Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!rochester!cornell!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!dmg
From: dmg@ssc-vax.UUCP (David Geary)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Need MORE HELP on GAME DEVELOPMENT on the Amiga
Keywords: Just one more question (or two)...
Message-ID: <1617@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Date: 14 Jan 88 20:53:08 GMT
Organization: Boeing Aerospace Corp., Seattle WA
Lines: 69


First of all, let me thank all of you who responded to my original
posting (Leo Schwab, Rob Peck, etc.) (One guy even CALLED me at
work to help me out cause he didn't have access to USENET - thanks
Charles).  I am new to both USENET and programming on the Amiga,
and it sure is great to get such awsome support from programming
heavies in the Amiga community... (Aint USENET great?!?)

Anyway, in article 1606, I wrote:

>> I am in the process of developing my own version of Arkanoid...
>>
>> 2)  How can I put shadows underneath the boxes, paddle and ball? ...
>>     I want the background to show through the shadows. I'd like shadows
>>     similar to the shadows that Dropshadows creates on workbench.

In article 4972, Leo Schwab writes:

>  You should be able to get away with 8 colors on an arkanoid clone.
>  Open a 4-plane screen (16 colors), then make colors 8-15 dimmer versions
>  of colors 0-7.  Then, when you want to render a shadow, set your
>  RastPort.Mask value to 0x08, and draw a slightly offset rectangle...

I also got a response from Rob Peck suggesting that I use the ExtraHalfBright
mode, but I decided against that because *I think* that all Amigas do
not neccessarily have the ExtraHalfBright mode.

Leo's suggestion sounds good to me except that I will have a pattern on
the background that I want to show through.  Should I copy a rectangle
from the playfield into a buffer, set the RastPort.Mask to 0x08, and
then render the rectangle I copied back on to the screen?  Another
consideration is that the shadows for the boxes can all be rendered
with rectangles, but the baton's shadow is odd shaped.  How do I
deal with that?  These *#$% shadows are really the only thing
(besides lack of time) that is holding me back from getting
this thing off the ground, so I'd really appreciate any
responses I get from anyone out there in NetLand.

One more thing.  Due to a suggestion from Rob Peck, I have decided
to make the ball a sprite.  So, I wrote a *simple* game of pong -
just the paddle, walls, and ball, with the ball a sprite.  When
the ball moves across the screen at what will be full-speed in
my Arkanoid version, you can actually see 3 balls all the time,
because the previous 2 renderings of the ball do not disappear
completely before the next rendering is done.  I don't get this one,
because I can move the Intuition pointer around with the mouse,
and it doesn't do the same thing.  What can I do?  Sprites are
the ultimate, right?  Is it my compiler? (I hope)  I have Lattice
3.03.  Anybody know of sprite-bugs with 3.03?  Have you guys seen
how FAST the ball moves in Arkanoid - and all without a hitch?
Do I need to do something besides use sprites?  This is really
frustrating...

Thanks for the help...

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-- 
***********************************************************
* David Geary, Boeing Aerospace Co., Seattle, WA 	  *
* (206)773-5249.  --I disclaim everything I've ever said--*
***********************************************************