Coding my game in Blitz2

[r0ber7]

I've started coding a game in Blitz Basic 2. This is my very first Blitz program, so I'm still getting used to how things are done.

So, I have a question:

I've pixeld a little red wizard. Now I'd want to make it walk on the screen with the keyboard. The walking (and jumping) animations look like this:



My problem: how do I load the image into memory and make it walk around?

I think I should LoadShape a brush, then blit it on screen?

[BippyM]

From memory you need to create a shape using an external program (try aminet, or SHED in the archive I upped),and then blit it as you say. I cannot remember off the top of my head, it's a bit hazy..

Check through that stuff I upped

[BippyM]

Okay I have had another look (I actually loaded Blitz ) and you do need to create shapes, then you simply blitz them

There is an example in the examples directory that blits some basic shapes. It also creates a Slice which is basically a screen!

The slice format is

Slice  [Slice#,Y,Flags]|[Slice#,Y,Width,Hite,Flgs,Bitplns,Sprts,Colrs,Fscrnw,Bscrnw]

Have a look in the examples dir, there is a bit there.

[Lonewolf10]

Originally Posted by r0ber7

I've pixeld a little red wizard. Now I'd want to make it walk on the screen with the keyboard. The walking (and jumping) animations look like this:

Cool wizard pixel art


Regards,
Lonewolf10

[r0ber7]

Originally Posted by bippym

Okay I have had another look (I actually loaded Blitz ) and you do need to create shapes, then you simply blitz them

There is an example in the examples directory that blits some basic shapes. It also creates a Slice which is basically a screen!

The slice format is

Slice  [Slice#,Y,Flags]|[Slice#,Y,Width,Hite,Flgs,Bitplns,Sprts,Colrs,Fscrnw,Bscrnw]

Have a look in the examples dir, there is a bit there.

Thanks, this helped me a lot.

I'm now trying to set up a 320x256 slice with 256 colours. Is this even possible? Or should I edit my images?
When not run in Blitz mode, 256 colour bitmap + shapes blitted on it works perfectly, but in Blitz mode it tells me "too many bitplanes to load". Perhaps blitz mode is not for AGA? I'm considering not making it an AGA game...

The idea is to have an animated shape (smoking wizard) on a bitmap (home.iff).

Originally Posted by Lonewolf10

Cool wizard pixel art


Regards,
Lonewolf10

Thanks, here's another:

[TCD]

Originally Posted by r0ber7

Thanks, here's another:

Really like your style Keep it up

[Djay]

nice... what kinda game is it... platform adventure?

[Kitty]

this is nice

[Graham Humphrey]

Originally Posted by r0ber7

When not run in Blitz mode, 256 colour bitmap + shapes blitted on it works perfectly, but in Blitz mode it tells me "too many bitplanes to load". Perhaps blitz mode is not for AGA? I'm considering not making it an AGA game...

What version of Blitz are you using? 2.1 supports the AGA chipset. You need to use the Display library of commands though (like InitCopList, CreateDisplay, DisplayBitmap) as the Slice command and the other 'normal' display commands don't support AGA.

Nice graphics - good luck and if you need any help give me a shout - I used to code in Blitz quite a lot myself but haven't done much for a few years. I'm looking to get back into it very soon though

[r0ber7]

Originally Posted by Djay

nice... what kinda game is it... platform adventure?

I was thinking along those lines, yeah. How it will exactly turn out remains to be seen.

Originally Posted by Graham Humphrey

What version of Blitz are you using? 2.1 supports the AGA chipset. You need to use the Display library of commands though (like InitCopList, CreateDisplay, DisplayBitmap) as the Slice command and the other 'normal' display commands don't support AGA.

Found the lib, reading up on it now.

[r0ber7]

Ok, I've got the smoking wizard figured out in Blitz mode, 256 colours.

Next stop: Key input -> walking wizard around with arrow keys. Simple enough, I use RawStatus() to check for key input and change the wizard's position and animation according to which way we're walking/jumping. But!

I face an obstacle: RawStatus() requires the raw key code to check if a key is being pressed. I've been looking around for a key code reference, but can't find it. I can't figure out which key codes are used for the arrow keys, so if anyone knows of a keycode reference, let me know. The examples dir contains an example to check for the F1 key, but I don't wanna use the F-keys to walk around!

[killergorilla]

Here's a list of the rawkey codes...

http://whdload.de/docs/en/rawkey.html

Hope it helps!

[r0ber7]

Nice! Thanks for the quick reply, I'm off to get started on world 1.

Edit: I've got the little guy walking around, and jumping quite realistically.

[Steve]

Originally Posted by Djay

nice... what kinda game is it... platform adventure?

It looks to me like a wizardy version of little computer people. That would be groovy! lol.

[r0ber7]

Here's the first basic setup for a world:

[ Show youtube player ]

[Djay]

Looking good.. If you looking for someone to help out with testing on both winuae and real A1200 drop me a pm I would be happy to help

Sometime ago I was thinking of creating a similar game which featured a wizard that had to beat bosses by collecting items froms baddies and through solving puzzles.. The bosses physically blocked your advancement to the next part of the level...

[Lonewolf10]

Cool video and, as you previously stated, he is jumping realistically. Good to see you living the old coding spirit - working til all hours of the night (1:15am)


Regards,
Lonewolf10

[pmc]

Checked out the vid - it looks really nice!

From no Blitz coding experience to this in a few days is excellent work and just goes to prove that the best way to learn to code is to think of something you'd like to code and just get on and code it!

Looking forward to seeing more progress on this and playing the finished game too.

[r0ber7]

Thanks for the comments. Really fun doing pixely stuff on Amiga again.

Originally Posted by Djay

Looking good.. If you looking for someone to help out with testing on both winuae and real A1200 drop me a pm I would be happy to help

You'll hear from me when I have a somewhat working world.

Originally Posted by Lonewolf10

Good to see you living the old coding spirit - working til all hours of the night (1:15am)

lol, I've had worse. Being unemployed helps as well, hehe.

Originally Posted by pmc

From no Blitz coding experience to this in a few days is excellent work and just goes to prove that the best way to learn to code is to think of something you'd like to code and just get on and code it!

To be fair, I'd already coded a setup for a similar game (same wizard sprites) in C/C++ on linux with OpenGL. OpenGL being a 3d engine, it provided me with nice "depth" in the background scrolling, but the pixeled wizard came out looking rather bad. Blitz2 is much easier to learn than OpenGL, and the concepts are the same. There's still a lot to learn however. I lost the C code due to a corrupt partition. Glad I saved the sprites though!

To the Blitz coders around here:

Right now, first I build a bitmap for the world like this:

LoadShape 0, "dh3:iff/world1/w1-1.iff",1
LoadShape 1, "dh3:iff/world1/w1-2.iff"
LoadShape 2, "dh3:iff/world1/w1-3.iff"

Use BitMap 1
Blit 0,0,0
Blit 1,320,0
Blit 2,640,0

Then, for every frame, I blit the wizard on that bitmap, and redraw the bitmap, like so:

; right arrow key
  If RawStatus(78)
    UnBuffer 0
    x=x+2
    BBlit 0,i,140+x,y

After that:

  DisplayBitMap 1,1,x,0
  VWait

My main concern now is that the movement from right-left / left-right seems a bit jittery at times. Instead of it being a fluid motion, sometimes when walking around (about every few seconds or so) the bitmap scrolls just a little bit faster than it usually does. What's up with that? There's only one Vwait in the code, so it should be a consistent scrolling speed, shouldn't it? Do you think that, if I used sprites for the wizard, instead of the blitting to bitmap, this wouldn't occur? Or is it because I constructed the bitmap from several shapes?


Edit: I think double buffering might solve this... Still, I wonder what's more efficient: bblitting every shape on the bitmap or using sprites?

[BippyM]

Sprites are more efficient but have constraints (number colours, width etc).. It is worth experimenting with both i suppose and double buffering may be beneficial