Animation in Windows

ID: Q103215

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) 3.1

SUMMARY

This article is aimed at people who would like to create a Microsoft Windows-based application that does some form of animation, or who would like to understand how to improve the performance of an existing animated application, or who are considering porting an MS-DOS--based application to Windows. The main focus of the article is on using Device-Independent Bitmaps (DIBs) for the images and the DIB driver (DIB.drv) for the off-screen image buffer. The article is written around a sample application, Sprites, which is included with the article. Some knowledge of animation techniques is assumed. If you're looking for a "How to Do Animation" article, this isn't it. The following points are covered:

Using the DIB driver

Palettes

Measuring and improving performance

Lots of useful little tips and hints

MORE INFORMATION

The following file is available for download from the Microsoft Software Library:

~ SPRITES.EXE

For more information about downloading files from the Microsoft Software Library, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q119591 How to Obtain Microsoft Support Files from Online Services

SPRITES demonstrates sprite (cast-based) animation in a Microsoft Windows-based application using device-independent bitmaps (DIBs) for the images and the DIB driver (DIB.drv) for the off-screen image buffer.

The SPRITES application uses a DIB for a background scene, and allows you to load multiple sprites on top of the background scene. Each sprite has x, y, and z coordinates, optional x and y velocity, and a flag that indicates whether it can be dragged by the mouse.

A background and a set of sprites can be combined into a scene described in a simple INI file. You can load the entire scene by choosing the Load Scene command from the File menu.

The application updates the positions of all sprites that have a non-zero velocity as fast as it can, using a PeekMessage() loop. Sprites that have the selectable attribute set can be dragged with the mouse. Double-clicking a sprite brings up a dialog box for setting sprite attributes.

Additional query words: kbfile softlib SPRITES.EXE

Keywords : kbfile kbsample kb16bitonly kbWinOS310 kbDSupport GdiMisc kbSDKWin16
Version : WINDOWS:3.1
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbinfo