AFlib2 - Aura Flow Library 2 ::: GALLERY

This is the gallery that presents to you the many screenshots of the full development of AFlib2 that has been in progress for almost a year right up to its *very* first release, just to get you even more excited for such sheer action here. LET’S ROLL!!! d=^-^=b

The birth of the very first developments of AFlib2, which originally got started by me (Adigun Azikiwe Polack) from early during the Summer of 2005!!! :D !

Mode-7 special effect (a *wonderful* little homage to SNES/Super Famicom fans everywhere!!! ^_-=b ! ), directly in a 400x300 graphics mode here!! The final product of the first version of AFlib2 will most likely be supporting tilesets of up to a maximum of 512x512 pixels, for sure!!!

The Mosaic effect goes into some excellent operation as it simply “pixelates” the screen to make the colored pixels look much bigger on the screen! Check it out!!

These here are some of the RATHER numerous custom tweaked modes available for at least fullscreen, exclusively on AFlib2!!! Sure brings back some grand ‘ol memories of the original “Mode-X” graphics modes for you MS-DOS and QBasic fans out there, you know that? (^-^)v !

As one of the key rules of thumb, a game programming lib *must* have some drawing primitives handy, and AFlib2 has got ‘em for you, from translucent pixels, to translucent lines, to gouraud filled triangles, and everywhere in-between!!!

Flipping the picture around vertically, which is supported for any 8-bit fullscreen graphics mode up to 1600x1200!!! A truly unique feature, wouldn’t you say now? ;-)

This is a special Waterfall effect rushing into play, something that is NEVER BEFORE SEEN in any FreeBASIC library at all, and it is discovered only on AFlib2!! This still shot may not convince you, but seeing it in full action *certainly* will, I can guaranteed you that, so do not miss it in the “Download” section here!!! ^-^

This may look like a normal picture here, but wait ‘till you see the exact same thing implemented with Scale2X and Scale4X in FreeBASIC with AFlib2 rising into play!!!

Testing out the new AFlib2 optimized font system by storing a full 9x9 character set in a custom 144x144 grid to then be used as an 8x8 font, so that the optimized text blits become *MANY* TIMES MORE FASTER to draw than ever before!!! (^_-)//

Shortly after font testing, I added many more optimized font features, such as custom spacing, support for blitting the text here to a buffer, and other great new features!!!

Then, the ability to store up to a whopping 64 DIFFERENT SCREENS to memory has been added, so that you can play them back later and do all sorts of *amazing* things with them while displaying them on-screen, like this custom screen fading effect in 8-bit!!! At first I started out with just eight (8) screens, but then when I tested them all and found out that they all worked great, I was like, “What the hey, huh? I am boosting this up to 64 screens!!”. And that was exactly what I did, and so here we are!!! \(^-^)/

Next, I’ve implemented two of the important types of pixel-perfect collision detection: 1) the “stored screen”-to-sprite collision detection; and 2) the collision detection between two (2) stored screens (the proof of that is in what I have circled in red in this second screenshot here!). And of course, there will be some regular pixel-perfect sprite collision routines in AFlib2 as well, so you hang in there now!! ;D

And then, I added an all-new built-in starfield effect that you can access in *just* a few commands, WITHOUT any fumbles or hassles whatsoever!! (^_-)v And telling from these two screenshots just above this paragraph here, the possibilities are surely no doubt endless, let me tell you!!!

And now, we go to something quite fun that was implemented recently for the continuing developments of AFlib2: custom graphics filters!! Quite a first in FreeBASIC, wouldn’t you say? ^_-=b ! The new effects implemented for you are:

.....and guess what, they *even* work in any custom GET/PUT buffer you desire in FreeBASIC, too!!! You know, I personally think that they are such excellent effects to be implemented in your games and stuff using this lib, you understand now? ^-^ !

Furthermore, I thrown in SO VERY MANY PP256-based font routines, including the score routines pertaining to them as well! Now, scores can be just like the ones used in *actual* arcade games, with such great features as custom translucency, brightness, a maximum 15-digit support, and justification set to the left, center, and even to the right also!!! Cool stuff, I believe! :D

Now flipping the picture around horizontally! This feature was even tougher for me to implement than the vertical screen flips, but with sheer determination and all, it was sure worth the challenge here because I had to make clear and sure that these horizontal flips were faithfully done in any 8-bit graphics mode in FB..... and they are so indeed!!! ^_- !

Then, I had to gather every last single one of those routines and more, all into one HUGE source code (as in around 5 megabytes long, no less!), making it the ABSOLUTE BIGGEST FreeBASIC-created game library to date!!! (^-^)v ! Next, I test-compiled it to install into an FB custom library many times. And after a half an hour of waiting, AFlib2 is now *successfully* installed..... but not without some trial and error I had to go through, first. ;-)

This is a screen of the VERY first official program created inside of AFlib2!!! ^-^ And this one consists of a successfully built-in starfield, the lib’s logo, and a custom-tweaked fullscreen resolution of 160x200 all at once!! Quite fitting for such a welcome screen, isn’t it now? :D

As you can see from these four shots here, there are at least two flavors of scanlines available for you: 1) regular, where you display your lines normally over a whole screen to make it look like a TV-simulated image; and 2) custom-colored, where you actually present your scanlines in ANY single color you wish!!! :D And with the many scanline routines ready for use in AFlib2, you can make these lovely line patterns horizontally or vertically, or if you’d like, you can even mix them up to create such *interesting* effects!!! d=^_-=b

This is a custom 144x144 fontsheet that was tested in the form of a .BMP file, and with both it and AFlib2 rising into play in optimizing this entire font for use, you can additionally write and blit some amazing text and stuff, like this:

Right as we celebrate the new year of 2006 now, I just added FULL sprite scaling/rotation support for AFlib2, all in addition to what’s already implemented from over the recent months!!! Your games created in FreeBASIC are gonna look so awesome now with all of this handy right here, you know that? :D !!

Thanks to syn9’s excellent idea to me on how to double the screen size to fit this into a windowed graphics mode, I have successfully managed to pull through with it right here in AFlib2, as you can see!! (^-^)v ! For instance, take a 640x480 windowed graphics mode. Now, take a 320x240 custom buffer. Then, you zap your game sprites, your game maps, and all of that other good stuff into that buffer there. Once all done, you can simply blit and scale it to double its size so that it can fit the whole window!!! There are two ways of doing it: 1) the regular way; and 2) the Scale2X way, which is MUCH faster!!! Check ‘em out!! (^_-)//

And if all this makes you *so* excited enough to start your game programming in this original FB game library, get to the “Download” section right now and download yourself a copy for FreeBASIC v0.14b or newer!!! And I want to thank you all so much for your most wonderful time in that gallery here!!! ^-^=b !!

From the words of Adigun Azikiwe Polack, the original developer of “AFlib2 - Aura Flow Library 2”.