Depends what you're trying to achieve.
Probably your best bet is to create a single surface text routine. However, this is hardly a topic for the begninners area.
2D overlay can have problems with certain 3D cards, so if you're planning on releasing this for cash then you'll probably want to avoid.
Sprites are a nice easy option, this is the option I'd choose for the Beginners area. The downside is that every sprite will use it's own surface so it's not a great technique, however, it's one to use so you can move into the more complex single surface stuff...
Heres one I did a couple of years back...
Basically the font is a single anim image.
The font$ is the list of characters in order in the image.
You then send the new_word function the x,y,words,rgb as a 3 letter hex string (FFF for white F00 for red etc), size of font, if it's centred, and it's alpha value.
As you'll notice the sprites are always at a z of 0, this is because a second camera would be used to render this lot.
Then you've got the final clear_letters function that you use to wipe the letter type out so you can redraw stuff again.
Probably your best bet is to create a single surface text routine. However, this is hardly a topic for the begninners area.
2D overlay can have problems with certain 3D cards, so if you're planning on releasing this for cash then you'll probably want to avoid.
Sprites are a nice easy option, this is the option I'd choose for the Beginners area. The downside is that every sprite will use it's own surface so it's not a great technique, however, it's one to use so you can move into the more complex single surface stuff...
Heres one I did a couple of years back...
Basically the font is a single anim image.
The font$ is the list of characters in order in the image.
You then send the new_word function the x,y,words,rgb as a 3 letter hex string (FFF for white F00 for red etc), size of font, if it's centred, and it's alpha value.
As you'll notice the sprites are always at a z of 0, this is because a second camera would be used to render this lot.
Then you've got the final clear_letters function that you use to wipe the letter type out so you can redraw stuff again.
Global fon_text=LoadAnimTexture("gfx\font.png",52,8,8,0,41) Type letter Field mesh End Type Function new_word(x#,y#,char$,rgb$="FFF",size#=.2,centre=0,alpha#=1) font$="ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789:.,- " hexy$="0123456789ABCDEF" If centre=1 Then x=x-(Float(Len(char))/2)*(size*2) If centre=2 Then x=x-Float(Len(char))*(size*2) For n=1 To Len(char) l.letter= New letter l\mesh=CreateSprite() ScaleSprite l\mesh,size,size PositionEntity l\mesh,x,y,0 EntityTexture l\mesh,fon_text,Instr(font,Mid(char,n,1))-1 EntityColor l\mesh,Instr(hexy,Mid(rgb,1,1))*16,Instr(hexy,Mid(rgb,2,1))*16,Instr(hexy,Mid(rgb,3,1))*16 x=x+(size*2) EntityAlpha l\mesh,alpha EntityOrder l\mesh,-11 Next End Function Function clear_letters() For current.letter = Each letter FreeEntity current\mesh Delete current Next End Function