QB Times issue #10
Special Anniversary Issue

NOTE: Because of the server problems @ qb45.com this issue is not in the QB Times folder, this causes some of the images to be broken! We're sorry for the inconvience.

Contents

  • Introduction
  • Site news
  • Project news
  • Downloads of the month
  • V!Planet Review
  • Transparant Blending
  • Advanced 3D modelling
  • 3D Texturing
  • Game Design in the Future Library
  • RPGs From the Group Up
  • Using Extended Memory (XMS)
  • BXNes, a NES emulator in QBasic
  • Fonts in QuickBasic
  • Goodbye word from the QB Times authors
  • Future of the QB Times
  • Credits
  • Link to us


    Introduction

    Welcome to this anniversary issue of the QB Times. This is the 10th issue and we made it very special!
    Before I continue I wish to thank all writers who wrote or are still writing for the QB Times. These are abionnnn, BlackBird, Bram Bouwmans, DarkAges, Dae Breaker, Danny Gump, gza_wu, Marcade, Matthew River Knight, Maxx, Maz, Nekrophidius, Nethergoth, Sam Thursfield, Stefan Hendriks, Steve and Viper. Thanks guys, without you we couldn't have done it!
    Second of all, I wish to thank you, the readers of the QB Times, in the first place for reading the QB Times and for giving feedback how we could improve things, what you wanted to see, or just telling us that last issue was really good. :-) Also we're very grateful for all your submission, in the form of articles but also in the form of program or website review requests or project or site info.
    Last but not least I would like to thank Jorden Chamid, my co-editor since the 6th issue, who was responsible for the site & project news the last five issues, and has relieved me of much work so that I could concentrate on doing articles and formatting the Times while he did the project and site news. Jorden you're a great pal and I couldn't have put five more issues out without you... But now I feel the time has come to stop the QB Times in this form. This doesn't mean that the QB Times is dead, no, the QB Times will continue, only in a different form. The exact details of the 'new' QB Times will be made public in a few weeks. Read Jordens goodbye letter at the bottom of the page for more info and stuff :-)
    And now, enjoy this issue!! :-)


    Site news

    DarkLegends becomes QB Portal, which closes down later...
    The old Darklegends site had been under construction for some time, and then transformed into the QB Portal. The idea of QB Portal is to bring the QB scene an easy way to find other sites, news from the scene, and ofcourse the products and projects of DarkLegends Software. Now, not so long after the transformation, the site has been closed down by AlienQB and the rest of the DarkLegends programming group, because they think the QB Scene is dead. The QB Portal will be taken over by Shadowcorps.

    QB Source gets updated again
    After a long period of no updates, QBsource.com is finally once again updated. Though the new site is not finished yet, you can already have a look on their new design.

    QBasicNews is back online
    The daily updated Qbasic/QuickBasic news site by Magus is back again! Because the previous host of the site took it down, the site was gone for a while, but now it's back again, and has updated every day ever since! Go to this site, bookmark it, and make it your startpage so you can have your daily dose of QB news!

    New Qb Top 100
    With the return of QBasicnews.com, another topsites-list came alive! The QB Top 100 can be found by clicking on the button.

    QuickBasic.net is working on a comeback
    Another site that hasn't been worth visiting the last months because nothing new has happened...Guess what, the webmaster is working on a comeback! We have seen a preview, and it looks promising, though a lot still needs to be done...

    A new QB RPG site: qbrpgs.com
    HyperRealistic Games comes with a new site, dedicated to RPGs and RPGs only.

    Another QB topsites list hits the net
    This topsites list is about QB sites related to QB RPGs, and is part of QBRPGs.COM. So far not many sites have signed up, so get yours in NOW!

    Future Software gets rid of frames
    The QB page of Future Software has been redesigned. For the first time in 3 years, the site no longer uses frames, but tables instead. Be sure to take a look!

    Changes at Future Software
    Qb45.com is now having a second webmaster. As Webmaster Jorden says: "I was getting tired of updating the site...Usually I get 50 files weekly, which I all try out which takes a couple of minutes. I end up adding 5 new files on average...I don't want QBasic to die, and I think that as long as QB45.com stays alive, Qbasic won't. That's why I gave Frank Korma(FK) the password to the server, and an email address which you can send him files on. Now I can concentrate more on school and my other sites. I've added more than 1000 files for the site, I think it's enough now =)"
    Hopefully, the new webmaster will update the site often, so new source will be available all the time!
    BUT...there are more changes!!! Stefan Hendriks, the author of Arrakis, has quit the team since he's not programming anymore. There also is a new member, Eric Cowles, who will program for the team.

    Neozones Products back to old design
    The blue design has been dropped at Neozones Productions, now they went back to their classic green/black look, that most of the older QBers will still remember and love...oohhh I have to wipe away a tear =)

    PetesQBsite is back and redesigned.
    The regular visitors were shocked...where once stood their huge favorite QB site, only two empty frames remained...One of the servers had deleted all files, but luckily, WisdomDude has reuploaded all files! A new look is being worked on, you can already take a preview on it. I think it looks way better!

    QB Expo finally opens it doors

    After a long period of delays, the QB Expo has finally opened. The Expo has 12 rooms in total, which include the Starship Galaxy, the RPG palace, the Strategy Dungeon, the bathroom, and the QB restaurant where you can find the highscore list. You can get on the highscore list if you can find the secrets hidden in different rooms. There are 105 points that you can earn.
    We have asked a few people what they think about the Expo:

  • Jorden: Although the backgrounds are quite cool, it is taking away attention from the buttons. Maybe you should have made the backgrounds some darker. Also, the sitemap is good, it's easier to see the options there, but perhaps the sitemap should be on screen always. Another thing I really like are the secrets...though hard to find!!!
  • Richy2000: There should be a set background, not repeating game screens. they should fade in the to the background as black or white and rotated slightly, put a few games on the screen shot
  • leroy: Whilst tryin' to emulate a real expo style building arrangement, it comes off more as a disjointed self indulgent monstrosity. For a web design effort, its pretty attrocious, information is hidden away too much. There may be good info and other things in there, but many people aren't going to read it because its not obvious.
  • GianFranco: I don't like how I have to click on each character to read some info that is not that important anyway. They should make each page hold more info without the need to use mouseover and such. I didn't like having to download a separate page each time I checked what a character had to say.
  • Flexibal: Bad gfx, slow loading. bad for such a long time in devlopment.
  • Piptol: I think it's a really good, novel approach that works well. Much more interesting than your run-of-the-mill standard website, which is the other route it could have gone. Some of the area backgrounds *are* a bit dodgy, but forgivable. But I like it =)
  • Akujin: well .. great idea behind it .. nice way he organized people. but the design, well .. sucked. It was ugly and annoying to find the rooms i was looking for. The only real high-light i saw in the thing was the great demo from mah pals, Tsu and FE. and that .. is that.
  • Nethergoth: Site graphics could be quite a bit better, but hey, Zeta's in it, so I'm not saying anything bad about it! :)
  • Vohaul: I must say that the QB Expo rocks if you take the time to wander around it.
  • QB45.COM problems

    You've probably noticed it: the qb45.com domain has a lot of problems lately. The first was that the server was down occaisonally. The second was that a hacker managed to break into the domain and delete 180MB of Future Software's files. We're trying to fix the problems but it's hard because we (Nightwolf & Jorden) live in Holland and the owner of the server in the US and there is a huge time difference meaning we have to stay up real late to talk to him. Anyway, we'll try to fix it ASAP!


    Project news:

    Nostradamus [Flexibal>, jheaton, and gabriel(known from the GABasic compiler) are going to make a win32-qb-compatible-compiler! It will be based on QB's source code (at least some of it) but all the gfx/snd will be done using directX. It will be made using VC++, some other dialect, and ASM. *Perhaps* we'll intergrate GABasic's DMPI with it, so you could choose DOS/WIN exes.

    The sequel to AlfaFLA 2, the GUI for the Future.Library, is close to being finished. AlfaFLA 3 will be available soon. This version features less bugs, an external programming language based on Everos, and will generally have more features.

    The BXNes project was cancelled, due to lack of speed in QB. The author, Big B (Bram Bouwmans), will continue his work in C++. However, he has been nice enough to give the sourcecode of the emulator to the QB Times...fully documentated! The article on QB Times can be found elsewhere in this issue of the QB Times, so check it out now!

    MasterCreating has released a trailer of IMERION, their latest project. The download is quite big, but it's worth the wait, and the server is quite fast! The trailer shows a little about the game, in 800*600 resolution with sounds. The trailer (and the game) uses the Future.Library.

    You thought you had seen the last thing about Wetspot by Angelo Mottola? Think again, because Angelo is working on a Gameboy Color version about the adventures of Coby and Cuby! For a screenshot of the GBC game in action, click here!

    DarkAges I is under reconstruction...As DaeBreaker tells:
    "All graphics are drawn by DaeBreaker except the sprites which will be drawn by Elemental. The gameplay will most likely be like the classic DA1, but with little changes. Like instead of starting in the outside world, he starts in a town with a house. Little sub quests will also be added. The engine is being recoded right now, making the code more efficient by adding the ability to switch between EMS and BASE memory(we are using DQB) and also adding XMS for sprites and tiles (FUTURE.LIBRARIES XMS routines). Blendermaps are also used to create amazing effects, like reflections of the character sprites on the water and transparent smoke, also allowing ghost. There is also realistic weather effects now, with temperature which is able to change how the weather is. We also made use of DS4QB made by Nekrophidius, before we used BWSB but it sucked up to much memory making us not able to use blender maps. An extremely advanced scripting engine is also being coded, it allows variables and many of QB's commands. A real time battle engine was going to be coded, but Michael Hoopmann didn't want to much changes to the previous DA1 so he told me to do one like the WOS battle engine."

    The visitors of the QB Expo were hit by a big surprise: a demo of Untitled, the RPG of Tsugumo and FrozenEmu, has been released!!! Click here to visit the QB Expo page of Untitled!




    V!Planet Review:

    Topic Rating Description
    Content 28 / 30 Well this site is updated weekly and is filled with articles and reviews of qbasic games. Right now they have about 70 I think. Im not really sure, I never counted. They clain to be the only 100% qbasic game review magazine which I think they accomplished!
    Programs 18 / 20 Well about a 50 downloads but each is reviewed with screen shots and descriptions so they get a higher score!
    Links 7 / 20 This is where the site can really improve. This is the only problem I seemed to find. The links are all in one straight line and really had to read by the way he has it. Also no descriptions.
    Design 14 / 20 The design of this site ain't really bad compared to many qbasic sites with just simple text links in a frame which really drives me nuts! This ones nice blue and red!
    Unique 10 / 10 This site is the only 100% qbasic game review magazine =)
    Additional comments:
    Just check it out! I visit it all the time so you wont be disapointed!


    Transparant Blending

    The theory behind Blending

    Do you long for the wonderfully slick appearance of translucent text boxes in your rpg ? Or do you need blended jet trails for your vertical shooter.. whatever your reason, if you have witnessed the utter kick assness blending stuff can add to your games, and also want to make an impact with these effects, then fear not young QB'er.. you have come to the right place.


    image taken from syraphage


    Take a look at this image, taken from Liquidex's syraphage. It clearly shows a lovely blue 'see through' effect on the box... now for the longest time i couldnt figure out how this was done, little did i know that its incredibly simple.. for the basis of colour blending we will be looking at 50% alpha blending... which is the most common, i will go into more detail as to what that actually means later.

    Alpha Blending: Speed Things that contribute to the look Alpha varience Other type of Blending Other type of Blending