Clipping Bitmaps & Keyboard Input – allegro tutorial

This lesson will do all general initialization, draw two 'clipped' bitmaps, and read a key. Upon the keypress the program will then quit.
Always include the header.

#include <allegro.h> // You must include the Allegro Header file

Set up the main function, initialize allegro, install the keyboard, set the color depth, and change the color resolution. This part of your allegro programs should start getting familiar.

int main(int argc, char *argv[])

{

  allegro_init(); // Initialize Allegro

  install_keyboard(); // Initialize keyboard routines  

  set_color_depth(16); // Set the color depth

  set_gfx_mode(GFX_AUTODETECT, 640,480,0,0); // Change our graphics mode to 640x480

Create a bitmap and load the picture into memory; this should be familiar as well.

BITMAP *my_pic = NULL; //Declare a BITMAP called my_pic

my_pic = load_bitmap("picture.bmp", NULL); // Load our picture

Here we will be blitting the same picture from lesson 2 onto the screen, but this time we will blit 2 'clipped images' of it - so that we can gain some experience using the other parameters of the blit function.

The first call to blit will place the picture at (0,0), starting the 'clip' from (0,0): the upper left hand corner. Notice how I changed the size (width/height) of the bitmap? Well, this will draw from (0,0) to (50,50)! That is how you clip the right and bottom sides of the image.

The second call to blit simply clips from (50,50) instead of (0,0), and will extend to (150,150) on the bitmap of the picture and draws it to the coordinates (100,100).

Clipping is pretty easy:
    Set the upper left hand corner - and then set the lower right hand corner of the 'section' of the bitmap you wish to draw!

As you can see, you can keep drawing the same bitmap (in this case my_pic) as many times as you like. Put in your own extra blit function, and blit another portion of the image.

blit(my_pic, screen, 0,0,0,0,50,50); // Draw from 0,0 to 50,50 on the screen at (0,0)

blit(my_pic, screen, 50,50,100,100,150,150); // Draw from 50,50 to 150,150 on the screen at (100,100)

Wait for a keypress. . .

readkey();// Wait untill a key is pressed

and then shut down.

destroy_bitmap(my_pic); //Release the bitmap data

 return 0; // Exit with no errors

}

END_OF_MAIN() // This must be called right after the closing bracket of your MAIN function.

                      // It is Allegro specific.

This concludes Lesson 3. You now know how to set up an allegro environment and change the resolution of the screen and display a clipped bitmap.

Back to Allegro Menu
Next –> Lesson 4 - Masked Blitting, Drawing Sprites, Clearing Bitmaps and the Keyboard Buffer (coming soon)
Previous –> Lesson 2 – Bitmaps

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