i think this is a newbie question...

raislam · 2001-08-30T00:41:42

ok, i have been learning c++ for 4 years now and have been writing dos text-based programs... but, i got sick and tired of that, but i hadn''t found any books on loading bitmap files... i just want to load it to an offscreen surface so that i can use the RECT type to use them in a tile based game... what is the simplest way to load a bitmap to an offscreen surface? (could you explain how to do it either to load directly from a file instead of a rescource file?) thank you, ur help is very appreciated

For Beginners

Started by raislam August 29, 2001 08:51 AM

14 comments, last by raislam 22 years, 7 months ago

Midnight Coder

122

August 29, 2001 11:54 AM

Based on what you said that you were writing text-based applications, I assume you don''t know DirectX. You can''t use a DirectDraw function without actually going through all the initialization and such. There is Blt(), but you can''t just throw it in the middle of your code and expect it to work. You have to initialize DirectDraw and stuff. You''ll also need to write your own bitmap loader, or you could use LoadBitmap() from the Win32 API.

Drizzt DoUrden

100

August 29, 2001 11:56 AM

www.winprog.org

they have some easy to comprehend tutorials.

"I''''ve sparred with creatures from the nine hells themselves... I barely plan on breaking a sweat here, today."~Drizzt Do''''Urden

------------------------------Put THAT in your smoke and pipe it

raislam

122

Author

August 29, 2001 12:01 PM

so, that must be why the code is always so long... i have seen a couple examples that are long (most were long to free the memory after the program is closed), and a lot of stuff about "HBITMAP" and "BITMAP" classes... a also heard about "LOADFROMFILE" that could be put into the declaration of the LoadImage() function from the ddraw.h file, but i''m never told where the filename should go...

Midnight Coder

122

August 29, 2001 12:07 PM

LoadImage is from the Win32 API, not from DirectDraw. It is defined as:

HANDLE LoadImage(  HINSTANCE hinst,  LPCTSTR lpszName,  UINT uType,        int cxDesired,      int cyDesired,      UINT fuLoad       );

hinst is the instance handle to your application. It is passed to WinMain when the program starts. lpszName is where you either specify the name of the resource, or in your case, the filename. uType is the type of image to load. Use IMAGE_BITMAP here. cxDesired and cyDesired is the dimensions you want the bitmap to be loaded in, use 0 if you want the bitmap to retain its normal size. fuLoad should be LR_LOADFROMFILE if you want to load from a file, but it can be a combination of other flags as well. The function returns an HBITMAP which you can blit to a surface.