This text explains the Prographx Toolbox, a successful software product widely used in video game development. The Toolbox provides graphics animation by using icons with high speed pixel panning. The icon editor provides image manipulation; animation, image flipping and shifting, color replacement, and dithering. Icons alone do not provide a complete graphics development environment, so the Toolbox includes core graphics routines such as lines, boxes, and circles and uses the ROM fonts available in the EGA/VGA adapter ROM BIOS. The text explains how to program an EGA/VGA adapter using assembly language methods, allowing the Toolbox to work with two programming languages -- C and Pascal. Video modes and basic graphics routines are detailed with examples of core functions from the Toolbox. Jungck explains how to manipulate the hardware directly and match algorithms to hardware processes, using the most efficient computation techniques, as well as how you can use modular design and put display control information in data structures for easy changes and expansions. Using the techniques of Jungck's ProGraphx Toolbox, you can manage screen controls with matrices, linked lists, and tables rather than needing specifically coded functions. The coding of the icon editor is explained, including sophisticated methods such as capturing screen images and converting them into icon formats. Basic routines for displaying PCX files, (the common graphics file format), provide another means for grabbing images to convert to icons, and easy methods for managing background graphics and title page displays. Mouse controls and file management routines provide user interface and real world interaction for programs contructed using the Toolbox. The author also shows how to structure code to make it flexible and reusable with examples from event driven game designs.
Audience : For graphics programmers familiar with either the C or Pascal language, this book provides ready to use tools and shows how to customize the tools. Examples are given from video game design, and the principles can be used for any graphic development requiring high speed animation without demanding large hardware platforms.
Disk Contents: The companion disk contains over 170 program files from the book, including the complete ProGraphx Toolbox and a copy of Secret Agent.
System Requirements: Any PC with a hard drive and EGA or VGA display.
