About SpriteCandy

Miscellaneous Forums/General Discussion/About SpriteCandy

Hi all,

this question is aimed to anyone is using the SpriteCandy library ( http://www.x-pressive.com/SpriteCandy/index.html ).

I'm quite interested on purchasing it, however, I'm a bit concerned about the difficulty on learning a brand new language, if you get my drift.

So the questions are:

- do you find it easy to use and integrate within your B3D applications ?

- does do what it says, yet letting you to use the B3D full power ?

- may I have your sincere opinion about how do you find it ?

- do you have some screenshot of your creations using SpriteCandy ?

Same questions on the ParticleCandy library.

Thanks for your attention,
Sergio.

Boiled Sweets

- do you find it easy to use and integrate within your B3D applications ?

VERY!

- does do what it says, yet letting you to use the B3D full power ?

YUP!

- may I have your sincere opinion about how do you find it ?

Cannot live without it. Saves SOO much time and effort. Support is awesome. Just buy it. If you want to see a game that uses it check out http://www.boiledsweets.com/KeePeeUppy - the menu and hud use it and meant that the dev time was about 10 days!

- do you have some screenshot of your creations using SpriteCandy ?

go here...

http://www.boiledsweets.com/KeePeeUppy (uses Sprite Candy)

http://www.boiledsweets.com/qoob (uses SC & PC)

http://www.boiledsweets.com/RetroSphere (uses PC)

http://www.boiledsweets.com/Watchaball (uses PC)

Uncle

Go for it. Both excellent. Ive used both in my Ant Attack remake, Star Strike Remake (WIP) and my current project Highway Encounter Remake. You can see it working at the following link.

http://www.retroremakes.com/forum2/showthread.php?t=6680

What you see there took very little time. The HUD is completely sprite candy including the radar. The sprites are also sprite candy, though the background is native blitz.

big10p

Mmmm, candy.

LineOf7s

Yes, get it. Highly recommended. Everything everyone else said.

What have I done with it? Precisely nothing. But I can assure you, the nothing I've done has been done better and more easily than any nothing I've done before. Seriously.

Boiled Sweets

In fact my next 2 games are 90% driven by SC & PC.

H&K

Ive got PC, and I dont even use b3D. Its that good ;)

Boiled Sweets

Helpful :-)

big10p

Sorry to hijack thread, but do you get SC and PC as Blitz3D source includes, or are they DLL libraries?

Uncle

#10

Its just source code. No DLL required.

big10p

#11

Cheers.

T-Rek

#12

- do you find it easy to use and integrate within your B3D applications ?

Very easy.

- does do what it says, yet letting you to use the B3D full power ?

You bet.

- may I have your sincere opinion about how do you find it ?

It's the tops. Stable, fast and easy to work with. The downside is that the author seems to have pretty much abandoned it. But it's so complete as-is that it's not much of a problem.

- do you have some screenshot of your creations using SpriteCandy ?

I have a (lo-res) video here:

http://myspace.com/dwarftek

The actual screen resolution is 640x480 with large alpha sprites running around and multilayered alpha backgrounds with 1024x420 to 960x380 pixel layers. All running smooth on a P4 1.6 ghz with GeForce 440Go something(=crap).

Uncle

#13

The downside is that the author seems to have pretty much abandoned it.

Developement may have slowed down, but I cant really think of any show stopping missing functions or bugs. Support is still available though, as I emailed Mike only a couple of weeks ago about sprite candy and he answered the same day.

Your video is very cool btw

Barnabius

#14

If you don't have them yet, buy them! That's all I can say. Sprite Candy is a must when creating 2D games and it definitely cuts development time at least by 50%.

Barney

Boiled Sweets

#15

The downside is that the author seems to have pretty much abandoned it.

RUBBISH!

When I started using Particle Candy about 2 years ago I found a bug and emailed Mike. He fixed it within hours. I cannot think of anything to make Particle Candy better. FULL STOP. Why continue to develop a perfect app.

Sprite Candy. I have found a couple of bugs and again Mike fixed them immediately! I have also asked for many enhancements to Sprite Candy (not that it was particularly lacking but you get sooo used to it doing everything for you start getting lazy and want it to do stuff you ought to be doing yourself ) and Mike has either done them or there are on his list. I have had several updates over the last seveal months.

Don't think for one moment these are abandoned -- instead think of them as finished / complete / perfect.

Also Mike is extremely good at giving you example code if you ever get stuck.

I can sincerely say (as someone who has 6 finished Blitz products out there and selling) that SC & PC are indispenable!

Why0Why

#16

I really wish it was available for Max.

zawran

#17

Its might just be the best hardware acc. sprite system for B3D, and its extremely easy to use. Unfortunately I have moved on to Bmax, but while I was using it, I was really happy with it.

T-Rek

#18

RUBBISH!

When I started using Particle Candy about 2 years ago I found a bug and emailed Mike. He fixed it within hours etc

Good for you man but most people don't contact the author directly for updates, they check the website and forums to find out what's what. The Spritecandy homepage has no news section and the forums have been suffering a slow agonizing death for months (years?) without any word from Mike whatsoever. Maybe it's not abandoned but it sure feels that way to the regular customer.

But whatever, it hardly needs updating anyway.

tonyg

#19

@Boiled Sweets. What is the latest version you have and when was it delivered?
I really liked SC but had trouble creating tilebased games due to the number of surfaces being created. Mike was to give a tilemap tutorial but it never happened.
In addition, I was having trouble using PC with SC (2D coords vs 3D coords) so would have like some integration between the two.
However, when there's no doubt it's highly polished and VERY useful. I even found you could use NSprite, SpriteCandy Particle Candy and Mappy in the same game.
Probably would have done more with it (see Lineof7s post) and probably still be using it if BlitzMax hadn't come along.

lo-tekk

#20

HA !
The Sprite Candy Mafia is out again. Read this:

http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=56862#634766

Beside of this, it is highly polished for :

Sprite Candy is a must when creating 2D games

I am advised to stop talking now and good luck to you !

LineOf7s

#21

I have had several updates over the last seveal months.

ORLY?

Seems I need to shoot off an email and see what I've been missing out on.

Barnabius

#22

I have had several updates over the last seveal months.

What's the version you are using now? Mine is 1.09b and that was purchased in August last year. I'd love to get newer version if it exists...

Barney

LineOf7s

#23

I'm up to 1.0.11 but I'm checking for a later version.

Boiled Sweets

#24

1.0.12 (beta)

It includes a specific change that I requested so I'm beta testing it for Mike to ensure that it works prior to a release to the public.

LineOf7s

#25

There ya go - I don't feel quite so bad now. :o)

The alleged tile-map tutorial would be sweet to see though. I'll register an interest right now.

@rtur

#26

Very good lib. I'll replace my HUDs with it in next game.

LineOf7s

#27

Emailed Mike. Got a reply a couple of hours later, complete with the latest update. Happily, it's the same one I already have (not counting Boiled's beta).

Abandoned? Poppycock! :o)

B+man

#28

SpriteCandy looks good, I might have a look myself... :)

Dabz

P.S. Go to this page http://www.x-pressive.com/SpriteCandy/index.html, scroll down to the 'INCLUDES: FONT CANDY STUDIO!' bit, and have a read, notice the word in bold:-

Sprite Candy includes Font Candy Studio, a full-featured, powerful bitmap font editor to create awesome bitmap fonts in no time.
Font Candy Studio is an easy-to-use, but flexible and powerful bitmap font editor to create aweful bitmap fonts within minutes! Font Candy Studio has been especially designed to work with the Sprite Candy FX Engine, but can also be used as a stand-alone editor that exports to many image and data formats. Font Candy Studio offers many font effects, full export control and powerful post-processing filters.

Surely that's bad advertising! ;) lol

Blitzers, we don't miss a trick do we! :D

tonyg

#29

Got a reply a couple of hours later,

Did it contain a tilemap tutorial?

CodeGit

#30

I use SC and PC all the time. I would rate them as being in the top 5 third party add ons for blitz3d. The libraries are rock solid. I agree with tonyg, we were promised a tilemap tutorial which never arrived. I have my doubts that SC can cope with a fully fledged tile mapped game. Maybe Mike can prove us wrong.

Still, SC is a very good product and you won't be disappointed.

Uncle

#31

I have my doubts that SC can cope with a fully fledged tile mapped game. Maybe Mike can prove us wrong.

I tried using SC to scroll tiles, but in the end I opted to use the native blitz drawblock command, and then used SC to put the sprites on top. It seems to work quite well, and the speed is ok too. Obviously using the blitz draw commands dont support alpha, but SC sprites on top do. You can see some of the results in an old beta...

http://www.urbaninteractive.net/HighWayBeta.zip

LineOf7s

#32

Reply received a couple of hours after being asked:

The term "tile map" is so general, that I don't know exactly, what you are looking for. Have a look at Click Clack XL, for example (www.x-pressive.com) which was coded entirely using Sprite Candy and also uses a tile map. All bubbles are based on tiles. A tile map is done exactly the same way you would do it when using Blitz only, except that you're using Sprite Candy to draw all the tiles on screen, not 2D drawing commands.

Tile maps in general have nothing to do with Sprite Candy. The only part where Sprite Candy comes into the game is when it comes to drawing the tiles on screen. And this is pretty easy and shouldn't be any problem. If not, please let me know exactly what you'd like to know.

If you manage it to put all tile graphics on a single texture, you're able to use a single surface for those tiles. You can use several different layers and let them scroll with different speeds. Collision detection in tile based games should be done on tile level. Scrolling is straigtforward: simply move a layer, delete tiles on one side when they're out of screen and add some on the other side -like with every common tile based game. I really don't know where there should be any problem.

Regards,
Mike

tonyg

#33

Hmmm, not a response ever posted on the SC forums...
TileEngine which I can't see ever appeared
Offer of tilemap tutorial which never appeared
As far as I got but suggestion was not to mix 2d and 3d
Latest post
Anyway, off-topic for what Semar asked and I don't use SC anymore as this thread left me a slightly bitter on a support issue rather than the technical aspects of a superb B3D addon.

LineOf7s

#34

Might as well post the reply to my first email, which was enquiring as to the latest update (which it turned out I had) already:

No problem -please note the attached file that contains the latest Sprite Candy update. I noticed that many update notifications did not reach their target, most likely because of anit-spam-restrictions, so I am currently looking for a more reliable distribution method.

BTW: Don't worry, Sprite Candy has *not* been abandoned. In fact, I am using it myself every single day. However, there are several reasons why updates are quite rare:

- The lib is pretty much complete, except some minor improvements or some new effects that may be quite helpful for some, but not neccessary for all users.

- The primary goals are speed, performance and stability. This means that any new features are chosen *very* carefully to keep the lib as fast, compact and stable, as possible. It would not make sense to add features that are only useful for a few coders only, so I am trying to avoid "ballast" functions, if possible.

- I am a self-employed fulltime coder, so I have many other game projects (and customers) to care for, too. But the good side is, that all of those commercial projects also use Sprite Candy in-depth, so I'll be the first to notice if any new functions or features are neccessary.

- Last but not least, I don't want to provide weekly "micro updates". This would be annoying to the users. Updates will be published after a noticeable bunch of new features have been added. This may take some time, of course.

Regards,
Mike Dogan