Book Image

SFML Game Development By Example

By : Raimondas Pupius
Book Image

SFML Game Development By Example

By: Raimondas Pupius

Overview of this book

Simple and Fast Multimedia Library (SFML) is a simple interface comprising five modules, namely, the audio, graphics, network, system, and window modules, which help to develop cross-platform media applications. By utilizing the SFML library, you are provided with the ability to craft games quickly and easily, without going through an extensive learning curve. This effectively serves as a confidence booster, as well as a way to delve into the game development process itself, before having to worry about more advanced topics such as “rendering pipelines” or “shaders.” With just an investment of moderate C++ knowledge, this book will guide you all the way through the journey of game development. The book starts by building a clone of the classical snake game where you will learn how to open a window and render a basic sprite, write well-structured code to implement the design of the game, and use the AABB bounding box collision concept. The next game is a simple platformer with enemies, obstacles and a few different stages. Here, we will be creating states that will provide custom application flow and explore the most common yet often overlooked design patterns used in game development. Last but not the least, we will create a small RPG game where we will be using common game design patterns, multiple GUI. elements, advanced graphical features, and sounds and music features. We will also be implementing networking features that will allow other players to join and play together. By the end of the book, you will be an expert in using the SFML library to its full potential.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
SFML Game Development By Example
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

The core of all elements


The GUI_Element class is the core of every single element and interface. It provides key functionality that higher level objects rely on, as well as enforcing the implementation of necessary methods, which leads to several distinctive element types.

A definition of the different element types is a good place to start:

enum class GUI_ElementType{ Window, Label, Button, Scrollbar,
  Textfield };

Each element has to hold different styles it can switch to, based on its state. The unordered_map data structure suits our purposes pretty well:

using ElementStyles = std::unordered_map<
  GUI_ElementState, GUI_Style>;

A forward declaration of the owner class is also necessary to prevent cross-inclusion:

class GUI_Interface;

Next, we can begin shaping the GUI_Element class:

class GUI_Element{
  friend class GUI_Interface;
public:
  GUI_Element(const std::string& l_name, 
    const GUI_ElementType& l_type, GUI_Interface* l_owner);
  virtual ~GUI_Element();

  // Event...