Does Sprite/Particle Candy exist for BlitzMax?

BlitzMax Forums/BlitzMax Programming/Does Sprite/Particle Candy exist for BlitzMax?

SofaKng(Posted 2008) [#1]
Does anything like Sprite Candy and/or Particle Candy exist for BlitzMax?

I've taken a look at Sprite Candy and it looks AMAZING! It seems to have every kind of feature that I could want but it seems like it's only for Blitz3D.

Should I have purchased Blitz3D instead of BlitzMax?

I'm now wondering that even more because I'm thinking about creating a multiplayer 3D game...


tonyg(Posted 2008) [#2]
Does anything like Sprite Candy and/or Particle Candy exist for BlitzMax?


Sprite Candy doesn't exist for BlitzMax.

I've taken a look at Sprite Candy and it looks AMAZING! It seems to have every kind of feature that I could want but it seems like it's only for Blitz3D

Yep, it is very good and only for B3D.

Should I have purchased Blitz3D instead of BlitzMax?


Depends what you want to do.
The benefits of Bmax is OOP. X-Platform and ships with source code (plus more).
The benefits of B3D is you get 3D and can use the add-ons created for it (plus more)

I'm now wondering that even more because I'm thinking about creating a multiplayer 3D game...


Ahhh... for Windows only I would have used B3D unless you want to investigate 3rd party 3D engines for Bmax.


popcade(Posted 2008) [#3]
Despite "multiplayer 3D game" is loads of work, that's OK to use B3D or BMX.

If you're not planning to make it for money, you can actually do what you want/like without limits.


ziggy(Posted 2008) [#4]
I would go for max + minib3d now that the intel issues with OpenGL seem to be fixed after the latest driver updates by intel. OO in a multiplayer game is a must IMHO.


sswift(Posted 2008) [#5]
Check out my sprite system. The links are in my forum sig.

My sprite system is like Sprite Candy in many ways, and different in many ways.

My system is does not come with a GUI system for starters. It does not provide menus or scrollbars or buttons. But it does allow you to parent sprites that look like buttons to a menu sprite, and detect when the mouse is over them, and have them move automatically with the menu as you move it.

Here's a list of spritecandy features:


# Full-featured tools and editors included:
# Font Candy bitmap font editor
# Collision shape editor
# Powerful image packer

# Ultra-fast single surface render engine
# Move, scale, mirror, flip, rotate, colorize or alpharize objects at highspeed!
# Set individual vertex colors and transparency
# Scrollable texts (including automatic scroll bars)
# All objects can be grouped on layers, making them easy to handle and maintain
# Unlimited number of HUDs, layers and objects
# Customizable collision shapes for precise collision detection
# Extensive text control (wrapping, text alignment, font, shadows, etc.)
# Supports multiple viewports, works at all resolutions
# Full z-order control of individual objects, layers and HUDs
# More than 150+ powerful and easy-to-use commands to assist your game creation!
# Powerful game effects: apply them once and let Sprite Candy do them automatically!
# Retrieve object properties like alpha, visibility, color etc. at any time
# Collision detection commands (also work with rotated objects, of course)
# Pixel-sharp (non-anti-aliased) texts and images
# Supports multiple images on a texture to save memory, optimize loading times
# Load common animation strips, create animations using a single command!
# Easy button creation and button event evaluation
# Create nice text- and image buttons within seconds
# Customizable color gradients
# Change an image's content at any time without reloading
# Animated images (manual or automatic animation)
# Create tiled images (also animated ones!)
# Add realtime-shadows, colored backgrounds and frames to all objects
# Create scrolling texts easily!
# Create scrolling planes and backgrounds
# Create shapes (rectangles, lines, circles, triangles, stars and more) on the fly
# Create percentage bars (progress bars) using a single command only
# Create rippled (underwater-like) texts
# Align objects on screen, independent from current screen resolution!
# Natural looking movements, scaling, rotating using 16 different easing methods!
# NEW: Now including a lightning-fast GUI to create 3D-accelerated windows and gadgets!

# Complete, detailed online documentation - each command explained!
# Many simple, easy-to-read code samples and a complete demo game!
# More to come..!




And here is a list of those features from SpriteCandy which are in my sprite system, with the occasional change in wording where neccesary:


# Move, scale, mirror, flip, rotate, colorize or alpharize objects at highspeed!
# All sprites can be parented, making them easy to handle and maintain
# Unlimited number of sprites
# Extensive text control (text alignment, font, shadows, etc.)
# Supports multiple viewports, works at all resolutions
# Full z-order control of individual sprites
# More than 180 powerful and easy-to-use commands to assist your game creation!
# Powerful game effects: apply them once and let sprite system do them automatically!
# Retrieve/set object properties like alpha, visibility, color etc. at any time
# Collision detection commands (also work with rotated objects, of course)
# Pixel-sharp (non-anti-aliased) texts and images (if desired)
# Load common animation strips, create animations using a single command!
# Create nice text- and image buttons within seconds (there are no button-specific commands, but after making any sprite you have commands which let you see if the mouse is over them in a pixel perfect fashion taking the mask into account if desired)
# Change an image's content at any time without reloading
# Animated images (manual or automatic animation)
# Add realtime shadows to all objects
# Create animated text easily! Each letter is a sprite attached to the text object's pivot, and any animation which can be applied to a sprite can be applied to those letter sprites in that pivot's space.
# Create scrolling planes and backgrounds
# Align objects on screen, independent from current screen resolution!
# Natural looking movements, scaling, rotating using 5 different easing methods! (I'm not sure it's even possible to ease things 16 different ways, but two of mine are exponential and you can modify the exponent so really there's an infinite number of easing methods in my system if you want to get technical.)
# NEW: Now including a lightning-fast GUI to create 3D-accelerated windows and gadgets!
# Complete, detailed in-code documentation - each command explained!
# Several simple, easy-to-read code samples.




And some stuff my system does which Sprite Candy doesn't seem to support:

* Move sprites along paths.
* Parent any sprite or path to any other sprite and they will move with them and change properties with them.
* Set which properties change with the parent, so change position, but not rotation to create a sprite which orbits a parent as the parent rotates, but remains facing up.
* Hide a parent, and children are hidden. Show a parent, and children which are currently set to be visible appear, but hidden children retain their hidden state. (This is better than what Blitz 3D does.)
* Animate a parent's properties and the children animate those properties as well.
* "Fog" sprites to varying degrees, turning them white, or black or any other color, for fog effects or glow effects.
* "Glow" sprites, making them up to 2x normal brightness by simply adjusting one or more of their color channels above 255,255,255.
* Make your game run at any resolution, with letterboxing if neccessary.
* Super easy to use and powerful command set.
* Animations can be controlled in every way imaginable. Delay the start of an animation. Offset the animation in time when triggered. (Imagine you have a line of letters you want to move in a sine wave. Give all the same looping Y sine animation except offset the starting age of each, and the letters will start at different heights.) Play an animation backwards. Loop it. Play it once. Play it once forwards and then backwards. And then loop that as well if desired.


I can't possibly list all the features here, but if you check out the links in my sig there's lists of all the functions and more information.


Basically, my system is designed for non-gui heavy games. It's designed for your standard shareware game, with basic animated menus and animated text effects. It's not designed for displaying tons of text in scrollable windows, and it doesn't have built in menu creation stuff, because who knows how you want to animate your menus, or your buttons? Maybe you want a glow sprite applied over a button when the user mouses over it? Maybe you want that to play a sound? Maybe you want the button to fly off the screen when clicked? Maybe you want that to play a sound as well? Maybe you want it to rotate back and forth or shake when the mouse is over it? There's so many things you might want to do that the only way to let you do all that is so just treat menus the same as everything else and provide the basic mouse functions needed to tell when the mouse is over those sprites.

So unless you are making an RPG and need tons of text, my sort of system is probably better, and definitely more flexible.


MGE(Posted 2008) [#6]
I also designed a sprite game engine for Blitzmax, but to be honest, looking back, if I had done more pre-research I would have gone with B3D and Sprite Candy. Blitzmax is great and all, but B3D and Sprite Candy has incredible performance and plus out of the box you can also add 3D elements easily. I'm still considering my next move to be honest. Stick it out with Blitzmax for my 2d projects or make the move to B3D/Sprite Candy right now. eeek...


tonyg(Posted 2008) [#7]
... I agree but going back is very difficult. Bmax OO is just so useful as is having the source code.

@SofaKng, what features/functions are you looking for?