Blibs Released!
Community Forums/Showcase/Blibs Released!
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| Boiled Sweets are please to announce the release of our latest screen saver. I know, I know, if you don't like or use screen savers just leave this thread now and don't bother to post "screen savers are crap etc etc". And yes people do actually buy my screen savers... For those that love & use screen savers as I do... Blibs is a wacky 3D screen saver. Blibs transports you into a crazy, organic world where funky, mutant 3D 'Blibs' spin and orbit on your desktop. Blibs is mesmorising, hours can pass whilst you are transfixed by the twirling 'Blibs'. Stun your friends and show off the power of your PC, let Blibs take over. Blibs is highly configurable and features many painstakingly made, original, 3d objects. There is nothing quite like Blibs, it has to be seen in motion to fully appreciate the bizarre but strangley compelling ballet that is Blibs. Blibs, Blibs, Blibs. Try it, it's a way of life. Add water, makes it's own sauce. Blibs, Blibs, Blibs. Download latest version here: www.boiledsweets.com/Blibs   |
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| Component 'fraplus1.OCX' or one of its dependencies not correctly registered: a file is missing or invalid |
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| Oops! Sorry, fixed, please download again. Ta. |
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| So it's a whole theme d/l from how I understand, and not just a screen saver, is this correct? |
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| Nope just a screen saver, but a wacky one. |
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| Nope just a screen saver, but a wacky one. |
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| Oops, you double posted there, but okay, maybe just looking from those desktop screenies, it sort of looked like more than just a screen saver to me, thanks anyway. |
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| Well a couple of those crazy backgrounds were generated with one of my other screen savers - VORBOILS! www.boiledsweets.com/Vorboils |
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| Nice, works well here, love the color. FPS counter did not work for me, or I just couldn't find it. I wonder what you would gain porting to BlitzMax? You could use the Minib3d (???) plugin/code to load the b3d files. Just a thought. |
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| Userlib not found! |
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| Ahh, understood, understood... :D Sweet saver, tho, no matter why they call you "Boiled Sweets." Hehe... |
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| Boiled, you need to clean up your processes. I found 5 Blibs.scr processes running at one time. |
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| Oops! Well I must say I did rush this one. It was 5 days from no code / models to a full public release. In fact I would say don't bother with this first build as the next one is already 400% better! Each Blib has "AI" and is animated too! |
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| Looks good, tho, please resize the screenshot you added to your news entry to max 400*300 px. It's in the notes, I have no idea why so many people miss to read this. |
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| jfk, do you want me to resubmit the news item? |
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| Yes |
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| So what exactly does this do? ...;) |
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| Boiled Sweets: just like fredborg I also get ERROR "user lib" not found. JoeRetro: Fps counter is in the "screensaver config" menu there are a few tabs. Its there. |
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| @Doggie: Uhh, if you read a little more closely... it's a SCREEN SAVER, NOT A GAME!!! Sorry about that, but just made sure that you would've read through this thread, and you would've seen that right away. |
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| Doggie, RAM is correct, it's a screen saver. Woo-hoo! TWH and Fredborg, The only 3rd party it uses is stickykey_dll.dll and guess what I forgot it in the installer. You can grab it here... http://www.boiledsweets.com/tmp/sticky.zip Just unzip it to c:\windows\system32 Sorry for any inconvenience. Build 2 coming soon... * Animated Blibs * Funky backgrounds * Faster * Exploding Blibs plus more... |
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| Things are a little touchy I'd say when my comment wasn't received as a small jest. ah well... |
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| [rant] Doggie, I and RAM obviously thought you were being serious. There does seem to be an awful lot of apathy and negativity on these forums and so sometimes people get defence too quickly. In fact I must say that every time I release a screen saver I hear the same old thing.. "don't use em" or "no-one will buy this". Perhaps your comment was taken in the wrong way, at the end of the day nothing coded in Blitz does anything much. It whiles away the hours, but I'm still waiting to see a Blitz app that finds the cure for cancer, brings about world peace etc etc. [/rant] |
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| Some constructive criticism/ideas for you Boiled Sweets. I think its boring so far. They just fly about and change dir a bit. You say they have AI? I think they should interact with each other more. Form to gether. Like crystals. Splitt up. Explode (allready mentioned). Change. Attack others. Defend. The variuous blibs could have various abilities. Think atoms! :) Maybe this is your idea? As you say: "Try it, it's a way of life. Add water, makes it's own sauce. Blibs, Blibs, Blibs." |
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| Well, I didn't download it. Not because I don't like screensavers, but because the screenshots put me off. That's some nasty old colour scheme you've got going there... I suppose the upside would be that I have to be away from my PC in order for the screensaver to start up, but on that basis you may as well just make a black screen. Dunno.... :p |
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| TWH, I said the new (as yet unreleased) version has AI (or at least it was planned to have AI - see below). Thanks for your suggestions. The thing is these are my first ever models. I was playing around with Wings and thought "hey you know what I'll use these in a screen saver". In fact the screen saver may not get too much more of my time cos I'm thinking of using these 'creatures' in a 3D defender meets 3D asteroids type game. In the game they will have AI. Gfk, I like the colour scheme, so there ;-) I take on board your comments re a blank screen but call me weird, I leave my PC on and when wandering about the house and like to see some crazy eve candy happening if I happen to pass my machine. Is it any worse then having a lava lamp or fish tank? The bottom line is, if you don't like it then don't use it. It's just a screen saver, it won't win the election, give you an erection or any such thing... I like it and figured someone else *might* like it too hence me releasing it to the ususpecting public. Frank Zappa wrote music so he could listen to it. He didn't write music for other people to listen to. He figured if they liked it too then fine but that was not his reason for doing it. Now I am not comparing myself to the genius that was Zappa but the sentiment is the same. |
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| Its just an opinion. I don't demand or even expect you to agree with it but I'm exercising my right to express it. K? :) |
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| Gfk, no worries but not hugely constructive ;-) The thread did start with... I know, I know, if you don't like or use screen savers just leave this thread now and don't bother to post "screen savers are crap etc etc" |
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| The thread did start with... I didn't say that I didn't like or use screensavers. Nor did I say that screensavers are crap. All I said was that the harsh colours burned my eyes.I know, I know, if you don't like or use screen savers just leave this thread now and don't bother to post "screen savers are crap etc etc" I appreciate that you effectively told anyone who doesn't like it to keep their mouth shut, but that's not really how it works. I made a legitimate comment about this particular screensaver, which, although it was the negativity you didn't like, it could easily have been taken as constructive if you'd chosen to do so. Anyway... |
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| Gfx, we are way off thread here. OK I accept your comment regards the colours but thats the very thing I like about it. Let's agree to differ. Regards negativity in general, hell I'm open to it simply by posting here but I read an awful lot of negative stuff (about other peoples work as well as my own) and wanted to try and nip it in the bud. Screen savers seem to be unfairly targeted by these nay sayers. I'm not saying you are one of them, sorry if it was taken that way. Now let's move on, Blibs rocks, so do I, yippee, is that a camel, flibber flibber. |
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| Hmmmm...yep...why so much negativity? If you make something you like and want to share it or sell it whatever then it should be just that. I'm never negative about something unless I've actually been ripped off. Personally, I dislike commercial products using this website at any length beyond a mere mention of the availability of their product. But that's just me and I don't expect anyone to have to agree. I'm a hobbyist at best and am only interested in sharing stuff and learning from the pros who support Blitz in an effort to keep it going in top form. |
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| I'm a hobbyist too. But as I said we are way off topic. This thread is about Blibs. |
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| Yeah, no flamewars allowed here, everybody. Let's keep to the topic at hand, if you can't play nice and discuss Blibbs, then don't post in this thread at all. Sorry for acting like a citizen moderator, but it's getting on my nerves, and feel that justice should be served. Just protecting your best interest you understand. Now, back to Blibbs, I did see more of it from your site, and it seems to be a great effort on your part. Have you considered designing a widescreen version of this screensaver for the high-end PC monitors out there (yes, the Apple Cinemas, Dell Ultrasharps, Gateway high-def LCDs, etc...)? To me, this is the next Marine Aquarium (by that I mean the next step in screen saver design over stuff from, like, 10 years ago), and proves worthy. A lot better than any screen saver I've done back in the QBasic days, those ones tanked bigtime back then. Glad to know that Blitz has this type of power behind it. |
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| RAM, thanks for the positive remarks. You'll love the next version, some really cool additions... Not too sure how to target these high spec monitors other than Blibs can run in a high a resolution as the gfx card can handle... |
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| Well, okay, I do have a DVI connection on my HDTV, so that'll work almost natively in widescreen in that regards. |
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Blibs does Thargoids! |
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| Still - 'Userlib not found'. Can't you update your zip? |
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| The only 3rd party it uses is stickykey_dll.dll and guess what I forgot it in the installer. You can grab it here... www.boiledsweets.com/tmp/sticky.zip Just unzip it to c:\windows\system32 Sorry for any inconvenience. I'll go one better and release build 2 shortly for the time being please grab the zip above... |
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| New version released.... Version 1.00 (build 2) 25.8.06 Added basic and extended FPS displays (F10 and F11) Now use render tweening to ensure smooth, fast frame rates. Expanded the backgrounds, can now have a space background with smooth colour changing. (full version only) Animated some of the Blibs. A DLL was missing from the installer, now included. No longer needs to find the Blibs.INI file, will rebuild if it cannot find it. Added option to disable render tweening for slower PCs / laptops. Demo version limited to 12 different Blib types. Added more Blib types (full version only) Added particles effects (full version only) Expanded the number of Blibs option (range was 50 - 500, now 20 ¨C 600) Added Thargoids! (full version only) Added option to choose the maximum number of different Blibs (full version only) www.boiledsweets.com/Blibs |
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| At last a version that works - tut tut, asking people to download patches on a demo is a bit much. I disagree with Gfk - based on the abstract models they should be colourful - yes that colourful. Although he didn't dismiss anything out of hand - which I can understand is annoying. I would buy a good screensaver because I like to see my computer throwing snazzy graphics about as I read a computer book or work on a program (on paper). It kinda inspires me. Unfortunately I wouldn't buy this one - the models just float around without purpose. If they interacted with one another that would be an improvement I think. Good luck with the screensaver. Steve |
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| Steve, firstly it was uncharacteristic of me to release a non working demo and for that I apologise. I couldn't rebuild it with the missing DLL added as I was a fair way into the next version (no I didn't take a snap shot of the development environment as it was such a small project, I ususally do so I can build old versions again if I need too). The thing is the software I write is chiefly for myself, I post it on my site in the hope that some other loon might like it enough to pay for it, if they don't, well fine, I'm a hobbyist. I use these forums as an early warning system (and in this case it paid off), I do strive for perfection and do test my releases as the very last thing I want is a buggy release but as I'm sure you can appreciate it can happen. I also have great respect of the opinions of my fellow Blitzers so although I 'advertise' my wares here (and get very useful feedback) I do not expect any fellow Blitzer to actually buy my stuff. Again if they do then thats awesome. As mentioned before Blibs was one of those spin off type projects and may see further development (i.e. interactive Blibs) BUT it is really was a just a step stone to my next project(s), Asteroids 3D and 'Mostly Harmless' (ELITE tribute). Thanks for listening. |
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| Hey you don't have to justify what you write - programming should be fun, so choose the projects that interest you. Although this site is biased towards games so you will hear some disappointment from some (although I do like screensavers myself). Now about that Elite tribute - sounds cool. Not trying to influence your choice of project ofcourse. ;-) Steve |
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