FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:
Vern Jensen
Jensen@loop.com
Karl Bunker
KarlBunker@aol.com

SPRITEWORLD 2.1 RELEASED

A MAJOR UPDATE TO THE FREE, FAST, POWERFUL, AND EASY TO USE PROGRAMMER'S
LIBRARY FOR CREATING SPRITE ANIMATION IN MACINTOSH PROGRAMS

June 6, 1998
Vern Jensen today officially released SpriteWorld 2.1 as freeware to the
Macintosh programming community. SpriteWorld 2.1 is the latest update to the
widely respected SpriteWorld animation library originally written by Tony
Myles in 1993-94, and updated to version 2.0 by Karl Bunker and Vern Jensen
in 1996. SpriteWorld 2.1 is a major update to that release, and provides
numerous improvements, including an impressive list of new features and some
bug fixes. Several cool new demos are also included in the package.

As with the earlier versions, SpriteWorld 2.1 will be of particular interest
to Macintosh game programmers. Using the SpriteWorld library, programmers can
easily produce highly complex sprite-based animation effects, with high frame
rates, smooth overlapping, pixel-precise collision detection, an unlimited
size and number of sprites, optional scrolling and tiled backgrounds, and
many other features. Capabilities like these are necessary for arcade games
such as space shoot-em-ups, or any game in which objects move around in 2D
space and interact with each other.

Here are just some of the improvements in SpriteWorld 2.1:
* Numerous bug fixes.
* Various speed improvements.
* A wide variety of new or improved blitters, customized for various uses and
situations. These include blitters for all bit depths for 68K and PPC
compiles, 68K and PPC blitters optimized for 8 bit color, and blitters for
real-time scaling, rotating, translucency, and lighting effects.
* A new double-rect blitter eliminates the ugly "seams" from scrolling
animations, in addition to making them go faster on most PowerMacs.
* Functions that allow you to move and resize your window, while still being
able to use direct-to-screen blitters.
* You can now provide two callback functions allowing you to draw in the
offscreen areas during the animation after the sprites have erased, and after
they have been drawn, but before the screen is updated.
* Functions for determining whether a sprite has run into a tile or group of
tiles.
* The ability to set "hot spots", used to calculate the location of each
Frame of a Sprite.
* Split-screen scrolling routines allowing two viewpoints of the same game
field.
* Several cool new demos, such as:
- Shark Attack, an example of a real game that uses SpriteWorld.
- Split Screen Scrolling demo, which demonstrates the split screen
scrolling routines.
- Various demos that make use of the rotating, scaling, translucency, and
lighting capabilities.
* SpriteWorld is now completely compatible with the latest version of
CodeWarrior Pro and the Universal Headers, while still remaining compatible
with Think C 6.0 and earlier versions of CodeWarrior.
* Lots of new tips in the SpriteWorld Tips and Tricks file.

SpriteWorld has a colorful and impressive history. Originally written by Tony
Myles, it was "adopted" and updated for its second major update by Karl
Bunker and Vern Jensen. Vern Jensen took over the role of head programmer for
the 2.1 release. Since its inception, SpriteWorld has not been solely the
work of one or a few programmers, but has benefited from the contributions
and input of many Macintosh developers. The full list of contributors is too
long to include here, but among those whose work on the project demands at
least some mention are: Ed Harp, David Johnson, Brigham Stevens, Ben Sharpe,
Tony Wilson, Brian Roddy, Tim Carroll, Cary Farrier, Peter Lewis, Stefan
Sinclair, Christofer Akersten, and Anders Bjorklund.

The SpriteWorld 2.1 package can be downloaded from the SpriteWorld 2 web page
at:
http://users.aol.com/spritewld2/

It will also be appearing at InfoMac archives, such as:
ftp://ftp.ou.edu/mirrors/info-mac/_Development/_Library/
ftp://ftp.pht.com/pub/mac/info-mac/_Development/_Library/
ftp://ftp.orst.edu/pub/systems/info-mac/_Development/_Library/
http://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/packages/info-mac/_Development/_Library/
http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/HyperArchive.html

A C++ version of SpriteWorld is being maintained by Stefan Sinclair. His web
page is at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~trickys/SpriteWorld2Plus/index.html

No Pascal interfaces have been done for SpriteWorld 2.1, due to lack of
interest.

Requirements:
System 7.0 or later, 68020 or later Mac, and a CodeWarrior or Think/Symantec
programming environment.