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We are a small company with only 2 programmers. We currently make small 2D and 3D games for desktop and mobile using Adobe Flash/Air. We want to stop using that framework and start learning and developing on C++ because there are much more and better libraries and frameworks available on C++.
I'm not sure about the libraries to use for rendering. I know that Ogre3D is a great rendering engine for 3D content but sometimes we need to make 2D games or "2.5D" games, sometimes with video playback, and all that need to be mixed with 3D scenes.
I know there are 2D frameworks like cocos2D-x and smfl that works with OpenGL (I don't know much about OpenGL) and can do all the 2D things I need, but can those frameworks be combined with Ogre3D? And can it be done without the need of knowing how all the Ogre3D internal stuff or OpenGL works?
If Ogre3D can be combined with any 2D engine, what do I need to learn to merge the frameworks?
Given that you have been using flash, I am guessing you are not porting old C++ code.
Also, since you don't want to know about how the internals of the framework you're using or how OpenGL actually works, you don't need a low level language like C++.
An abundance of open source libraries is not a very good reason to program your game in C++ either.
Unity3D has a free basic license, and provides everything you need out of the box.
For now, you can use planes with textures to do your 2D work, but Unity will also be coming out with a set of Native 2D Tools in the near future. Also, a new GUI system is being created.
For any C++ library you think you may need, there is probably something already built into unity that does what you want. If there isn't, there is probably a .NET port that you can use. And if all else fails, you can write a C interface for any library you need, and use it as a plugin in Unity.
One big problem with Unity though, is that you need Unity Pro to use plugins. Unity licenses are per-platform, So if you decide to use plugins, and release your game for multiple platforms, you could end up paying a lot of money in licensing fees.
Finally, it's not just an application framework you'll need. You'll also need a level editor. Building a 3D level editor is not a trivial task, and given that your team consists of only two people, this fact alone should be enough to seriously consider using Unity.
So unless you are porting old code, need low level access to hardware, or have specific needs for native code, my advice is don't use C++, just use Unity.
Yes, Ogre3D can handle such "2D tasks" as playing a video. Simply a plane in 3D space that it gets projected onto. However for pure 2D projects an 3D rendering engine such as Ogre3D is usually overkill. If you are talking about 2,5D though, you are back in play with Ogre3D.
Regarding integrations: Not completely sure, but I guess those other 2D frameworks need an OpenGL rendering context that you can get from Ogre.
EDIT: Same question has been asked in the official Ogre3D forums.
We are another small team working on game development.
We tried many rendering engines and finally settled down with Irrlicht Rendering engine. Irrlicht is no way better than Ogre 3D or am not trying to prove that. We felt Irrlicht more flexible for our need. It also supports 2D rendering and it is quite fast with batching. Irrlicht can be easily ported to other platforms, It took us a week to port it to Google Chrome NaCl.
Irrlicht is a very basic rendering system that supports OpenGL and OpenGL ES, so its easy for your to go mobile. You can add any advanced features without much effort. Some of our games are available for iOS, Android, Windows PC, Mac OSX, Linux and Google Chrome Native Client.
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Good day.
Currently I'am looking for 3D engine for iOS written on C++ as powerful as Marmalade and I don't know which to choose.
Why C++? I need it to be crossplatform (for future plans).
Why not Marmalade? If I'll use Marmalade it means that I can't anymore use my favorite Objective-C libraries and frameworks. I want to make interface/network/all using XCode and just one screen will contain 3D scene (and I need to do many things here. Shaders, CSG, texture masking, boolean operations, procedural mesh generation, etc).
Unity is a pretty popular 3d engine for iOS. Check it out:
http://unity3d.com
You may also check out Cocos 3d which is an extension of Cocos 2d which is written in C++.
http://brenwill.com/cocos3d/
You can also check out http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net
You may also find some information on these posts:
https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/21/easy-to-use-cross-platform-3d-engines-for-c-game-development
Cross-platform 3D game engine for hobbyist developers?
Because you mentioned Objective-C, I think I have to mention about this.
Currently as far as I know, three companies are trying to offer Objective-C based 3D engine on Android. By definition, it will be supported natively on iOS.
http://www.yeecco.com/stella/features
This company already released the product, but no sure about stability or range of supported devices. It's pretty sure that this is supporting Samsung devices because they are sponsored by Samsung. Location or developers are unknown, and also no showcases.
http://www.apportable.com
This company has no release yet, but very promising. As you can see, they listed several famous iOS games ported to Android by their beta product. Also, they have more information on their website.
http://www.madewithmarmalade.com/ko/juice
Marmalade has also released an iOS to multiple platforms (including Android) tool called Juice, that makes Objective-C games run on Android.
Where can i get some advanced game programming resources for c++?
At http://gamedev.stackexchange.com ?
More specifically, this question and lots of others tagged with c++
Start with writing some simple 2D games, e.g. Snake, TicTacToe, etc. Write these using any GUI builder you're already familiar with.
Then try to rewrite these games using a serious graphic engine, e.g. SDL, OpenGL, or DirectX.
Then try to write a more complex 2D games, e.g. side-scroller. Write these games with the graphic engine of your choice.
Then add some simple 3D effect to your 2D game, e.g. parallax scrolling.
Then rewrite this effect with true 3D, use 3D models/sprites, 3D environment, etc, while maintaining a 2D look and feel.
Then add some simple 3D look and feel, e.g. allowing characters to move in the Z-direction (to/from the camera), doing camera rotation, etc.
If you just got out of the command prompt and simple GUI, you'll probably want to start simple.
I'd very much recommend OpenGL as your API of choice. Since you've done some simple GUI programming, you'd know what an API is.
OpenGL has the following advantages (compared to SDL and DirectX previously mentioned):
-Its hardware accelerated (SDL is not as far as I know)
-Its 3D (SDL is 2D)
-Its cross-platform (DirectX is Windows only)
By far the best place to start with OpenGL is the Nehe tutorials.
http://nehe.gamedev.net/
Game programming becomes evident once you become a bit more familiar with the API.
Also, I'd heartily recommend GLUT (OpenGL Utilities Toolkit). It simplifies window creation and user input handling, among other things. Its great for learning OpenGL. It also happens to be cross platform.
Here's freeglut, a free GLUT implementation:
http://freeglut.sourceforge.net/
OpenGL is also a relatively simple and easy API to learn. You'll be going into 3D in no time.
What libraries are you using? You can try GP wiki. It can be a bit hit and miss depending on what you want to use.
By "resources," do you mean tools? Libraries? Tutorials? I have a bunch of useful game developer links in the sidebar of my own site. I also think "Mathematics for Game Developers" was very helpful. It has a second edition as well.
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So we want to program a 3d game for school, we can probably use blender for the 3d models, however we are totally clueless as to how to use them in a game/application.
Are there any recommended guides/documents we should read on general 3d game programming and perhaps python specific stuff.
We are also possibly considering programming it in C++ but for now I think it's easier to use Python as we can fully focus on the 3d mechanics that way.
Panda3D is a nice, powerful game engine which allows for scripting in Python. This looks like a good place to start.
If you seek something more low-level, there's still PyOpenGL or pygame.
There's Pygame: A game framework for the Python language. If you need to know the basics for game development (engine, flow, ui, mathematics), this framework with all its examples will help you a lot. This won't take you by the hand and guide you step by step through game-development, but if you need a reference and a decent framework, than this is a good start.
There's also PyOpenGL: The official Python wrapper for OpenGL programming. Again with lots of programming examples in the field and tons of code snippets on how to use 3d models and the likes. Can be used together with PyGame.
But you should start by familiarizing yourself with some 3D basics. Look around at the GameDev.net site. Learn a thing or two about matrices (and perhaps quaternions). There are lots of beginners tutorials and references available to get you started.
edit: I almost forgot: there's also Panda3D with extensive scripting possibilities for Python. Maybe that'll offer a higher level of game development.
You can actually develop games in Blender via Python. There are quite a few tutorials, I'll let you google around for the style you like.
More info here
An alternative to PyGame, which I personally prefer, is pyglet.
http://pyglet.org
If you want to write a 3D game you might want to start by understanding the basics of programming and computer science. Starting with the top and learning a language, then find yourself a good graphics library for example Panda, Pygame are all good choices, then there are other parts to consider like networking with twisted for example or a physics engine. It might also be a good choice to consider using a working engine like the unreal engine as often game designers get too wrapped up in game mechanics and not the game itself
You should be aware that 3D game consists of
animated 3D models
3D environment (including NPCs and objects)
simulation of interaction between the environment and the models (game logic and game mechanics)
user interface (starting, saving and game settings)
The game logic and mechanics is going to usually the biggest and most complicated part and you should try to wrap your head against that first.
Modeling 3D objects and environment should be much easier after that.
I would implement the time-critical stuff as 3D and its object handling + rendering in raw C/C++ and let an embedded Python with external modules handle the game logic (object movement, object properties, scripting and so on).
It's quit easy to code simple 3D games. The position of any object on the screen can always be calculated as simply as:
position = (x/z*fov,x/z*fov)
where x and z are both horizontal axis and fov is the player's field of view, in [radians/degrees/pixels/...].
When you rotate around, the word is rotating not you. It means that you are always looking against positive z.
Quaternions is the best way to rotate the world around you.
Ps. use vertexarrays or arrays to for the fastest possible 3d graphics
One thing I always shy away from is 3d graphics programming, so I've decided to take on a project working with 3d graphics for a learning experience. I would like to do this project in Linux.
I want to write a simple 3d CAD type program. Something that will allow the user to manipulate objects in 3d space. What is the best environment for doing this type of development? I'm assuming C++ is the way to go, but what tools? Will I want to use Eclipse? What tools will I want?
OpenGL/SDL, and the IDE is kind-of irrelevant.
My personal IDE preference is gedit/VIM + Command windows. There are tons of IDE's, all of which will allow you to program with OpenGL/SDL and other utility libraries.
I am presuming you are programming in C, but the bindings exist for Python, Perl, PHP or whatever else, so no worries there.
Have a look online for open-source CAD packages, they may offer inspiration!
Another approach might be a C#/Mono implementations ... these apps are gaining ground ... and you might be able to make it a bit portable.
It depends on what exactly you want to learn.
At the heart of the 3d stuff is openGL, there is really no competitor for 3d apps, especially on non-windows platforms.
On top of this you might want a scenegraph (osg, openscengraph, coin) - this handles the list of objects you want to draw, their relationship to each other in space the ability to move one relative to the others, selecting objects etc. It calls opengGL to do the actual rendering.
Then on top of this you need a gui library. Qt, Fltk, wxWigets or one built into the scene library or written directly in openGL. This handles the menus, dialogs frames etc of your app. It provides an openGL canvas to draw into.
Personal choices are openscenegraph and Qt
For the 3D part, I strongly recommend the SDL Library with the OpenGL library
You can get some tutorials here
Qt has a pretty decent OpenGL-based graphics module.
Maybe you should consider using a graphics rendering engine such as OGRE. Coding a CAD program from scratch using OpenGL will take lots of time.
On Linux you have no competition to OpenGL.
It's one of the big players in the 3D field, so it's definitely worth learning.
This site has some excellent guides and code examples (on various languages).
You can use OpenGL with many languages, naturally on C and C++ but also for example with JAVA using LWJGL or other API's.
If you want to program at "a higher level" than opengl, use vtk. It is quite easy to get started and has bindings to many languages.
See www.vtk.org
you may use OpenSceneGraph for rendering.. it is an OpenGL based library..
and you may use OpenCascade.. it is good for 3D modelling...
we are implementing such an IDE at work and we use these things.. using pure OpenGL may be hard for you... anyway you may try...
for interface it is good to use Qt..
and i suggest you to use Eclipse if it is Linux..
(if it was Windows, suggestion would be Visual Studio)
For a C/C++ IDE, you have the following options:
KDevelop - KDE-based
Anjuta - GTK-based
Netbeans
Eclipse
Of course, you could also use a language like C# or Java:
Best OpenGL Wrappers for Mono and .Net
JOGL
There's really no reason why a simple CAD application would have to be written in C++.
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Trying to decide on a library for creating a window and capturing user input for my OpenGL app, but there are just way too many choices:
GLUT (win32)
FreeGLUT
OpenGLUT
SFML
GLFW
SDL
FLTK
OGLWFW
Clutter
Qt
Others?
GLUT is simply outdated. I liked GLFW but it seems you can't set the window position before displaying it (I wanted it centered, is that so much to ask?) so you see it appear and then shift over, which bothers me. Plus development seems to have stopped on it too. SFML has some nice features, but it uses event polling rather than callbacks which I prefer for decoupling. I don't think I need all the GUI features of FLTK. SDL is slow (doesn't seem to take advantage of the GPU). And the other 3 I don't know much about (FreeGLUT, OpenGLUT, OGLWFW). So which is the lesser of the evils? Are there others I haven't heard about?
I'm just trying to make a simple 2D game. I'm familiar enough with OpenGL that I don't really need drawing routines, but I probably wouldn't complain about other functions that might be useful if they are implemented properly.
SDL allows you to create an OpenGL context that is accelerated (depending on drivers / hardware support).
I know you tagged as C++, however pygame (python) is a great library for creating 2D games, which also supports an OpenGL context. Pygame is built on SDL.
Clutter is a new OpenGL based GUI library with bindings for Perl, Python, C#, C++, Vala and Ruby. I haven't used it myself. From the website:
Clutter uses OpenGL (and optionally
OpenGL ES for use on Mobile and
embedded platforms) for rendering but
with an API which hides the underlying
GL complexity from the developer. The
Clutter API is intended to be easy to
use, efficient and flexible.
GLUT and the other GLUT alternatives should not be used in any sort of production application. They are good for putting together a quick demo application or to try something out, but not for much more than that.
If you're trying to make an OpenGL game, I'd recommend SDL. It focuses more on gaming needs. It most definitely can be used with OpenGL. A brief google for "SDL OpenGL" turned up this link on how to initialize OpenGL with SDL. Enabling OpenGL should also enable hardware rendering with the GPU.
Qt is a reasonable alternative, but it's better if you want to embed OpenGL within a larger, desktop application (think 3D modeling, CAD/CAM, medical visualization, etc) where you need access to standard OS widgets for the UI.
I'd go for Qt. Nice general purpose library + opengl support
IF "learning c++ part of what you're trying to achieve":
then
IF "you only want to learn OpenGL with a fullscreen mode":
USE GLUT //Because it's VERY VERY simple. You can get set up VERY quick
ELSE:
USE QT //Great library, has many many things that will help you. It is portable, it has a nice API
ENDIF
IF "you don't need C++":
then
USE Python //I recommend it, it is fast, no long link times, good api, omg I love this language
Background:
I also tried to make simple 2D games once, I started with C++ and NeHe. I knew nothing about OpenGL and C++ (had Java background). The language overrun me, so did OpenGL. So it was a very hard learning curve.
I don't recommend going that way, since you can get faster results by using a dynamic language (such as Python). So I started learning some years later with python. I could get the "rotating cubes" working much faster.
We have had rather good experiences with ClanLib 0.8 in 2008 and ClanLib 2.1 in 2009 on our C++ course. The productivity of the students (as measured by the quality of their project works) has greatly increased since switching over from SDL. However, it needs to be noted that 2.1 is still very incomplete and one will certainly run into features that are simply not implemented yet.
A couple of groups used Irrlicht (3D engine) with good results.
SFML looks promising, but I haven't had a chance to try it yet.
As others have stated, GLUT is not really suitable for anything serious. The rest of the libraries mentioned are something more of GUI toolkits than game development libraries.
Per recent corespondance with the author, development on OGLWFW has stopped.