Questions about making a 2D platformer

I'm not so new - I used to be a die-hard Blitz Basic coder - but I've been away from it for years and have just gotten back into it. This time, I'm using Blitz3D instead of classic Blitz Basic.

I'm resuming a platform game project I started years ago, and because I'm new to Blitz3D I have a couple of questions:

- I'm thinking about using sprite for the player and enemy characters. Is it possible to "flip" the sprites to simulate facing left and right?

- I would possibly want to be able to zoom in and out of the game map, possibly with rotation (á la Mode 7). How could I do that?

Many thanks.

Just scale the texture minus 1.

ScaleTexture texture,-1,1

And yeah, it would be possible, and very easy in 3d, to do this. However, the rest of your game will have to be in 3d for this to work.

Thank you!

Here comes the inevitable question: how can I draw a 2D map in 3D mode? I haven't been able to find any examples.

It's a tile-based map by the way.

You need to first draw the image, then, ensure your cameraclsmode is set so it doesn't clear the buffer when it renders.

You should look out for a sprite lib called nSprite 2. Great this kind of thing, because it uses 2d co-ords and acts just like 2d mode.

I found a solution just a while ago; will try what you've suggested. Basically I created a texture, drew the entire map onto it and then assigned the texture to a sprite. (Though it only shows part of the map!)

I'll also check out this nSprite 2 library; I know there's a few of those floating around.

It just makes the whole process easier. Why code a whole way of doing this, when one already exists :o) Saves you lots of time and lets you concentrate on actually making your game.

Oh, and remember your textures must be dimentioned on powers of 2. eg: 1,2,4,8,16,32,64...etc 512,1024

2x16
32x256
512x128

etc etc

And try and keep the ratio 8 to 1 for the sizes if using a different sized dimensions for your texture.

Older video cards have problems, or introduce scaling if you don't adhere to the above.