Upic Paint

The Ultimate 384x256x16 Colors Paint Tool for Commodore 64 Ultimate

Upic Paint is a graphics editor designed specifically for the Commodore 64 Ultimate.

It uses the Upic 384 × 256 pixel software screen mode with 16 unrestricted and freely definable RGB colors, giving you a larger working area and much more flexible palette than traditional C64 bitmap formats — while still feeling like a proper Commodore paint program.

Use a standard USB mouse or Commodore 1351 Mouse, choose your colors, and start drawing.

Download

Upic Paint v1.00 Evaluation Version

Get Artist's License

Get Crayon Box Edition

Note: PAL video setting is required for painting with Upic Paint. The executable viewer and standalone slideshow application work also on NTSC, displaying top 384x238 pixels of the image.

Note: Custom RGB palette control requires firmware C64U 1.2 / U64 3.15 or newer. It's recommended to wait for Commodore's official firmware update for Commodore 64 Ultimate. When it's out, you can grab it at commodore.net/downloads. To try out custom palettes on older firmware, you can use the Upic Image Converter, export the C64U palette file (.vpl) along with your image and apply the palette through the C64U file browser *after* loading the image to Upic Paint.

Painting Tools

Upic Paint includes the essential tools for creating pixel artwork:

Pen
Zoom
Line
Filled and outline Rectangle
Paint Bucket
Color Picker
16-color editable RGB palette
Keyboard fine movement for precise pixel positioning

The Tool Panel can be moved between the left and right sides of the picture whenever it gets in your way.

Upic Paint also supports keyboard control alongside the mouse, including direct palette selection, quick RGB adjustment, and color picker.

Custom 16-Color Palettes

Every Upic picture contains its own 16-color RGB palette.

You can create anything from a standard VIC-II palette to completely custom color schemes. Upic Paint automatically analyzes the palette and chooses suitable contrasting colors for the Tool Panel and mouse pointer, or you can choose them yourself.

Color 0 is the picture background color.

Images can be converted using Upic Image Converter that runs on the Chrome browser.

Free Version

Upic Paint is free to use for creating, editing, loading, and saving Upic pictures. The free version is intended to be a genuinely useful paint program rather than a restricted demonstration.

You can draw pictures, edit palettes and save your work without purchasing a license. Undo/Redo is limited to one step.

Upic Image Converter is included also in the Free Version.

Artist's License

The optional Artist's License unlocks the publishing and presentation features:

Editing picture info text
Option to show the text in Slideshow and Executables at the top, bottom or middle of screen
Slideshow options: Space and Left Arrow functions, Delay Time
Save Executable
64 steps Undo/Redo
16-bit Stereo Wav playback (up to 15 MB) in Slideshow per image or across multiple images
Standalone Upic Slideshow program (free to share with your own images)

Crayon Box Edition

A collectible physical edition of Upic Paint
Transparent C-cassette case stylized like a box of crayons
Upic Paint, Upic Slideshow and Upic Image Converter on NanoUSB
Includes two Artist's Licenses, one for a friend
A small piece of canvas in the box, so you can also make some real art!

Artist's License and Crayon Box Edition are available at the Heartbeat Soundtracker Shop.

Happy painting!

The Upic Picture Format

An Upic picture file (v1.3) contains:

384 × 256 pixels, packed in nybbles
16 colors RGB palette
Picture information/text
Slideshow and viewer settings

Designed for the C64 Ultimate

Upic Paint takes advantage of features unique to the Commodore 64 Ultimate, including:

USB mouse and Commodore 1351 mouse support
16 MB REU
Ultimate DOS file access (up to 10+ MB/s)
Custom RGB palette control (Requires firmware C64U 1.2 / U64 3.15 or newer)
Fast 64 MHz operation

Upic Natural Palette

Available as an option in Upic Image Converter, and Palette Reset option in Upic Paint (Ctrl+P in Disk Menu) Upic Natural is a new 16-color palette based on analyzing tens of thousands of photos by modern robot-engaging methods, trying to find a good "average" or the "least-worst" selection of 16 colors for general use.

Interestingly, the result was strikingly close to the VIC-II default palette — for example, both having 3 shades of neutral grey. The new palette could be easily mapped to the familiar color names, the biggest difference being the dark blue replaced with teal. Luminances also vary slightly; we get a lighter red, and a darker purple.

Overall, Upic Natural is more earthly and neutral in its tone. It works particularly well with photo sources and heavy dithering, often producing less eye-piercing results than the default VIC-II palette. Give it a try in pixelizing!