110 replies to this topic

[pythonpoole]

Hi, for those of you who don't know, many (and I mean dozens and dozens of you) have been asking for a way to make GM's Game Window transparent for ages and ages.

The truth of the matter is, because GM uses DirectX, it makes it almost impossible to use the WinAPI commands to change the opacity of the window to make it appear semi-transparent.

Many DLL makers have tried to produce a transparent window DLL for ages and ages, some spending hours upon hours trying to unlock the secret. Today I have uncovered that secret, and I wish to share it with you.

Please all thank Porfirio for the transparency dll he has made (that doesn't work on its own). The Example I've made shows you how to develop a GM game / make your window transparent, using a transparency dll that doesn't work.

What doesn't work about the current DLLs? Well they don't appear to make the window transparent at all, only the title bar, and when dragged they leave behind what I call "guck." This ALL GML method avoids the Guck, and allows for REAL TIME, true transparency without the GUCK, you can even have dragable windows, and Skin your windows to different shapes and sizes.

SCREENSHOTS


DOWNLOAD
Download Link 1 (Scorptek - 15kb - Download Time: ~1 Second on 56k dialup)
Includes: Heavily commented GM6 example, Porfirio's never released transparency dll (released with permission) and GearGOD's skin dll.

Please Credit If Used:
Pythonpoole OR Scorptek (for example, and gml tips and tricks to create transparency)
Porfirio (for transparency dll)
GearGOD (If skin.dll used)


Thanks for commenting


Closed as links are broken ~ paul23

Edited by paul23, 14 June 2011 - 09:35 PM.

[Porfirio]

Good work man

A small litle trick that work

Edited by PORFIRIO, 30 May 2006 - 02:46 PM.

[tangibleLime]

I never would have thought about doing it that way Great find!

[SleeK GeeK]

Very well done. But yet, i would have to read the code carefully to fully understand how it works, because GML is pretty new to me .

Regards,
SleeK GeeK.

[pythonpoole]

Thanks for the comments, glad you like the "trick"

Hope everyone finds a good use for it.

[lukesterspy]

Cool one dude

[Shaltif]

Just a note, it's not the taskbar which causes the window to refresh, but it's because the window is partially offscreen. I determined this because my taskbar is on the right (not bottom) and by dragging the window anywhere that part of it was offscreen, it doesn't leave a mark behind (while if the whole window was on screen, it did).

An interesting work around, I must admit, but a bit limited (requiring the window to always be partially offscreen to correctly work).

~Brandon

[pythonpoole]

That is strange, based on my observation as soon as the window made contact with the taskbar it becomes fully transparent, it didn't have to be actually off the screen.

The other thing is if you need the window in the centre of the screen what you can do is used the skin dll to skin the window to the shape you want and make it draw one pixel of the room on the left of the screen, the right and the bottom, this way it should look like a centered screen, and will work if your taskbar is at the bottom or the sides, however the skin dll seems to be slow at reading large images.

Thanks for the comments.

[Smarttart62]

Finally you released it =).
Ill check it out in uno momento.
-Steve

[WMCD]

Very neat; I have been looking for something like this forever!

Just one question though: do you know how to just make the room transparent and not the objects?

Thanks, and keep up the good work!

[ChIkEn AtE mY dOnUtS]

Omg, THIS ROCKS!

[Shaltif]

That is strange, based on my observation as soon as the window made contact with the taskbar it becomes fully transparent, it didn't have to be actually off the screen.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hmm, maybe it's not the edge of the screen, but the edge of the workspace. When the taskbar is visible all the time (mine slides into view only when I mouse for it), the workspace is edited so that no application goes behind it. (notice how when you maximize a window, it doesn't maximize past your taskbar, this is due to the workspace).

Ironically, this is something which "could" be changed. I've made a DLL before which allowed me to set the workspace dimentions to whatever I wanted...in theory, you could set the workspace to just less the size of the window.

However, this is a global setting. Meaning all windows would be effected. (mainly maximized and docking applications). So I don't "recommend" this, but it is another option.

~Brandon

[Cynical]

Nicely done, seems to work great... Roach actually told me about this earlier today so I thought I'd come hunt it down.

Unfortunately if you take a screenshot of the game it is NOT transparent, but that's minor. Nice work .

[tangibleLime]

Unfortunately if you take a screenshot of the game it is NOT transparent, but that's minor. Nice work .

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well... then how did he do it?

[pythonpoole]

Actually he is correct, if you use Alt+PrtScr and take a screenshot of only the game window you end up with a solid background.

Only taking a full screenshot of the entire screen (Just PrtScr) works with the transparency.

[celebraces]

So cool! for those who said it couldn't be done... I'm at work so i'll have to try it later .

[Porfirio]

So cool! for those who said it couldn't be done... I'm at work so i'll have to try it later .

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well i sayd it couldnt be done, and it still cant be done in a normal way, you have to use some tricks, so i was right...

[gmjab]

Very Very Nice, This could come in handy sometime.

- Jarred

[pythonpoole]

Thanks again for the comments. Sorry about the window-only screenshot issue, thats not avoidable. Sleek Geek and I are looking into improving this system so its more compatible with cross user settings such as Shaltif's desktop, however we havn't made much progress on that yet. For now, this system will work on 98% of user's computers who can run gm games and are using windows 2000 or later (for transparency to kick in).

[freaky_entertainment]

See ?! Remember when you told me that it's IMPOSSIBLE ?! And I told you that you'll find a way ... and all you continued saying that it's impossible ?! Ahahahahha ! Great Job, Dude !

[metaltailz]

Cool, I'm not sure what I would use it for but Cool!

[AndrewWeb]

Very neat; I have been looking for something like this forever!

Just one question though: do you know how to just make the room transparent and not the objects?

Thanks, and keep up the good work!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I was wondering the exact same thing

[Porfirio]

Very neat; I have been looking for something like this forever!

Just one question though: do you know how to just make the room transparent and not the objects?

Thanks, and keep up the good work!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I was wondering the exact same thing

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Transparency is aplyed to window, not to objects

Sory but theres no way!

[pythonpoole]

Yes unfortuneately you cannot simply make the background invisible and leave the objects visible in GM, the best you can do is make the background white like that simple pacman type game in the example.

Otherwise its still pretty good and seems to work flawlessly on all systems with a taskbar at the bottom.

Hope you all find a good use for it, I keep hearing about people needing a transparency dll, but I'm a little dissapointed this topic hasn't become as popular as I thought it might. It seems like there is always someone wanting transparency, and when its finally done and released it only a few users comment.

[twisted_games]

i like this. 9/10

but i think i have a way to fake "transparent room and not objects"

if i get this to work. ill tell you. and post an example.

[WMCD]

Very neat; I have been looking for something like this forever!

Just one question though: do you know how to just make the room transparent and not the objects?

Thanks, and keep up the good work!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I was wondering the exact same thing

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Transparency is aplyed to window, not to objects

Sory but theres no way!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I've actually played a desktop game (created with GM) before where there was a ball (not transparent at all) and a completely transparent room, and you could sling the ball around the desktop. Unfortunatly, I forgot where I found it.



Edit: Again, nice work!

Edited by Old School Gaming, 01 June 2006 - 02:25 AM.

[tangibleLime]

I've seen that creation: the room wasn't transparent. The ball was the actual window. It used a skinning DLL to skin the window to the sprite of the ball.

[Chirantha]

* Chirantha is in Shock *



How? has this been done?

*Chirantha Snap's out of the shock and starts to walk on the roof and remembers that he can't walk on the roof and falls down.*

*Chirantha checks his eyes and makes sure that the window is tranceparent*

WOW pyhonpoole , you really did the impossible!! Great Job 10/10!!!

[_Jaiden]

oh I was hoping I could be the first to post in the topic but oh well
Just a couple of minutes to early!
Anyway, this is really good 10/10

[Kapser]

All i gotta say is this is cool!

[Jack Meroc]

lol. This is nice! Just what I need1

[andydaman]

Error defining an external function.

What do I do?

[eagleclaw364]

andydaman: Unzip it?

This is an awesome creation. How did you make the window snap to the task bar though?

Once again, great work.

Edited by eagleclaw364, 01 June 2006 - 06:27 PM.

[Porfirio]

Error defining an external function.

What do I do?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Mabe you are on windows98?

It wont work on it!!

[zat]

now this is cool. (even if it ran slow on my pc)

[pythonpoole]

Yeah it is pretty cool I think, thanks. Don't forget to credit Porfirio, as this probably couldn't have been done without his generous help. I'm actually pretty lucky porfirio had the dll just lying around on his computer, all I did was ask if he could make one and 10 seconds later there is a msn transfer of it waiting for me to accept.

And yeah, you need windows 2000 or higher to see the transparency.


LOL @ Chirantha.

[coolsmile]

Sweet, at least it works, not perfect but it is still pretty cool

[hughman]

very nice!!!!!
looks good.. have to find a good use..

[pythonpoole]

Yeah, well I think its fairly useful.. whether its just to have your game transparent, or a skinned desktop widget that you can drag around the screen, its a fairly useful tool, and it can make something look a lot cooler .. Like if you get hit by an enemy... make the window flash in and out of transparency.. who knows, I can see many uses for this. Let me know if you make a game using this technique, I'd like to see

[_Jaiden]

maybe I'll make some sort of sidebar thing like in Windows Vista with this

[GM_wizard]

'taskbar edited due the privacy issues' lol

anyways great dll, could be pretty usefull for some abstract games/programs
I've never seen a program with a transparent window btw....
anyway very original idea

[pythonpoole]

Well I'm glad I see some people have a use for it. I hear I_am_registered is making a vista sidebar imitation with it cool.

Thanks again for your feedback.

[_Jaiden]

yeah it's going well. Skinning functions and more.

[Josh @ Dreamland]

AMAZING!! Great job.

One question, does it do an invisible color, too?

I know I'll be using this; invisible backgrounds look so much better than black ones.

Edited by Josh @ Dreamland, 07 June 2006 - 12:52 PM.

[Alex]

very good, now you just have to solve how to get multiple transparencies on the one window.

[Tekken 5 Master]

A great example by pythonpoole

I was just waiting for someone to make one of these.

Edited by Tekken 5 Master, 08 June 2006 - 04:33 PM.

[user350044]

A great example by pythonpoole

I was just waiting for someone to make one of these.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think Mark is going to add something like this in the next version.

On the "todo" page, under "Planned In Next Version", "add function to load sprites and backgrounds with an alpha channel".

http://www.gamemaker.nl/todo.html

[pythonpoole]

user350044, thanks for the comment, but alpha channel sprites have absolutly nothing to do with a transparent GM window. As far as I know Mark never intends on putthing this feature into Game Maker. Alpha 32 bit sprites simply means for example you can have a shadow on a sprite that blends in with its surroundings allowing nicer visual designs and graphics in your games.

This transparency example shows how to make the entire game window see-thru for whatever reason as shown in the screenshots above.

[user350044]

user350044, thanks for the comment, but alpha channel sprites have absolutly nothing to do with a transparent GM window. As far as I know Mark never intends on putthing this feature into Game Maker. Alpha 32 bit sprites simply means for example you can have a shadow on a sprite that blends in with its surroundings allowing nicer visual designs and graphics in your games.

This transparency example shows how to make the entire game window see-thru for whatever reason as shown in the screenshots above.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Ok. I was thinking that alpha channel on the backgrounds would let us change the transparency level of the background picture from fully visible to completely invisible, showing the end users desktop as the background.

Question? If this can be done using a external dll, couldn't Mark incorporated a dll into his software package?

[duk_co2000]

I get an error saying: "Error defining an external function". And I did not edit a thing at all. ??