RBGL Sprites v1.0 Released

The RBGL Sprites library contains classes that replace the REALbasic SpriteSurface feature, which for many years has been th only built-in support in REALbasic for making 2D games.

The SpriteSurface was recently deprecated in REALbasic 2008, meaning that it will no longer be supported, and will eventually be removed. For some time REAL have recommended that it not be used, but there are a lot of old projects based on the SpriteSurface, and in some ways it is still the easiest way to make simple games with REALbasic.

RBGL Sprites brings the SpriteSurface control bang up-to-date using hadrware-accelerated OpenGL drawing and adding support for colour blending, translucency effects and full 8-bit alpha masking for sprite images.

Built on top of the Open source RBGL core, RBGL Sprites follows the same approach of replicating the existing REALbasic behaviour exactly so as to make porting your projects as easy as possible. We'e included some well-known examples of SpriteSurface-based projects to show jus how easy it is to port them. Programs that are several years old can be made to work with RBGL Sprites in mere minutes by changing just a couple of lines.

To cooincide with this release, we've also updated the RBGL library to version 1.3, and added a new GL Declares library for low-level OpenGL rendering in REALbasic. Using these tools together you should be able to produce some amazing graphics and games with REALbasic, all cross platform (Windows and Mac), and all with 100% pure REALbasic code, without any proprietary plugins.

And did we mention that this is all completely free and open source? Our liberal licencing terms mean that you can use this code in your own commercial projects and you don't even have to tell us or anyone else that you've used it (although it would be nice if you did!).

RBGL Sprites is still in the very early stages of development, and we have a lot of exciting plans for additional functionality, so watch this space. As always, if you find any bugs or think of any features you'd like to see, you can make suggestions via the feedback form on the open source page.

If you find the code useful, we would appreciate a small donation to support our continued commitment to the development of free tools and software for the REALbasic community.