Delphi image and form components

[tmp_A]

Hi all.

Question 1

I'm in the middle of creating a simple Delphi game, and am having a little trouble with the TImage component. Can't its shape be changed? I don't want to see a silhuette surrounding my character when he moves about on the screen. (E.g. when he moves onto a green surrounding, you can make out the rectangle black surounding him.)

My character's a little bitmap image.

Is there no component that can solve this problem? I.e. surround itself around the bitmap?

Question 2:

HOw do I load an image onto the form?

[tmp_A]

Well, I happened to stumble upon this code on the internet:

Declare a TBitmap variable, initialise it during the form's creation, then set its parameters with the X, and YCoORds in the Form, and the name of the file I want.

private

Bmp: TBitmap;

public

{ public declarations }

end;

implementation

{$R *.dfm}

procedure TForm1.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);

begin

Bmp := Bitmap.Create;

end;

// The rest deals with HInstance, handles, etc. which I dont understand..

// Needless to say, the code isn't working on my computer... Hmm, this is

// Windows API programming apparently

[tmp_A]

I've finally managed to get the image on the form.

Anyway, here's how I did it:

Instead of directly loading the image on the form, I first saved it as a .res file in the Image editor, then used it in the program code...