best way to go at this

[DiGiTaIErRoR]

I want to make an RPG like Final Fantasy 1 for regular nintendo. 2d animation and stuff. Few things I want to do:

• Make characters transparent
• make 'terrain' were you can't move etc.
• make places for like towns etc, where you'ld goto a different screen
• fastest way to do animation and imaging

I need the best ways to do this.
I was thinking making a text file for each map.
Then using an Instr function to find out what parts you can and can't go on. Don't know how to make the characters transparent & animated. Don't know about towns & stuff. Give me your input please.

[mcleran]

One of the api calls you need is BitBlt. This is the call to transfer bitmaps from one place to another. Doing so along with timers will do the animation for you. There's good documentation and all kinds of examples on the web on how to do simple animation. Also, look into sprites and how they work.

Good luck,

Dan McLeran

[Zleepy]

Check out this homepage http://www.planetsourcecode.com/vb/default.asp?lngWId=1

Maybe you'll find something about BitBlt(BitBlitting), or something else, if you click on Games.

[Sastraxi]

I'm doing the exact same thing...!

I don't have any use for the characters being transparent, but I have clouds sort of like in SNES's Chrono Trigger, which I want to be transparent.

(Chrono Trigger was a COOL game)

The way I see it, you must use BitBLt or DirectDraw (Dx7) to do transparency. Alpha-Blending is the term for this. If you don't already know how to use BitBLt, Fox's homepage is the right place for you.

Anyway, the alpha-blending in BitBLt is s.....l.....o.....w! I've tried to use it but it it goes very slowly (using a timer with Interval 30 reveals 2FPS).

On the other hand, if you only have one thing transparent, it goes quite fast (29FPS on same timer).

It just depends. If you want to use DirectX (directdraw) then you have to have a primary buffer, backbuffer, and such. Alpha-Blending in DirectX goes VERY fast (157FPS), although I don't know how to use it.

Here are two links for DirectDraw tutorials:
http://www.redrival.com/voodoovb/
http://www.cason.addr.com

DirectDraw might be a little bit advanced for beginner's but check these sites out and see if you understand anything.

http://members.dencity.com/dx4vb/tut...ddrawtheo.html
http://members.home.net/theluckyleper/
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconVall...520/index.html