ThinBASIC is a computer language with roots set in BASIC. The original BASIC did not ask the user to declare any type for the variables, it simply stored them as a number using 30 bits of precision.

Many of the modern computer languages (Lua, Python, Ruby...) try to mimic this design by hiding the internal variable storage details from the programmer. This approach has the clear advantage of keeping things simple. Number is a number, text is a text. Programmer focuses on the problem instead of implementation. So far so good.

The possible controversy of this approach starts to appear once you realize the program needs to run on physical device whose resources are limited. The mentioned approach of variable complexity hiding also poses two issues as well for people who would start with such a language as with their first programming language:

• the correlation between program memory usage and variables is unclear
• performance characteristics can vary surprisingly, as the language switches the backends and performs the memory reallocations

ThinBASIC takes different route.
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TBGL rendering system is internally based on the OpenGL technology, therefore it shares the state machine oriented design. This means that once you set some of the states, such as drawing color, it stays enabled until you change it to something else. While this can be advantageous in some situations, in others it can cause problem, especially when trying to write modular code.

This article describes the possible side effects of state handling and proposes new code style which should help you write modular graphic code of better quality.
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ThinBASIC offers the continuously developed TBGL library since year 2005. It is module focusing on providing way to draw graphics hardware accelerated way, but only with features which are widely adopted. That means, only "safe" functionality is added, so programmer can sleep peacefuly, because his scripts will run on any PC with properly installed GPU drivers.

But in real world, there are situations, when you simply need to use even the cutting edge features or features not commonly implemented by all hardware vendors. One of such a features is offscreen rendering, and this article will tell you for what it can be useful, what are the basic principles and it finally gives you sample implementation and script examples.
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Hi,

during Game Access 2010 there was one nice technique mentioned "by the way" as approach used for modelling chicken ...

There is an interesting trend which can be observed in the cut scenes present in many videogames released in the last years. Almost every 3D game now shows increased focus on cinematic feeling, which is achieved by extensive use of motion capture and specific work with camera, which includes not only its movement in the scene, but also simulating some of the optical properties as well.
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Once more best wishes for 2011 ,

please download the full PF in clumsy english here:
PF 2011 (video)

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TBGL provides the programmer with entity system, which allows definition of multiple kinds of types of entities. Sometimes we need to work with just group of entities and cast on them context specific action.

As the scene in TBGL can be composed of completely heterogeneous elements, this can become quite complicated task. We will take advantage of the fact any entity in TBGL can hold its custom user data, defined by programmer. By marking the user data with custom signature, we can easily determine which entities have something in common.

This article explains what data signature is, how to specify it and how to use it for comfortable handling of objects in the scene.

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ThinBasic module for accelerated graphics, TBGL, offers multiple ways to represent the scene. The most straightforward one is often referenced as entity system.

Entity system allows organization of various kinds of entities in scenes. Programmers can define “solid” objects using geometric primitives, m15 models or display lists and specify their relationship. This is enough for most typical applications, but what to do when the programmer want to use different kinds of objects.

The answer is – use the function slot entity.

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When looking at recent state of CG effects in movies and TV series, one of the most attractive topics is combining real world footage with some ...