Blitz Basic Tutorial Stream

[Daedalus]

With the upcoming Blitz Basic game jam in mind, I've started a series of tutorial streams covering getting started with Blitz Basic. It's a fairly casual stream and aims to cover a range of basic topics to get people coding in Blitz, maybe even entering the game jam Questions and discussion are welcomed and I'll do my best to answer and demonstrate with relevant code.

I'll be starting the second stream on my Twitch channel tonight at 8:30pm BST. It'll recap some of the fundamentals covered in the first stream (variables, loops, If...Then) and go on to cover Statements, Functions and some simple graphics coding. The first stream is available to watch on the channel and all streams will be transferred to Youtube for long-term keeping.

My Twitch Channel: https://www.twitch.tv/daedalus2097

And the previous stream: [ Show youtube player ]

[Daedalus]

My next tutorial stream will be tonight at 8:30pm BST, covering some Blitz mode graphics stuff including dual playfields, animated moving objects and some other related topics. My Twitch Channel is here: https://www.twitch.tv/daedalus2097

And previous parts are now on YouTube in this handy playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...YEgNuXXwMwE_Gh

[cz101]

great stuff Daedalus

[AlfaRomeo]

Very good tutorials Daedalus, Thanks

[saimon69]

Those videos were what was looking for to learn more for years!

[WazMeister]

This is amazing, started watching first stream, need to find more time. Really pleased this is being done, perfect timing as I jump back in the amiga scene and aim to make games. Very limited core tutorials available for BB and game making so really really greatful for this. What will be the main message? A course to go from start to finish for a platform game, Inc a sprite making in DP, coding in BB, menus, intros etc? I'd be willing to donate or pay for a course as such!

Anyway, regardless thanks for all the efforts!

[WazMeister]

Subbed to YouTube so I can watch them there. Will try watch live. But timi gs not good for me.

[Daedalus]

Aww, thanks guys Glad it's helpful! Last night's stream was a bit messy with me confusing myself a couple of times but it's all good. The main aim is to get people into Blitz with the intention of making games, covering all the main topics that might be needed. I haven't really got an endpoint in mind because I wanted to keep it as general as possible for all types of games, but I think for the next stream I should go more into the process of preparing graphics, palettes, maybe sound so they're suitable for use in Blitz.

I'm vaguely following the tutorials I wrote a few years ago for Amiga Future magazine - these ended in a Tron-type game, so I could follow to that point in the tutorials too I guess.

[WazMeister]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Aww, thanks guys Glad it's helpful! Last night's stream was a bit messy with me confusing myself a couple of times but it's all good. The main aim is to get people into Blitz with the intention of making games, covering all the main topics that might be needed. I haven't really got an endpoint in mind because I wanted to keep it as general as possible for all types of games, but I think for the next stream I should go more into the process of preparing graphics, palettes, maybe sound so they're suitable for use in Blitz.

I'm vaguely following the tutorials I wrote a few years ago for Amiga Future magazine - these ended in a Tron-type game, so I could follow to that point in the tutorials too I guess.

Amazing. Yes, mindful if putting on you. Although a full video tutorial series on making games with BB 2 will be massive blessing. Gfx, sprites, pallets, sound, coding all helpful for the newbies to amiga and game making. Thanks again and speak soon!

[levellord]

I was not aware about your streams, but now that I do, looking forward to it and appreciate your time an effort for making this. I might not be able to watch live as it conflicts with my working hours, but I will be watching and taking notes from YouTube. Thank you!

[aNdy/AL/COS]

Only just noticed this thread. Will have a look at the videos later, thanks for taking the time to make them! I'm always happy to learn new stuff!

[Daedalus]

Thanks very much everyone Tonight I'll be streaming the next part, I think I'll go into dealing with graphics, palettes, sprites and so on in a little more detail to help people making their own assets or bringing them in from the PC, maybe look at some sound commands too...

[AlfaRomeo]

Great news!! I can´t follow it live but I´m watching in YouTube, yet in the 1st video because time isn´t much.
Thanks again for your effort on this video tutorials

[Daedalus]

Yeah, recordings of streams are going to be quite slow when watching back... Part 4 is added to the playlist above, I probably won't be able to stream this week, but I'll try and do at least one more the following week before the jam starts, and maybe a few more during the jam too depending on time.

[Daedalus]

Part 5 of my Blitz tutorial series of streams will be starting in a couple of minutes on my Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/daedalus2097

I'll be covering some audio commands, sprite collisions, possibly file access and whatever else comes up in the chat. As always, it will me added to the Youtube playlist in the next couple of days.

[Daedalus]

And, with the jam starting tomorrow, I'll be streaming tonight again starting at 8:30pm BST: https://www.twitch.tv/daedalus2097

In this stream I'll be covering the installation of Blitz Basic and AmiBlitz 3, handling command libraries, hopefully some more looks at the debugger and compiler, and whatever other topics come up in the chat. See you there!

[zx80]

Thanks for the videos. Damn I forgot about anything about Amiga programming into the past 30 years or so. Did some nice 2D logic games with level editor around 1990 and a version of the german tv show Glücksrad in a Amiga Basic dialect, but can‘t even remember what Basic it was. Guess I started with AmigaBasic and switched later to GFA-Basic (or some similar name). Pretty sure I never dived into BlitzBasic so far, so may be fun to learn.

[WazMeister]

Love these videos.

Withoutt these, it be so hard to get the foot in the door for amiga (Bblitz) programming.

Just wish I had more time to view and learn!!!
Are there any tutorials out there for drawing game sprites (plenty for PC) but any for Deluxe Paint on amiga and settings, colors etc?
I'd like to learn blitz basic, and any game I do make it's all done via amiga..... even art and sound!

[Daedalus]

Thanks They could probably be a bit shorter for watching back but there's no way I have the time for that sort of editing.

I don't really know of any tutorials for pixel art like that, but the restrictions on the palette etc. come from the Amiga chipset really and not Blitz specifically, so if you can find some that focus on the Amiga for any language, they would be applicable.

The basic rules are that the larger the items to blit, and the more colours, the slower it is. But if you don't have too many moving items to be redrawn constantly, that's not a big deal. The limit for OCS/ECS is 32 colours (256 for AGA), but if you can keep it to 16 colours it would be faster. And if you want to use dual playfield mode, that's 8 colours for each playfield on OCS/ECS and 16 colours for each playfield on AGA. Those colours can be taken from the whole palette, but generally must be shared with all other graphics you draw with the blitter. And the first colour is typically background / transparent.

With that in mind, if you can find a PC tutorial that deals with a palette of 16 or 32 colours, that would still be applicable for the Amiga. And if there are techniques used for the PC tutorial that aren't available in DPaint, check if PPaint has them, or even TVPaint or ArtEffect.

Using hardware sprites is another matter. They can be 4 colours (3 visible + 1 transparent) and 16 pixels wide (64 on AGA), or can be 16 colours (15 visible + 1 transparent) by joining 2 sprites together. Also, there are only 8 hardware sprites in total, so they're kinda limited, but they don't take blitter time to draw and don't corrupt playfield graphics so they're a nice bonus to have.

[Daedalus]

Since I reached 100 followers on the last stream, I said I'd do a special stream next, and someone suggested creating a full game live on stream... So tonight I'll be trying to write a simple Blitz Basic game - what could possibly go wrong? Beer and crash counter are at the ready Starting at 8:30pm-ish BST: https://twitch.tv/daedalus2097