I am looking to implement an extremely rudimentary FPS game with extremely rudimentary 3D graphics using C++ .NET and DirectX.
I'm not interested in any third party libraries or anything special like that.
Having never done graphics based programming besides 2D stuff I don't really know where to get started or even how to find the right resources online.
I have a few weeks to build this game so im trying to keep it simple.
Can anyone give me a little guidance on how to get started?
This looks as though it may give you a push in the right direction:
http://zophusx.byethost11.com/tutorial.php?lan=dx9&num=0
I always found that OpenGL was easier to learn though. So unless it's necessary for you to use DirectX, I'd suggest you have a quick look at GL and see what you think.
If you download DirectX SDK you can find plenty of samples there in C++ and C#.
May I recommend "Introduction to Game Programming in DirectX 9" by "Wordware" Publishing. I know you just want something very simple like the rotating cube classic, so do not be put off by the 'game' element. I got 3/4 the way through and wrote a screen saver! DX10 is now available but I stick to 9 - card backward compatibility.
The maths can get silly in 3D, but if you can get the basics, the rest will follow very quickly.
If you haven't done so already the "DirectX SDK" download is also a must - it contains (most important) the help files for the methods, functions etc. and a few not so helpful getting started stuff.
You might want to have a look at SlimDX, even if you're not interested in third-party libraries.
Although I don't have Visual C++ 2008/2010 Express installed, you could add SlimDX as a reference to your project. Be sure you check out the tutorial section, even though it's in C#, but if you know C++/CLI pretty well, you should be able to convert the code to C++/CLI.
Related
I'm new to DirectX applications, with a decent knowledge of C++ and some experience in working with Blender. So for starters i would like to know how could i import, say, a UV sphere from Blender into a DirectX 11.2 C++ application. I'm using november edition compiler. Is there a tutorial for working with Blender models in DirectX applications that is up to date? Because i read that the .X format is not supported anymore after DirectX 10, and i need to use it in a DirectX 11.2 enviroment. I'm pretty much clueless about what to do and in what direction to go, so any help would be much appreciated.
If you 'just' want to display some 3D objects using native DirectX there is no other way than doing all the initialization stuff, writing a file loader for some kind of format that Blender is able to export and setting up a respective render pipeline. Indeed the way is long until you can see your Blender model in your own application. But if you intend to write your own graphics engine eventually it is a way you have to take. If this is not your goal I recommend you to use an open source 3D engine of your choice.
I used a very good online tutorial on a web page which unfortunately does not exist any more and of course the MSDN libraray to learn about DirectX 11. You can still find these tutorials at an internet archive. Additionally I found another tutorial which seems to look good at a first glance.
If you don't need to do very special things which Blender must write into the file you are exporting, I suggest using the .obj format since it is easy to understand and to load.
By chance I'm writing my own graphics engine in the moment. So if you have any further questions concerning this topic feel free to contact me.
You can always make your own format if its, i dont know, just for some school project or something like that (wild guess). Format your data the way you want, for example:
X,Y,Z,R,G,B\n
X,Y,Z,R,G,B\n
X,Y,Z,R,G,B\n...
for vertices and after you list all your vertices you could use some char like '$' or '%' or something like that which will signify end of vertices and start of indices which will make it easier to parse later. You can assume it is always TriangleList topology but you may also dedicate first line of file to configuration and have int 1 for instance represent that you will use trinagleList and so on...
Hope it helps!
P.S.: Julians answer is better in my opinion, its always good to learn new useful stuff for future projects (like in Bioware :D ), just proposing alternative here.
I have to develop a basic inventory system, and my client wants to see all the objects in the inventory in 3D and their positions in the warehouse. The thing is that I have to develop this as soon as possible, delivery time is my priority here. So I came to the conclusion that I would need a powerful 3D graphics engine and an UI toolkit that can be easily integrated with it. I've plenty of experience with C++, Qt, OpenGL, VTK, C# and WinForms. In my experience, VTK is not so good with textures and it would involve more work to add the eye candy my client wants (like animations, visual effects, etc). I've tried Axiom with WinForms. I went through hell making a sample load and run (framework incompatibilities, rendering engines not found, codec native dependencies missing, etc).
I have been evaluating different options:
Qt + Ogre (C++)
WinForms + Axiom (.NET)
Qt + Irrlicht (C++)
Which do you think would be the best option? Could you recommend me some other possibility?
Thanks in advance!
I spent a heap of time developing with Mogre (a C# wrapper around Ogre) and WinForms. In my opinion it's a good combination because you can develop the GUI much faster in C# WinForms than any of the C++ options.
If you don't mind using a C# wrapper around the C++ Ogre library I recommend using Mogre rather than Axiom. It is very stable, has some good maintainers and keeps up with the latest version of Ogre pretty well. Any code on the Ogre forums can easily be ported to C# because most of the API is identical.
Axiom is a pure .NET port of Ogre, although it lags a few versions behind and may have some missing features. I haven't spent a lot of time with it but I believe it's main strength is that it's all managed code, if that's important to you.
There's an open source project called Glue Editor that I started a while ago. It's no longer maintained but it has a lot of code you can use to get Mogre working with WinForms. You should be able to download the repository and compile it out of the box. You're welcome to take the code and use it however you like.
https://bitbucket.org/glue/glueeditor/src
If you decide to go down the Qt + Ogre path there's a project called Ogitor you might want to check out.
https://bitbucket.org/jacmoe/ogitor/src
You might also want to check out XNA and MonoGame. XNA is Microsofts framework for making games in C#. It is fairly bare bones but it has a much lower learning curve than Ogre, Mogre or Axiom. MonoGame is an open source implementation of the XNA framework that works on non-Microsoft platforms (e.g. Android, iOS, Linux).
http://monogame.codeplex.com/
I recommend Qt + Ogre (C++), although I have to confess this is the only combination from your list I have much experience with. The good thing about Ogre is the amount of documentation and the active community. So many questions are answered and documented. The graphics itself can probably be created in all library combinations. However, I like the easy intergration of object interaction in Ogre. The standard is based on bounding boxes, however there is code available for triangle intersection as well. Wish you luck!
I've been playing with WebGL quite a bit lately and I really dig Three.js. It's really lightweight and just serves as something that makes wrangling most of the GL calls a bit easier, and provides a quick way of creating basic primatives like a sphere.
Now, in native land, it seems that all the frameworks want to be so much more than that. Things like Oolong, UDK, Unity, Cocos, etc. I did a bit of googling, and the closest thing I could find was iSGL3D but I'm not thoroughly convinced it is the right answer.
Is there something more similar to Three.js that is written in native C, C++ or Objective-C that I can't find?
Here is a port of three to C++: https://github.com/jdduke/three_cpp
Core - 75% complete (TODO: Morph targets, shadows, plugin support)
Extras - 5-10% complete (TODO: Pretty much everything)
Examples - 25% complete (TODO: Examples involving morph targets an)
You're asking for a strict graphics engine only, in the same direction as OpenGL (in comparison to DirectX which again wants to be so much more than that). I'd advise Ogre3D for iPhone as the philosophy behind Ogre3d is to be a strict graphics engine.
The other one that comes to mind is recently perused MoSync mobile sdk which offers excellent OpenGL support across a wide range of platforms (albeit limited; to maintain portability).
If you're more interested in loading shaders and having the graphics engine manage the rest, I'd pick Ogre3D for iPhone.
You can always take the initiative (if you have the time of course) to write your own or start off from the ones mentioned here!
Or you can use a JavaScript engine (JSAPI for example) in a C++ editor and then move three.js on top of that. This is great as you'll only update the JSAPI and Three.js without breaking functionalities and your C++/JSThree engine will stay up to date with minimal maintenance.
Just some ideas of course!
Although I would also prefer to see a port of three.js for iOS, recently stumbled up on iSGL3d (http://isgl3d.com/).
This project serves a simple, encapsuled way to build an manipulate an opengl scene graph by code. Otherwise than some creative coding frameworks like cinder, iSGL3d comes in pure Objective C.
Works well for me yet.
You could also give Ejecta a go. They just added WebGL/three.js support.
https://github.com/phoboslab/Ejecta/tree/next
Three_cpp is good, but has stopped updating since 3 years ago. It does not support VS version below 2012.
Ogre is another good choice, which is much similar to the logic of Threejs:)
And the official site provides a very detailed tutorial, making it easy to use!
After some more searching I found a stripped down version of SIO2 called GFX that looks promising.
If you're looking for strictly ease-of-use, I'd highly recommend Panda3D. It's cross-platform (Windows, Unix, Mac), really easy to use, has extensive documentation, and a nice community around it.
Is anyone here able to point me to a simple and well designed C++ 2D open source game engine? The genre is less important, I wish to learn by example. I wouldn't want anything particularly complex as I'm interested in learning general concepts, rather than getting into the nitty-gritty of the engine implementation.
If I were you I'd look into ClanLib - it is open source, cross platform, and the source packages contain 50 or so easy-to-follow examples, from simple image rendering, to a fully working server-client dice wars implementation.
And if you're eager to get started it's easy to set up with Visual Express, so you can play with in in no time.
Also: here are some others if you want to give them a try.
Personally I learned a lot, looking through the source code of Frogatto, even the source code can be viewed only here.
It is of course a more complex game, but there is much to learn regarding software/game architecture and design.
Have a look at SuperTux, it's a nice little platformer game inspired by Mario, written in C++.
There is a builtin level editor, too.
Hi I am working in VC++ and I am quite interested in game programming and I have few queries.
1).What one must know before starting game programming ?
2).Can anybody give me info # resources like tutorial ,links ,etc. which would help me to start as fast as possible ?
3).Also give me info # some good books on game programming ?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Before you start programming you must have a good understanding of the language, how to program and how to structure and test your code. Oh, and a huge amount of either patience or free time. On the maths front, Vectors, Matrices and Quaternions are the main things I found I needed.
The other thing that often goes overlooked when I programmer starts writing a game is someone to create the assets. Preferably someone specialized in it.
You mention DirectX, which is not actually a fast way to go as you have to build everything from square one, which means a lot more maths, performance testing and overall handwork. I would suggest at least a rendering engine like Ogre3D. There are plenty of tutorials and a very good community.
There is a good post here on why you should write games not engines.
The main reason you would want to use DirectX is to enhance your understanding of the lower levels, all the things an engine is abstracting for you. While I think this is a good thing to do, I wouldn't want to do it for a major or first project.
The main site I used for help was gamedev.net, although I also found some intresting articles on gamesutra
It takes time and requires a lot of patience. And playable game is more than just working C++ code.
gamedev.net.
First, download Visual C# Express Edition, and then download XNA Game Studio 3.1.
After that, check out the XNA Creators Club - that has lots of help to get you up and running quickly.
Are you 100% dedicated to C++? If not, I would recommend starting with XNA/C# instead. DirectX will force you to spend a lot of time up front learning API calls before you ever get something on the screen. XNA will allow you to start coding your game very quickly while getting immediate feedback while you program.
If you are committed to C++, I would recommend Beginning Game Programming by Jonathan Harbour. He starts with an easy to understand framework that won't take long to pick up. Remember that to use DirectX you will have to learn win32, and low level DirectX code.
For tutorials, try googling "c++ beginning game programming tutorial". Gamedev.net will be another invaluable resource. Go to the "For Beginners" forum and look through the stickies.
As for what you must know, it depends on your aspirations and your choice of tools. As a beginner, you will want to start small and in 2D or text games. To get a Pong game going in XNA, you only need to have basic C# skills and basic collision detection. To get a Pong game going in DirectX, you will need to understand win32 code, and a ton of device calls. To do a console text game, you only need to know basic C++ and maybe some basic gameflow techniques.
If using DirectX is not a fixed requirement, you should consider OpenGL, and use a library like SFML or Allegro to handle all the basic stuff.
http://www.talula.demon.co.uk/allegro/
http://www.sfml-dev.org/