Transparencies/Bitblt - Can someone explain it to me --- PLEASE

[TMTOMH]

I know this has probably been asked and answered a hundred times but I'm definitely an ameteur at this stuff and I don't quite understqnd it all. I've written a game in which a small picturebox moves around a form over a number of other larger pictureboxes. I'm currently doing the movement with simple adjustments of the Top and Left properties of the thing. The smaller picturebox contains a simple black circle with a white background at the corners. Of course I would like the white corners of the picturebox to be transparent. Can someone please tell me how to do this in simple, easy-to-understand terms? PLEASE?

[Sastraxi]

http://vbden.tripod.com/articles/invmask.htm

This is my BitBlt tutorial.

[Fox]

BitBlt Demo project / Game programming tutorial

[Megatron]

You could also use the TransparentBlt function to draw a picture, and make any color transparent, thus eliminating the need for masks.

[amitabh]

I think using TransparentBlt will restrict you to Win98 and above only

[Fox]

...you could also use DDraw

btw: In the games where I use BitBlt I generate the masks when starting the program, so there's no memory wasted in the bitmap files..

[Jotaf98]

Hey hey, wait, he's using picture boxes, so he doesn't need BitBlt

All you need to do is use an image control (not a picture box). If the file you choose is a GIF file with transparency, the image control will be transparent like you want! I think that Paintbrush can save GIF files, but if it doesn't, you'll need another graphics program.

[Fox]

GIFs are crap, years ago I tried the same but they're very slow... you can see how first a black mask is drawn, then the picture over this mask if you try to do anything with the picture..

[Jotaf98]

But his game is not BitBlt based, it's based on pictureboxes (by setting their Top/Left borders). So he can't use BitBlt

[TMTOMH]

While I did state that I was using pictureboxes, I'm not constraining myself to using them. I'm willing to learn the "right" way of doing things. Speed is not much of a consideration as my game is fairly slow-paced. Perhaps I should upload what I have so far and get a concensus on how I SHOULD be doing it... So, without further ado, here it is...