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OpenGL Game Development By Example
OpenGL Game Development By Example

OpenGL Game Development By Example: Design and code your own 2D and 3D games efficiently using OpenGL and C++

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OpenGL Game Development By Example

Chapter 2. Your Point of View

Imagine that you are making a video. You've got your cell phone out, and you point it at the area that you want to shoot and press record. You're taking a video of the Grand Canyon, so you have to pan the camera around to get the whole scene in. Suddenly, a bird flies past the field of view, and you've captured the whole scene.

The preceding scenario is pretty much how games work as well. The game has a virtual camera that can be positioned and even moved around. Similarly to the video camera on your cell phone, the game camera can only see a part of the game world, so sometimes you have to move it around. Any game objects that move in front of the camera will be seen by the player.

This chapter will explain how things are rendered in the game. Rendering is the process of actually displaying images on the screen. In order to get your get your game onto the screen, you will need to have a solid understating of the following terms:

  • Coordinate...

Plotting your revenge

Okay, so you're not really plotting your revenge. But you are plotting everything in your game as if you were putting it all down on a piece of graph paper. Remember high-school geometry? You got out your graph paper, drew a couple of lines for the X and Y axis, and the plotted points on the graph. OpenGL works in pretty much the same way.

The OpenGL coordinate system

The OpenGL coordinate system is a standard X and Y axis system that you have most likely learned all your life. You can conceptualize (0, 0) as being the center of the screen.

Let's say that we want to display a moving car on the screen. We could start by plotting our car at position (5, 5) in the coordinate plane. If we then moved the car from (5, 5) to (6, 5), then (7, 5), and so forth, the car would move to the right (and eventually leave the screen), as illustrated in the following figure:

The OpenGL coordinate system

We haven't been completely honest with you. Since OpenGL is a 3D rendering engine, there is actually...

Introducing textures

Images in games are called textures. Textures allow us to use real world images to paint our world. Think about what it would take to create a dirt road. You could either color the triangles in exactly the right way to make the overall scene look like dirt, or you could apply an actual image (that is, a texture) of dirt to the triangles. Which of these do you think would look more realistic?

Using textures to fill the triangles

Let's say that you are going to paint your bedroom. You can either use paint to color the walls, or you could buy some wallpaper and put that on your walls. Using images to add color to our triangles is pretty much like using wallpaper to color our bedroom walls. The image is applied to the triangle, giving it a more complex appearance than what could be created by color alone:

Using textures to fill the triangles

When we want to get really tricky, we use textures to fill the inside of our triangles instead of colors. A marble texture has been applied to the triangle in the preceding...

Putting the pieces together

The following image is a composite that illustrates most of the concepts we have covered so far. See if you can you identify the following:

  • The transparent areas
  • The triangles
  • The vertices
  • The pivot point
  • The texture
  • The quad
Putting the pieces together

Summary

This chapter has covered the core concepts that are required to display images on your screen. We started by discussing the OpenGL coordinate system for a 2D game. The coordinate system allows you to place objects on the screen. This was followed by a discussion about the camera, OpenGL's way of viewing objects that appear on your screen.

Next, you learned how triangles and quads are used to create simple graphics, and how textures can be applied to these primitives to render 2D images to the screen.

You could finally see an image on your screen that has been rendered by OpenGL. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand lines of code!

In the next chapter, you will learn how to turn your still photography into moving pictures through the wonder of animation!

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Key benefits

  • Create 2D and 3D games completely, through a series of end-to-end game projects
  • Learn to render high performance 2D and 3D graphics using OpenGL
  • Implement a rudimentary game engine using step-by-step code

Description

OpenGL is one of the most popular rendering SDKs used to develop games. OpenGL has been used to create everything from 3D masterpieces running on desktop computers to 2D puzzles running on mobile devices. You will learn to apply both 2D and 3D technologies to bring your game idea to life. There is a lot more to making a game than just drawing pictures and that is where this book is unique! It provides a complete tutorial on designing and coding games from the setup of the development environment to final credits screen, through the creation of a 2D and 3D game. The book starts off by showing you how to set up a development environment using Visual Studio, and create a code framework for your game. It then walks you through creation of two games–a 2D platform game called Roboracer 2D and a 3D first-person space shooter game–using OpenGL to render both 2D and 3D graphics using a 2D coordinate system. You'll create sprite classes, render sprites and animation, and navigate and control the characters. You will also learn how to implement input, use audio, and code basic collision and physics systems. From setting up the development environment to creating the final credits screen, the book will take you through the complete journey of creating a game engine that you can extend to create your own games.

Who is this book for?

If you are a prospective game developer with some experience using C++, then this book is for you. Both prospective and experienced game programmers will find nuggets of wisdom and practical advice as they learn to code two full games using OpenGL, C++, and a host of related tools.

What you will learn

  • Set up your development environment in Visual Studio using OpenGL
  • Use 2D and 3D coordinate systems
  • Implement an input system to handle the mouse and the keyboard
  • Create a state machine to handle complex changes in the game
  • Load, display, and manipulate both 2D and 3D graphics
  • Implement collision detection and basic physics
  • Discover the key components needed to complete a polished game
  • Handle audio files and implement sound effects and music

Product Details

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Publication date, Length, Edition, Language, ISBN-13
Publication date : Mar 08, 2016
Length: 340 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781783288205
Languages :
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Product Details

Publication date : Mar 08, 2016
Length: 340 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781783288205
Languages :
Tools :

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Table of Contents

13 Chapters
1. Building the Foundation Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
2. Your Point of View Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
3. A Matter of Character Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
4. Control Freak Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
5. Hit and Run Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
6. Polishing the Silver Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
7. Audio Adrenaline Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
8. Expanding Your Horizons Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
9. Super Models Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
10. Expanding Space Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
11. Heads Up Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
12. Conquer the Universe Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Index Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

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Rating distribution
Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon 2.7
(6 Ratings)
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4 star 33.3%
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1 star 50%
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Robert Madsen Aug 12, 2016
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Full disclosure...I am the author of this book. I recognize the criticisms that the book is written to OpenGL 1.1. Keep in mind three things: (1) This book is intended as a primer. The reason for using OpenGL 1.1 is because that is the version that comes universally on all Windows PCs and therefore it is widely available and already pre-installed. (2) There is nothing taught in the book that is invalidated by newer versions of OpenGL, and (3) The book is much more that a book about OpenGL...it is a book about game development using OpenGL. In that regard, it covers other features of game development including good game design, audio, and UI. The reader creates 2 prototype games--one in 2D and one in 3D.I'll admit this is not an advanced OpenGL book...there are other books that fulfill that purpose. However, this book does exactly what the description says it does. It provides a beginner a good understanding of developing 2D and 3D games.Thanks for all of your comments.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
yetiman123 Mar 19, 2018
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Outdated a bit, but it works.
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Jairo Supelano Jul 29, 2020
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon 4
About the objective of the text it more or less complies with it; it guides the user through the process of using OpenGL to develop both 2D and 3D games (intro level), and it gives pointers about free and open source tools that may help in the process, yet it makes use of things like GLUT, which must be avoided since is old, its use require things that are not part of C++ standard and is not a standard itself and is not always available, and it uses it for things like glutGet(GLUT_ELAPSED_TIME) which could be replaced by things like GetTickCount() since all examples are intended to run on Windows only (there are other alternatives which require to use at least C++ 11 or above, which would not be a problem with the tools used along the text).On the other hand the code examples where not verified for typos, and they would not even compile in the way they are presented in the text; from missing semi-colons to wrong type of parameters, to simply telling the user to include some files, but displayed in screenshots with the wrong name. Is obvious that the code was not copied from working code and was not tested before placing it in the text
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Amazon Customer Mar 10, 2016
Full star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon 1
Absolutely terrible. Very shallow introduction to OpenGL, with nothing about shaders or modern pipeline, no scene graph, no proper model loading, nothing about lighting a scene... this book is just useless. You can find much better information online, on great websites like (...) and (...)
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Gabor Szauer Mar 23, 2016
Full star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon 1
I got this book after reading Packt's other great books on shaders and OpenGL. I expected this to be great as well, it is not.The entire book focuses on the VERY outdated OpenGL 1.1 API. And even at that it does a poor job. The amount of information covered in this book is so low i can't even rant about it. The book does not even mention vertex arrays, forget about anything with buffer in the name. How did this manage to find a publisher and get published? If you want to get a good book about legacy OpenGL, go with OpenGL Game Programming, First edition/
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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