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SDL Game Development
SDL Game Development

SDL Game Development: If you're good with C++ and object oriented programming, this book utilizes your skills to create 2D games using the Simple DirectMedia Layer API. Practical tutorials include the development of two wickedly good games.

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SDL Game Development

Chapter 2. Drawing in SDL

Graphics are very important to games and they can also be one of the main performance bottlenecks if not handled correctly. With SDL 2.0 we can really take advantage of the GPU when rendering, which gives us a real boost in terms of the speed of rendering.

In this chapter we will cover:

  • The basics of drawing with SDL

  • Source and destination rectangles

  • Loading and displaying textures

  • Using the SDL_image extension

Basic SDL drawing


In the previous chapter we created an SDL window but we have yet to render anything to the screen. SDL can use two structures to draw to the screen. One is the SDL_Surface structure, which contains a collection of pixels and is rendered using software rendering processes (not the GPU). The other is SDL_Texture; this can be used for hardware-accelerated rendering. We want our games to be as efficient as possible so we will focus on using SDL_Texture.

Getting some images

We need some images to load throughout this chapter. We do not want to spend any time creating art assets for our games at this point; we want to focus entirely on the programming side. In this book we will use assets from the SpriteLib collection available at http://www.widgetworx.com/widgetworx/portfolio/spritelib.html.

I have altered some of these files to allow us to easily use them in the upcoming chapters. These images are available with the source code download for this book. The first one we will use...

Source and destination rectangles


Now that we have something drawn to the screen, it is a good idea to cover the purpose of source and destination rectangles, as they will be extremely important for topics such as tile map loading and drawing. They are also important for sprite sheet animation which we will be covering later in this chapter.

We can think of a source rectangle as defining the area we want to copy from a texture onto the window:

  1. In the previous example, we used the entire image so we could simply define the source rectangle's dimensions with the same dimensions as those of the loaded texture.

  2. The red box in the preceding screenshot is a visual representation of the source rectangle we used when drawing to the screen. We want to copy pixels from inside the source rectangle to a specific area of the renderer, the destination rectangle (the red box in the following screenshot).

  3. As you would expect, these rectangles can be defined however you wish. For example, let's open up our Game...

Installing SDL_image


So far we have only been loading BMP image files. This is all that SDL supports without any extensions. We can use SDL_image to enable us to load many different image file types such as BMP, GIF, JPEG, LBM, PCX, PNG, PNM, TGA, TIFF, WEBP, XCF, XPM, and XV. First we will need to clone the latest build of SDL_image to ensure it will work with SDL 2.0:

  1. Open up the TortoiseHg workbench and use Ctrl + Shift + N to clone a new repository.

  2. The repository for SDL_image is listed on http://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_image/ and http://hg.libsdl.org/SDL_image/. So let's go ahead and type that into the Source box.

  3. Our destination will be a new directory, C:\SDL2_image. After typing this into the Destination box, hit clone and wait for it to complete.

  4. Once you have created this folder, navigate to our C:\SDL2_image cloned repository. Open up the VisualC folder and then open the SDL_image_VS2010 VC++ project with Visual Studio 2010 express.

  5. Right-click on the SDL2_image project and then...

Tying it into the framework


We have covered a lot on the subject of drawing images with SDL but we have yet to tie everything together into our framework so that it becomes reusable throughout our game. What we will now cover is creating a texture manager class that will have all of the functions we need to easily load and draw textures.

Creating the texture manager

The texture manager will have functions that allow us to load and create an SDL_Texture structure from an image file, draw the texture (either static or animated), and also hold a list of SDL_Texture*, so that we can use them whenever we need to. Let's go ahead and create the TextureManager.h file:

  1. First we declare our load function. As parameters, the function takes the filename of the image we want to use, the ID we want to use to refer to the texture, and the renderer we want to use.

    bool load(std::string fileName,std::string id, SDL_Renderer* pRenderer);
  2. We will create two draw functions, draw and drawFrame. They will both take...

Summary


This chapter has been all about rendering images onto the screen. We have covered source and destination rectangles and animating a sprite sheet. We took what we learned and applied it to creating a reusable texture manager class, enabling us to easily load and draw images throughout our game. In the next chapter, we will cover using inheritance and polymorphism to create a base game object class and use it within our game framework.

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Key benefits

  • Create 2D reusable games using the new SDL 2.0 and C++ frameworks
  • Become proficient in speeding up development time
  • Create two fully-featured games with C++ which include a platform game and a 2D side scrolling shooter
  • An engaging and structured guide to develop your own game

Description

SDL 2.0 is the latest release of the popular Simple DirectMedia Layer API, which is designed to make life easier for C++ developers, allowing you simple low-level access to various multiplatform audio, graphics, and input devices.SDL Game Development guides you through creating your first 2D game using SDL and C++. It takes a clear and practical approach to SDL game development, ensuring that the focus remains on creating awesome games.Starting with the installation and setup of SDL, you will quickly become familiar with useful SDL features, covering sprites, state management, and OOP, leading to a reusable framework that is extendable for your own games. SDL Game Development culminates in the development of two exciting action games that utilize the created framework along with tips to improve the framework.

Who is this book for?

SDL Game Development is aimed at C++ developers who want to learn the fundamentals of SDL for cross-platform game development. This isn't a beginner's guide to C++, so a good knowledge of C++ and object oriented programming is a must.

What you will learn

  • Draw in SDL and build the SDL_image extension
  • Develop reusable classes
  • Get to grips with game related object-oriented programming
  • Integrate a variety of user inputs into your games, such as joysticks or keyboards
  • Use factories that enable us to create objects dynamically at runtime
  • Create 2D maps through the use of tiles
  • Easily apply the framework to different game genres
  • Understand the scrolling of a tile map using the position of the player and collision detection
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Table of Contents

9 Chapters
Getting Started with SDL Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Drawing in SDL Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Working with Game Objects Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Exploring Movement and Input Handling Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Handling Game States Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Data-driven Design Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Creating and Displaying Tile Maps Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Creating Alien Attack Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Creating Conan the Caveman Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

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Rating distribution
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon 3
(38 Ratings)
5 star 13.2%
4 star 23.7%
3 star 23.7%
2 star 28.9%
1 star 10.5%
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N/A Oct 16, 2023
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
This book thought me a lot of great concepts for not just game development, but programming in general.
Feefo Verified review Feefo
Amazon Customer Jul 29, 2016
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
great book, covers almost everything you need for game development
Amazon Verified review Amazon
R. Hopkirk Gwyn-Jones Oct 12, 2014
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
A very good book for reference and learning SDL
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Aldo Sep 06, 2013
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
I purchased this book because I needed to learn ASAP how to use SDL. It really helped me to get started. Sorry for not writing a thoughtful review. I only did it to balance the bad review from the guy that didn't know about classes or pointers.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Matias Lavik Oct 03, 2014
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
I gave this book 5 stars, simply because I couldn't find the 6-star button.This is a great introduction to game development. It teaches you "everything" you need to know to make a simple platform game. Compared to some other books about game development that I have read, this book actually teaches you how to make a proper game engine/framework. It mentions important topics, such as polymorphism, singletons and FSM, and uses this to make a game engine that will save you from the despair of having to discard a game you have worked hard on because of your game engine's limitations.I have been learning how to make games for almost a year now, and whenever I started on a new project I would get headache as soon as I started planning the game. Where should I store the different game objects, and how should I access them from other classes? From which class should I render the objects? How can I separate the video/audio output and keyboard handling in different states, such as MainMenu and Gameplay?I've read several tutorials and a few books about game programming trying to get answers to questions like these, but first now, after reading this book, i has started to make some sense to me.I strongly recommend this book for anyone interrested in learning game programming!
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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