Hi!
Is there any schedule for HW alpha blending support coming into SDL(not
only in OpenGl)? Just curious. We’re writing a fast shoot’em up game(2d)
and it should be ready during the summer. Any chance…? 
Is there any schedule for HW alpha blending support coming into SDL(not
only in OpenGl)? Just curious. We’re writing a fast shoot’em up game(2d)
and it should be ready during the summer. Any chance…?
You should look at David Olofson’s experimental glSDL code. I don’t have a
link, but I’m sure David will be happy to give it to you.
–ryan.
Also feel free to donate some money to the SDL project for motivation,
equipment, etc. 
http://www.libsdl.org/finances.html
-EvilTypeGuyOn Mon, May 06, 2002 at 05:01:56PM -0400, Ryan C. Gordon wrote:
Is there any schedule for HW alpha blending support coming into SDL(not
only in OpenGl)? Just curious. We’re writing a fast shoot’em up game(2d)
and it should be ready during the summer. Any chance…?You should look at David Olofson’s experimental glSDL code. I don’t have a
link, but I’m sure David will be happy to give it to you.–ryan.
Right
http://olofson.net/mixed.html
Direct link:
http://olofson.net/download/glSDL-0.3.tar.gz
As to other targets, the main problem is that there are no other
targets that can accelerate alpha. Well, almost. OpenGL and Direct3D have
had it “for ages”, and DX8 kind of brings it into 2D by effectively
replacing DirectDraw and Direct3D with DirectGraphics - which AFAIK, is
Direct3D, more or less.
As to pure 2D APIs, there are only a few brand new APIs that support
blending, and most of them seem to be pretty much alpha. These APIs might
mature eventually, but I have a feeling that it’s more likely that they
are phased out by 2D-on-3D-driver solutions like MS’ new GDI,
DirectGraphics (although that’s not really a 2D API, it seems…) and the
new XFree86 stuff.
My intention with glSDL is to provide a similar solution for accelerating
SDL. glSDL (which is intended to become a rendering backend for SDL)
actualy seems to be the only remotely portable way of doing this with
the SDL API right now. (Well, short of using OpenGL directly, of course -
but then your code won’t be of much use without accelerated OpenGL,
unless you support other targets as well…)
Porting glSDL to Direc3D - the only significant alternative to OpenGL -
could serve as a major step towards full “native” DX8 support in SDL. (No
other way it seems, as DX8 doesn’t have DirectDraw - you have to request
the DX7 or lower version API to get that, which implies that it is
intended to die eventually.)
//David Olofson — Programmer, Reologica Instruments AB
.- M A I A -------------------------------------------------.
| Multimedia Application Integration Architecture |
| A Free/Open Source Plugin API for Professional Multimedia |
----------------------------> http://www.linuxdj.com/maia -' .- David Olofson -------------------------------------------. | Audio Hacker - Open Source Advocate - Singer - Songwriter |-------------------------------------> http://olofson.net -'On Monday 06 May 2002 23:01, Ryan C. Gordon wrote:
Is there any schedule for HW alpha blending support coming into
SDL(not only in OpenGl)? Just curious. We’re writing a fast
shoot’em up game(2d) and it should be ready during the summer. Any
chance…?You should look at David Olofson’s experimental glSDL code. I don’t
have a link, but I’m sure David will be happy to give it to you.
Also feel free to donate some money to the SDL project for motivation,
equipment, etc.
Actually, I’m all for financing SDL (whether it buys a new build box so we
continue to have BeOS support or it treats Sam to a milkshake at the
Harbor House), but part of the problem is that there isn’t hardware
accelerated alpha on some of these platforms…X11, notably. Someone throw
money at someone that will implement the rest of the XRender
extension…and–why not?–get Sam a milkshake, too.
–ryan.