Book Image

OpenGL Game Development By Example

By : Stephen Madsen, Robert Madsen
Book Image

OpenGL Game Development By Example

By: Stephen Madsen, Robert Madsen

Overview of this book

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.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
OpenGL Game Development By Example
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

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:

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