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Announcing Gflux

Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2007 7:17 pm
by D.S
I usually try to make a habit of not announcing games until I'm sure I'll actually finish them, but I think I'll make an exception here. I'm currently in the beginning stages of my first graphical game (both my previous games have been text based). I don't want to reveal too much yet, but it will have mario-ish elements and possibly some shooting elements, but most of it will be focused around playing around with, and solving puzzles with, gravity. One thing I'm still debating is how many directions I want to limit the gravity changing in. As it is, you can only change it in two directions, and if I can think up enough puzzles with just that, I'll probably keep it that way (for simplicity in controls and code, and because keeping things simple gameplay wise is a good idea). Anyhow, I'll keep posting announcments here, so keep checking back.

Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 6:12 am
by Codemss
Cool idea! Are you coding in Freebasic? (Probably you are :), everybody who's smart is coding in Freebasic these days).
Please post some screenshots and/or a demo when you have an engine ready. I am very courious...

Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 11:41 am
by D.S
hee hee... umm, actually I'm coding it in Qb 1.1 :(. Sorry guys. If Freebasic can support the code I've already written, I'd be glad to switch (but as I remember, Freebasic wouldn't run on my comp). The problem is, what I've already written uses PCOPY in screen 7 (which freebasic probably doesn't support, I'm guessing) and qb keyboard code by Joe King. If anyone can give me an easy route to switch to Freebasic, I'd be happy. Otherwise, I'm afraid this program, at least, will be in pure qb.

Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 12:55 pm
by Codemss
Haha, didn't mean to offend you, because I am coding too in good ol' Qbasic. Mostly because Freebasic actually IS different on some points. For example, you can't use POKE/PEEK with it, and that's the fastest way to put graphics on the screen, so...

Freebasic is much more for 'modern' programmers who use graphical libraries like OpenGL. A good thing of Freebasic is also that it does supports real-colour modes. One important reason why I don't use Freebasic is that I can't get screenmodes to run fullscreen, and that sucks.

BTW, are you already started with the project, or is it just an idea? I would be very interested in your progress!

Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 3:56 pm
by BadMrBox
@D.S
Screen 7 and Pcopy works in Freebasic and you could easily switch from Kings keyboard routine to FB's multikey.
What happened when you tried to run FB and it didn't work?

@Codemss
What happens when you try to run fullscreen? It's sounds strange.

Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2007 9:54 am
by Codemss
It works well if I use:
SCREEN 13
(It runs in a window)

But when I use:
SCREEN 13, , , 1
My monitor turns black and 'says': "Cannot display this video mode, change computer display input to 1024x768@60Hz"

Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2007 10:03 am
by BadMrBox
If you are running windows vista then it's perfectly understandable as vista doesn't support 320x200 fullscreen. If you are not, then it's strange. Have you tried Screenres?

Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2007 1:42 pm
by Codemss
I have windows XP. I haven't tried screenres, as I don't know how it works.
(though I know it's probably very simple, I guess it's something like this:
screenres 320, 200, 256
Am I near?)

BTW, How to handle the palette with Freebasic?
Now I think about it, it is possible that I have OUT &H3C8, .... in my code. Could that explain it?

Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2007 2:31 pm
by D.S
I've got the gravity engine working, a rain engine working, and the clipping is almost done. As soon as I get the guy's gfx finished and the clipping fixed, I'll release a beta. Thanks for the fb info... I may try downloading it again at some point. I'm very happy with my rain engine, even though people probably wont be all that impressed, and I'm having a lot of fun with my newfound knowledge of PCOPY, since I can now do things that I never imagined I could do in Qb. I am a little annoyed by the 16 color pallete, and the fact that you can only change the first 7 colors, but that's a small price to pay for PCOPY, in my opinion. Wow... even though gfx is harder than ascii, it's nice to have so many options availible now.

Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 4:51 am
by nkk_kan
You are making that 256 bit color depth in screen res command :shock:

screenres width,height,[depth],[num_pages],[flag],[refresh_rate]

try giving 60 hz as refresh rate? .... maybe it would work in full screen then...and incidently screen command also has this refresh rate option..

and you need palette command to handle palette in Freebasic

http://www.freebasic.net/wiki/wikka.php ... yPgPalette

and i think freebasic supports out too

http://www.freebasic.net/wiki/wikka.php?wakka=KeyPgOut

but..
Platform Differences:

In the Windows and Linux versions three port numbers (&H3C7, &H3C8, &H3C9) are hooked by the graphics library when a graphics mode is in use to emulate QB's VGA palette handling. This use is deprecated; use Palette to retrieve and set palette colors.

Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 12:46 pm
by BadMrBox
@codemss Hm, Fullscreen should work with Screen when you are using XP. The one thing I noticed when 320x240 8bits was that the colors could get wacko, but that was in FB0.14 I think. Since then I have changed to 32bits.
Try ScreenRes 320, 240, 8,,GFX_FULLSCREEN

@D.S Sounds great. It's all about fun you know :). If you want to have 256 colors to play with instead of 16 you should try out Relsoft's Rellib. It's a Screen13 library with alot of nice stuff (and it's own pcopy of sorts). It works really great and there is no flicker. You can find it in the librarysection here on this site \o/.

Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 2:36 pm
by Codemss
You can also just use a screen buffer in screen 13. This would be easier then using a library in my opinion. If you're familiar with PUT, it's fairly easy. But, with a library it probably faster and you probably will have to code less, but you won't learn much from it.

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 3:53 pm
by Codemss
nkk_kan wrote:You are making that 256 bit color depth in screen res command :shock:
screenres width,height,[depth],[num_pages],[flag],[refresh_rate]
try giving 60 hz as refresh rate?
Haha, 256 colours I thought :P. Well it works with:
SCREENRES 320, 200, 8, 1, 1, 60
Nice!

Now is there a way to hide that ugly empty black box on the background and to hide the mouse? (want to make a screensaver)

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 5:30 pm
by BadMrBox
SETMOUSE , ,0
to hide the mouse.
The big black box? The background?
line(0,0)-(320,200),4,bf
I guess that does what you want or just PAINT (0, 0), 1, 15 ?.

Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 10:10 am
by Codemss
BadMrBox wrote:
SETMOUSE , ,0
to hide the mouse.
The big black box? The background?
line(0,0)-(320,200),4,bf
I guess that does what you want or just PAINT (0, 0), 1, 15 ?.
Thanks. I meant the console though (didn't know that they called it so). I found out that you can hide it with adding -s gui in the command line.

BTW, is there a way to speed up graphics in FB? I mean, a faster way then with PSET? The QB version runs MUCH faster because I used some tricks...
The OUT &H3C8 and &H3C9 works fine...

Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 3:56 pm
by BadMrBox
I hate this forum, I log in, write something, the forum logs me out and I have to rewrite everything.

The console, of course XD.

I dont use pset but it dont seem terrible slow. Maybe you could check out the fb forum and see if there is some asm code to use perhaps.