Bad Bitblt

[nmaccari]

Well, I am making a boxing game like the old Star Rank Boxing on the Commodore but I have a little problem. Basically, the way I am using my BitBlt, I need to have the pictures visible and fully clear in order to use them as part of the animation. Like this:

BitBlt pic.hDC, x, Y, SpriteWidth, SpriteHeight, picMask.hDC, (FrameNumber - 1) * SpriteWidth, 0, vbSrcAnd

BitBlt pic.hDC, x, Y, SpriteWidth, SpriteHeight, picSprite.hDC, (FrameNumber - 1) * SpriteWidth, 0, vbSrcPaint

I don't want to have my picMask and picSprite sitting on the form for everyone to see. I just want to use them for the animation. But, if I make picMask or picSprite invisible then all I get as animation is big goofy boxes. Can anyone tell me if there is an API call or another way to do this animation?

Thanks.

[Arbiter]

Could you post your project for us to see?

It shouldn't matter if the picture boxes are invisible or not. Do you have their autoredraw set to true?

[nmaccari]

Problem solved. Thanks. Something so simple never occurred to me. I guess I'm still new to the whole graphics thing.

Hey, do you know a better way to change pixels within the picture box? What I'm doing now is storing the coordinates in a text file and using it to change the boxers gloves and such. The first time I looped through the whole sprite using the point method and then saved each coordinate in the file that I wanted. Then after that I just used this code below. It works but it's not pretty.

Dim intX As Integer
Dim intY As Integer
Dim strColor As String

Open App.Path & "\sampleschar.txt" For Input As #1
With picSprite

Do Until EOF(1)

Input #1, intX, intY, strColor

Select Case strColor

Case vbYellow ' Hair
picSprite.PSet (intX, intY), &H80000004
Case vbBlue ' Skin
picSprite.PSet (intX, intY), &H8080FF
Case vbRed ' Shorts
picSprite.PSet (intX, intY), &HFF00FF
Case vbGreen ' Gloves
picSprite.PSet (intX, intY), &HE0E0E0
End Select
Loop
End With
Close #1
picSprite.Visible = False

[Arbiter]

Graphics can be a pain, and it's mostly simple things that cock it all up.

Ok, a faster method of changing pixel colours is using the setpixel API call. You might want to look that up.

But really, changing the colours by changing individual pixels is just painful.

I can't really give you suggestions on how to proceed until I can see what you're doing. It's difficult working blind.

You might want to look into using masks and blitting colour blocks about. If you make a mask of the gloves and then blit a square of colour onto the image copying only the glove section (in a similar way to blitting transparently) then that would be faster but you might have fun trying to implement it...

[nmaccari]

I'll look that API call up. I haven't written too much code yet. But, when I get some meat into it then I'll send it to you. I'm still somewhat of a novice so any suggestions you may have in the future will be appreciated. Thanks.

[Arbiter]

I don't know if you've noticed the banner in my sig, but it's actually a link to a game that Behemoth (another member) and I are working on.

If you haven't already downloaded it, then you may wish to do so. It will give you an idea of what can be done in VB without any third party controls etc. Bear in mind it's still work in progress.

If there are any effects in there that you would like to know more about then give me a shout. I won't give you the code, but I will give you pointers on what to look up and help with any problems you come across (I believe people learn better if they figure things out themselves).

I'll look forward to seeing what you've done so far - it's nice to see people making things in VB other than database programs. ;)