

[toei]

My impression from reading a lot of interviews with Japanese developers (shmuplations.com is a great place to start) is that they most often used their own software rather than "engines". Each development company would code their own program to draw pixels, etc. I can't say if that's also generally true for music, but I've also come across several mentions of composers programming their own software or having a programmer at the same company do it. The site mentioned above has screenshots of company-specific pixel programs in some interviews.

I can tell you that lots of game development in the late '80s and the first half of the '90s was done on PC-98 computers, and probably on other high-end Japanese computers of the time like the X68000.

[Discoalucard]

The only piece of hardware I know is the Sega Digitizer:

segaretro.org/Digitizer_System

I'm unaware of them being an equivalent to Deluxe Paint or anything, but I'm not all that familiar with the topic either.

[Dee Liteyears]

I guess JEDAI and Multipaint for PC98 could be interesting for you to look into

[Lightwarrior11]

This has been informative, that's for sure.

I downloaded a PDF of the JEDAI manual and was surprised to find that it was 51 (highly creative, 90's style) eroge sketches labeled by filename. I assume the pixel-art versions of them are on the disks. Would this program have been used by professional H-game studios publishing on the PC-98? Wondering if you know anything else about it, Dee Zocker - I'm not having much luck finding anything in English about it.

EDIT: OK, found this: translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&u=http://retropc98.narod.ru/soft/graph.htm&prev=search

JEDAI (1994) (DO)
Graphic editor from the well-known hentai office DO Incorrect is the most advanced editor of all because it can work with well-known graphic formats (BMP and TIFF) and not very well known but common at that time (MAG and CMP). You can also draw using the 256 palette. Since the editor runs on more modern PC9821 series computers. Together with the reactor are several dozen graphic works. In TIFF format. Almost everything is in the form of sketches in unpainted form. You can do it yourself coloring.

Guess these were all modified versions of programs developed for use in house, then later released to a general market.

Interesting how much more bottom-up game development was in the twentieth-century. That's actually how I imagined it was all done when I was a kid...

[Dee Liteyears]

I didn't spent too much time with it, but JEDAI seems to be pretty advanced. For the better or worse, there isn't much japanese text in the actual prog, but it's icons can be a bit confusing at times. Also I still don't quite get how color management works in it...^^
My own approach to this stuff is using my PVM in proper 15KHz as a preview and display monitor on my PC. My standard tool of choice is IDraw3, a pretty simple gfx editor that was probably intended for RM95/2k games (it's oooold) This way I can work in pretty much any low res mode with the correct aspect ratio. Even funky stuff like the PC88's 600x200

It's a hacked ATI Driver, originally intended for use with GroovyMAME that lets me do this
geedorah.com/eiusdemmodi/forum/viewtopic.php?id=295